Round the Ecommerce world in 5 mins!

Ecommerce is changing everyday, and sometimes by the minute. So many new ideas and developments everyday, becomes hard to keep track.

We bring to you a curated digest of ecommerce developments/happenings around the world, compiled from various publications across the Internet.

Should Investors Believe the Alibaba International Growth Story?

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s (BABA) valuation in the markets is based on the promise of its potential in China, which is expected to become the world’s biggest consumer market. But the company itself is increasingly playing up its ventures beyond China’s borders as growth prospects. Yesterday Alibaba founder Jack Ma told Fortune magazine that 40% of its business will be outside China in a decade. Currently, that figure amounts to 5% of its total business. In keeping with the uptick in international operations, he also predicted that the gross merchandising volume on the platform will cross $1 trillion.

Does Amazon change your prices?

There’s an interesting thread on the Amazon.com forums, a merchant is claiming that Amazon are changing their selling prices. The seller states that they are a small company, do not use any repricing tools and in particular have not signed up for Amazon’s repricer. They say “that since we do not have minimum and maximum prices set in our inventory, Amazon is changing our prices for us.”

Not all Northern European online consumers are the same

Regional differences among Northern European online shopping habits provide an opportunity for personalization in the customer journey. In a study on Northern European online shopping behavior, Optimizely — an experience optimization platform — surveyed 3,073 online shoppers ages 18+ across the U.K., Germany, Nordics, and BeNeLux. The result, online consumers across Northern European exhibit different spending habits, security concerns and preferences when shopping online.

FedEx CEO – Amazon can’t do what we do

In the past, we’ve taken a slightly skeptical look at FedEx’s response to increased competition from the likes of Amazon in an age of e-commerce retail. The courier’s stance has been one of conviction that it can withstand the new pressures of digital competition just fine and dandy. Whether that works out in the longer term remainst to be seen, but for now, FedEx CEO Frederick Smith can’t be faulted for sticking to his guns, if nothing else. 

PayPal and UnionPay deal offers Chinese opportunity

PayPal has struck a deal with Chinese payments firm UnionPay that means European merchants will be able to accept payments directly from Chinese buyers. As Braintree (a PayPal company) notes: “As China’s most dominant card, the addition of UnionPay will help us unlock the access to this segment of consumers for Braintree merchants. Our offering of UnionPay is unique to the industry, designed to remove friction in the checkout process without complex re-direction of pages. Accepting UnionPay card consists of an easy one-time enrollment, and from then on, the experience is seamless. Simply put: we provide the APIs that allow our merchants to design the experience exactly the way they want it without having to worry about — something that we always strive to offer.”