One of India’s e-commerce giant, Flipkart raises $3.6 billion fresh funds from global investors

July 14, 2021

India’s giant e-commerce platform, Flipkart announced that it is acquiring $3.6 billion fresh funds from global investors, including sovereign funds, private equity, and from its parent company which is Walmart.

This new round of funding was led by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Walmart. There were additional investments from sovereign funds like Qatar Investment Authority, Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional Berhad, and DisruptAD, the venture arm of the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, ADQ. Other investors include China’s Tencent, Franklin Templeton, and Tiger Global. Additionally, Japan-based SoftBank which had said goodbye to the startup when the Bangalore-based firm sold majority stakes to Walmart in 2018 at a valuation of $22 billion, has come back and reinvested about $500 million in the new round. Hence, this Monday’s investment marks the return of SoftBank. Flipkart said it now has a valuation of $37.6 billion.

While commenting on recent investment, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said in a statement that the funds acquired by leading global investors reflect the promise of digital commerce in India and their belief in Flipkart’s capabilities to maximize this potential for all stakeholders. He affirms that the company will give more priority to helping millions of small and medium-sized Indian businesses to thrive, including small family-owned grocery shops known as kiranas, and plans to continue investing in new categories and home-grown technologies. He adds that they will continue to invest in new categories and leverage made-in-India technology to transform consumer experiences and develop a world-class supply chain.

With the fundraising, Flipkart is offering its employees the option to sell their stock options worth $80.5 million.

Nevertheless, among Flipkart’s competition, the most persistent one is the U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon, which has invested billions of dollars in the Indian market, as well as domestic names such as JioMart, the online grocery delivery app from Reliance Industries.

For its part, the Indian government has reportedly proposed new e-commerce draft rules in June and it is expected that the new rules have the probability of impacting Flipkart and Amazon India.

Walmart still lagging behind Amazon, but hopes Walmart+ to bridge this gap

July 13, 2021

It is not unknown that there always has been a rift between the two retail giant of the U.S. although Walmart work on its own momentum, it still has a long way to go to catch up with Amazon. To bridge this gap all hopes lie on Walmart+, a subscription program, and also the fact that it has hired Chris Cracchiolo as the head of Walmart+.

There was a study on a national study conducted in the U.S among 2,297 consumers between June 24 and June 27 concluded that the number of Walmart+ subscribers has increased substantially from October 2020, a month after its launch, to May 2021, just eight months later. There were 44.4 million Walmart+ subscribers then and approximately 53.9 million subscribers in June 2021 — an jump in subscribers of over 21 percent. The vast majority of that spike in subscribers, about 91 percent, consists of subscribers who are also Amazon Prime members.

As of June 2021, Amazon has 171.4 million Prime members that accounts for three times more than Walmart+.

There was another study conducted after the end of dueling Amazon Prime Days/Walmart Deal Days events to understand who shopped those mega sales days, what they bought, and how much they spent. Using those data, it was discovered that the behaviors of users of Amazon Prime and Walmart+ Deal Days is a window into the larger issues facing America’s current reigning king of retail — one that, based on our current projections, is poised to lose that crown to Amazon a little more than a year from today.

It was found that Walmart is a retailer that relies on grocery sales to grow its top line and one that continues to lose ground in key non-grocery retail categories. But just focusing on groceries is not enough to beat the competition. Moreover, middle- and lower-income consumers who lived outside of urban centers who were once Walmart’s bread-and-butter customers are also Amazon Prime members buying groceries and retail products from them. Those consumers spent two times as much with Amazon during Prime Days (a $42 average transaction) as they did with Walmart on Deal Days (a $22 average transaction). Furthermore, one in five U.S. consumers has both an Amazon Prime and a Walmart+ account, with 43 percent and 38 percent of that crossover membership comprised of millennials and bridge millennials (33- to 43-year-old) consumers, respectively. Yet we also see that more of those demographic groups are shopping Amazon for non-grocery retail purchases online for delivery to their homes.

