In my Catalyst keynote, I introduced six contenders to the Game of E-Commerce Thrones (Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, eBay, Facebook and Google). E-commerce moves so quickly that we thought it would be helpful to curate for you a weekly summary of the biggest news coming out of the contenders over the past week. Here is our first weekly Game of E-commerce Thrones update. Let us know how you like this and how we can improve it. Have a great weekend everyone!
Alibaba
- Alibaba announced March quarter results that were very strong. GMV grow 40% y/y and Mobile growth at Alibaba is on fire.
- This BI story provided interesting case studies of how Alibaba’s marketplaces (TMall and Taobao) are impacting buyers in China.
Amazon
- Amazon is now delivering flowers in NYC in time for Mother’s day.
- Amazon revealed details of their drone program in a patent filing.
- Amazon has quietly expanded their NYC area grocery delivery (Prime Fresh) to Northern New Jersey.
Apple
- Last week Staples announced they would be rolling out Apple Pay in stores.
- This week Home Depot announced they will be rolling out Apple Pay in their 2,000 stores.
- Apple quietly removed the eBay app from the Apple Watch app store.
eBay
Devin Wenig has been making the rounds and talking about eBay post split. Some of the news that has come out of those conversations:
- At the eBay Shareholder meeting, Wenig told a seller that changes are coming to the feedback system.
- eBay is working on a new loyalty program called eBay+ that will possibly replace eBay Bucks (yeah!).
- Interesting article about how HK-based eBay sellers are leveraging US and EU based warehouses (CBT).
No Facebook/E-commerce news this week. If you missed it, at their F8 conference they announced e-commerce integration into FB Messenger.
- Google rolled out what industry SEO experts call Mobilegeddon. This is a change to the SEO algorithm to promote mobile-friendly sites and demote those that are not. Early results indicate that eBay is a loser and Amazon a winner.
- Google announced that mobile now drives more than 50% of searches.
Other news of interest (contenders and the 5 battlefields of changing consumer behavior)
- Jet – Announced they have recruited away an HR exec from Amazon to head their HR efforts as they ramp up.
- Groupon – Groupon goods saw 14% y/y growth (Groupon’s marketplace).
- Zero Friction – The NY Times had a good article on startups that are leveraging innovation and changing consumer behavior to challenge Amazon. Jet and Enjoy (Ron Johnson) are featured.
- Zero Friction – Geoffrey Fowler @ WSJ ($$) had this great piece about the on-demand economy.
- Zero Friction – TechCrunch revealed that Uber is working on a very large pilot for product delivery. They had tested something called Uber Rush, but this looks more widespread and serious.
- Zero Friction – This cool drone company, Matter.net, launched out of stealth with a platform for anyone to do drone deliveries.
- News from the future – Facebook’s Oculus Rift division announced they will launch the consumer version of the product in Q1 2016 and gave a preview of what it will look like.
- CBT – McKinsey report on the health of the Chinese consumer.
- Zero Friction – NRF article about Grocery delivery by Amazon and Instacart.
This blog post was written by Scot Wingo, Executive Chairman and Co-founder, ChannelAdvisor.
