500,000 New Sellers Joined Amazon Marketplace Already in 2017
India is the fastest growing market, both in terms of new sellers, and considering how many of them stay active selling for a longer period. At the current rate new seller joins Amazon US marketplace every 30 seconds. For many months now we've been detecting 100,000 new sellers join Amazon marketplaces every 30 days.
Why Amazon and eBay Lost in China
China's e-commerce market represents almost a half of e-commerce sales worldwide, and practically all of it is on domestic websites like Tmall.com and JD.com. Most of the largest e-commerce markets in the world have Amazon and eBay with major market share, but not in China. Many would jump to the conclusion that China is a market favoring local players and US companies have no chance. But this is not the whole picture. Both Amazon and eBay could have had much more market share in China.
Alibaba Became the Largest Retail Economy in the World
"We want to be bigger than Walmart," said Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Alibaba Group, in September 2014, when Alibaba began trading in the New York Stock Exchange. It didn't take long. In 2017 fiscal year Walmart's sales were $485.9 billion, while Alibaba's was $547 billion.
Walmart Wants You to Focus on Booming US E-Commerce Growth
Walmart reported 2017 Q1 results yesterday, and the big story is impressive e-commerce growth. Retailer's online sales jumped 63 percent, and GMV jumped 69 percent. However, we need to point out that Walmart used to report global e-commerce growth which included all of online properties. This means the 63 percent e-commerce sales growth has no base to compare it against.
E-Commerce Share of US Retail Is Underestimated at Less Than 10%
The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce reported results for US E-Commerce 2017 Q1. E-commerce sales were $98.06 billion, up by 14.8 percent from a year before. This means e-commerce accounted for approximately 8.4 percent of total retail sales. However, e-commerce share is likely considerably higher.
Struggling Retailers Blaming Amazon Are Missing The Bigger Picture
There is a lot of enthusiasm about traditional retail dying. E-commerce is growing at a faster rate, but retail as a whole is growing still. Retailers are now often dismissing any responsibility for their struggles, and are by default blaming Amazon for it. Often from an angle of being unable to do anything about it. The test for business management is to explain their future strategy without mentioning Amazon once.
MercadoLibre Went from Being the eBay to the Amazon of Latin America
MercadoLibre (MercadoLivre in Portuguese) has become the de facto internet retail option for Latin America. While initially MercadoLibre was the eBay of Latin America, drawing inspiration and even design ques early on from the US auctions leader, it is now much more the Amazon of Latin America. It moved on from auctions to products at fixed price, and has focused on the infrastructure the most.
Convenience, Not Free Shipping, Is the Key
This week Amazon lowered free shipping threshold to $25. There are two reasons why this is an interesting change - free shipping is putting pressure on competitors, and the fact that Prime is moving beyond being a free shipping offering.
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