As far as the spending of consumers is concerned, only half the consumer population participated in Walmart Deal Days than it did in Amazon Prime Days (around 105 million). However, Walmart got a little preference, since it wasn’t compulsory for a consumer to be a member of Walmart+ to participate in those deals. The number of purchases was almost similar for both: approximately three per shopper. But the average spend per purchase was roughly 45 percent higher for Amazon Prime customers. The main reason for Walmart to get stuck behind can be owed to the lack of awareness by shoppers regarding Walmart’s Deal Days.

Argentina’s VU offering hassle free bio metric processing draws $12M series B in funding

July 13, 2021

Today, we live in a world where everything is locked with our identity be it fingerprints or a driver’s license. However, it will soon be possible to eliminate this hassle with the help of a company VU, which is a cybersecurity company specializing in fraud prevention and identity protection. Its mission is to offer secure digital experiences not only for citizens but also for businesses, during the digital transformation process.

This Argentina-based company announced that it is raising funds equal to the amount of $12 million in series B funding. The list of investors includes software developer Globant, as well as Agrega Partners, NXTP Ventures, Bridge One, the IDB Lab, and Telefónica. The new funding gives the company total venture-backed investments of $20 million, as mentioned by CEO Sebastián Stranieri.

The CEO’s inspiration for creating such a company comes from a personal experience when he was helping his grandmother verify her identity with the Argentinian government in what turned out to be a two-minute process.“It pushed me to create a company to help create digital experiences without the friction,” he told. He himself has worked in the cybersecurity industry for the past 20 years.

The company works as such, it takes a person’s “online persona” and uses his additional information like geolocation, biometrics, and user behavior analysis to provide identity verification for users. Subsequently, it enables a continuous authentication process that sees and connects the users’ online and offline personas. Simply put, it works mainly with government entities in countries like Argentina and Ecuador, providing them a way to confirm if people are who they say they are.

VU is one of several startups which is applying technology to fraud and identity within a global digital identity market expected to reach over $33 billion by 2025, as per Adroit Market Research.

The company is averaging 85% year-over-year revenue growth, and the CEO expects that to continue in 2021 with 100% growth forecasted for 2022. As such, he plans to use the new funding to hire developers across Europe and in the U.S.In the span of 3 years, VU has grown to over 150 employees. It is operating in Latin America and Europe, along with catering to big customers like Santander and Prisma, and governments in Latin America. The company also opened its first office in New York, where Stranieri expects to more than quadruple headcount in the next year.

Globant investment into the company also acts as a partnership. Its offers software development to big fishes of the pond like Google, Disney, and Apple. Together, they will package VU’s digital experience so that companies can purchase the basic software and then also customize it. Currently, VU’s technology is suited for banks and to provide a one-click e-commerce checkout where a retailer’s system will recognize and confirm the buyer.””

In the world of going digital, Gorillas plan to bring e-grocery with fast eco-friendly delivery

July 11, 2021

With the world turning to digital platforms for shopping their everyday needs, online grocery is no different. In recent months, numerous changes are taking place in the industry on e-grocery. Instacart is making makes to prepare for its public listing, restaurant delivery services are taking interest in grocery, and venture capitalists (VCs) are raining millions of dollars into this business around the world. Observing a huge incline in the number of consumers adopting online grocery solutions, there are available a number of options, and e-grocers are challenged to find a way to stand out in the crowded space.

“In the years leading up to and during the pandemic, there was a ton of growth and investment in the space. Now, demand is greater than ever for giving customers access to their immediate needs,” Ashwin Wadekar, chief of staff at online grocery delivery eTailer Gorillas mentioned in an interview. “What began as an early adopter trend pre-pandemic and suddenly became a necessity as lockdowns hit has now turned into something that consumers see as customary when it comes to their grocery shopping experience.”

The grocery delivery service, which manages to deliver groceries within 10 minutes, launched in the United States in late spring in select neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York. This market joins the dozens of cities in which Gorillas operates across Germany, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom. The company uses “micro warehouses” in the neighborhoods it serves, and unlike many popular grocery delivery services that use self-employed gig workers, Gorillas employs full-time staff or part-time W2 workers paid hourly. VCs are taking an interest — as of May, the company was looking to raise about $500 million at a $6 billion valuation.

