Walmart reported 2017 Q2 results today. As many brick-and-mortar retailers are struggling to grow, or to even avoid bankruptcy, Walmart posted same-store sales growth for the 12th consecutive quarter. However this is only the third quarter Walmart reported US e-commerce growth. Since there is no history to compare these numbers against we have no idea how to take them.
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Many are still haven't heard of SoftBank. Their investment arm has recently become the largest e-commerce investor worldwide - their most recent tech fund called "Vision Fund" has $100 billion under management. Jeff Bezos has famously said "Your margin is my opportunity", which is only true because of the capital available. SoftBank will challenge this.
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MercadoLibre second-quarter financial report numbers were mixed - net income was down causing a drop in stock price, but other key metrics are all continuing to grow. Mobile share of GMV has grown to 43 percent, and the launch of MercadoCrédito financing for sellers are the highlights.
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Effective later in the year Amazon sellers fulfilling their own shipments will be forced to accept all returns - items they sell will be "automatically authorized" for return. As much as this change has caused an outburst of anger in seller forums there is going to be more of these in the future.
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There is a lot of talk about Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and others, but most seem to forget that what's driving those leading retailers is the millions of sellers in their marketplaces. This is what started Marketplace Pulse, and we continue to look at, analyze, and talk about marketplaces as if they were economies by themselves.
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Based on our research since the start of the year Etsy has had half a million new sellers join the marketplace. 494,123 to be exact. This amounts to over 70,000 new shops every month, making 2017 the fastest growing year so far.
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According to Amazon's second quarter earnings, company's "other" revenue - believed to be made up mostly of advertising - category grew faster than anything else. It might take years for the advertising business to grow big enough for Amazon to consider breaking it out as a category of its own. But most estimate that by 2018 it will reach north of $5 billion yearly run rate.
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For a lot of brands this is a big problem since on one hand they can refuse to sell on Amazon, and give up major source of extra revenue, or sell on Amazon, but have no way to interact with customers directly or indirectly.
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eBay 2017 Q2 results mostly met expectations, but at the same time provided little to be excited about. Shares fell as a result. eBay is successfully attracting new buyers, but those buyers buy less and/or buy only once.
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Amazon updated the Buyer-Seller Messaging system on March 28th to allow customers to opt-out of unwanted emails from sellers. Now asking for reviews was deemed nonessential, and customers could put a stop to it. Because of this since March the marketplace sellers feedback volume has decreased by 37 percent.
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