Gorillas’ riders transport orders via eBike. The main reason for opting for this kind of transportation system that the company’s CEO and co-founder, Kağan Sümer, was an “avid cyclist,” and Sümer attributes his “highly driven mentality” to this activity.

Gorillas take into account two main factors here: freshness and demand. For produce, Wadekar said, the company takes a “fresh, farm-to-table approach.” The company also “prioritizes partnerships with diverse, local businesses.” Furthermore, the company always tends to keep in mind what is in demand which they manage to do by keeping the customers in a constant loop of feedback and tracking their requirements.

“Consumers won’t want to relinquish the convenience and efficiency of online grocery delivery,” said Wadekar, “because the level of flexibility and empowerment opens a lot of doors for how they can more productively spend their time, which will lead to even more grocery-delivery demand.”

Ficci says online commerce market is anticipated to boom and reach as high as USD 188 billion

July 9, 2021

With the onset of the pandemic, the online commerce industry is anticipated to reach USD 188 billion by the year 2025 from USD 64 billion last year with the growing preference of the consumers to purchase on various digital marketplaces as per a report by Ficci released on Wednesday.

“Now, consumers are no longer turning to online commerce as an alternative buying channel – its massive growth, projected to reach USD 188 billion in 2025 from USD 64 billion in 2020, is signaling to its solidification as the default, primary buying channel for many,” the report said.

It was at the session of Building Customer Trust in a Pandemic Era at the Customer Trust Summit 2021, Consumer Affairs Secretary Leena Nandan said that trust and transparency have never been more important than now. She also asserted that how brands and various companies are taking efforts in providing experiences to customers for the sole purpose of meeting their needs even during these stressful times. Hence, she says, there is a need for a continuous dialogue with the industry players and BIS and to understand what it is that they are doing in the area of creating a quality ecosystem.

“We are trying to educate consumers about the standards and value of ISI mark and industry collaboration and participation is the key to reach out to safeguard the interest of consumers,” she was quoted as saying in a Ficci statement.

Additionally, it was mentioned by her that the government ought to protect the interest and dynamic nature of the transition in the country.

“Our goal is to continue to focus on a consumer-centric approach to developing innovative newer products and solutions,” she said.

The government, Nandan noted, will fail in its task if it is unable to make an ecosystem of competition so that the right value of goods and services can be offered to the consumers.

“Our ultimate objective is that the consumer must be able to exercise their choices and that is when the country will be able to grow, as consumption is key for the vibrant economy to be in place. We must focus on a consumer-centric approach to developing innovative newer products and solutions,” Nandan mentioned.

Amazon’s reins handed over to Andy by Bezos while he makes time for space exploration

July 7, 2021

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos finally steps down from the role of the CEO only to hand over the reins of the company to Andy Jassy, who ran Amazon’s cloud-computing business. However, this change was announced in February itself. The company is in Andy’s control as it navigates the challenges of a world fighting to emerge from the corona-virus pandemic. Jassy takes the helm of a $1.7 trillion company that benefited greatly from the pandemic, more than tripling its profits in the first quarter of 2021 and posting record revenue as customers grew ever more dependent on online shopping.

Meanwhile, Bezos, Amazon’s biggest shareholder with a stake worth about $180 billion, will still hold sway over the company he started out of his Seattle garage in 1995. He takes over the role of executive chair, with plans to focus on new products and initiatives. He even mentioned that he plans to dedicate more time to side projects, including his space exploration company Blue Origin, his philanthropic initiatives, and overseeing The Washington Post, which he owns. The richest man in the world as per Forbes is to fulfill his childhood dream of traveling to space. He will go into space on July 20 when Blue Origin makes its first flight with a crew, also bringing his younger brother Mark who is an investor and volunteer fire-fighter.

Amazon which started as an online bookstore was later built into a shopping and entertainment empire by Bezos, it becomes the second-largest private employer in the US, behind Walmart. Amazon, which is buying the MGM movie studio in its latest major acquisition, now makes movies and sofas, owns a grocery chain, and has plans to send satellites into space to beam internet service to Earth.

Jassy, who has been with Amazon since 1997, ran the cloud-computing business that powers video-streaming site Netflix and many other companies, making it one of Amazon’s most profitable businesses.

Among Jassy’s challenges are growing calls for tighter regulation on tech giants. A report by the House Judiciary Committee in October called for possibly breaking up Amazon and others, making it harder for them to acquire companies and imposing new rules to safeguard competition.

Google intends to thrive into e-commerce with new shopping deals and partnerships

July 6, 2021

Google Inc. is making major efforts to thrive more in the area of e-commerce. It has made several announcements regarding numerous online shopping tools and deals with companies that have online retailers worldwide. This includes e-commerce platform provider Shopify Inc., digital payments company Square Inc. and others to drive more shopping on the search giant’s web properties. The platform has made recently announced deals with Square, domain registration and hosting provider GoDaddy Inc. and WooCommerce, an open-source e-commerce plugin that helps merchants sell through WordPress sites. Such collaborations have the sole objective of enabling merchants to sell products with greater ease on Google search, Maps, and YouTube.

In addition, Google also brought into light a feature for Shopify merchants. In its partnership with Shopify, the e-commerce platform’s over 1.7 million merchants will have the ability to reach consumers through Google Search and its other services. This integration will enable the merchants to sign up in just a few clicks to have their products appear across Google’s 1 billion “shopping journeys” that take place every day through Search, Maps, Images, lenses, and YouTube. This feature of ‘Shopping Graph’ enables to put together information from across websites, price reviews, videos, and product data pulled directly from brands and retailers, to help better inform online shoppers about where to find items, how well they were received, which merchant has the best price, and more. That’s where the partnership with Shopify comes in, too. However, this integration doesn’t mean that every Shopify storefront will be included on Google, the merchants have to take any action to make that happen — it would be almost a no-brainer for them not to leverage the new option.

Furthermore, Google is now adding the Canadian company’s payments service, Shop Pay, as an option for consumers.

Google won’t collect any revenue from free ads, nevertheless, anticipates that the massive number of users would attract merchants, who in turn will attract more traffic to the service. All of this is likely designed to leverage Google Ads, which brought in $147 billion for Alphabet last year, more than half of all online ad spending in the U.S.

ShipBob, world-class e-fulfillment platform raises $200 M at a $1B valuation

June 29, 2021

With a massive surge in growth of e-commerce last year and also big fishes of the pond like Amazon getting bigger during the covid-19 pandemic, that rising tide also lifted a lot of smaller boats. And that, in turn, has had a big impact on the wider e-commerce ecosystem. We witness the latest development, ShipBob which has established an operation and tech platform that presently works with some 5,000 e-commerce businesses to run shipping and logistics like their bigger rivals, has raised $200 million. ShipBob is already profitable, but it will be using this money to double down on newer areas of business: both in terms of expanding geographically, and technically, with more R&D around software, robotics, and autonomous systems.

Dhruv Saxena, the company’s CEO asserted in an interview that they consistently evaluate the needs of the merchants today, where they believe their needs will evolve in the future, and prioritize what can drive the most impact to help make them successful and differentiate from their competitors.

The Chicago-based company has confirmed that it is raising its valuation to over $1 billion, doubling its valuation compared to its last round, a Series D that it closed in September 2020. Bain Capital Ventures is leading this Series E round, with SoftBank, Menlo Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels, and Silicon Valley Bank also participating. Several of these are repeat investors in the company.

On the infrastructure front, the company operates warehouses across around 20 locations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia (with plans to use some of this hefty round to expand that list to 10 more centers), from which its customers can store and distribute the goods that they are selling online.

This platform also offers a merchant application to its customers to enable them to track that inventory and also to help them liaise with the warehouses to select items to pick and send to fill orders.

In addition, it collaborates with a number of shipping companies to then actually send out those orders to customers. All together it says it integrates with some 40 partners, ranging from the likes of Walmart (to power two-day delivery) and Pachama (to carbon off-set deliveries), plus Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Square, and Squarespace so that people setting up sites or selling through those platforms can use ShipBob to handle the orders once a customer has clicked on “buy.”

Companies like ShipBob — and it is not the only one in this space, with others including Amazon, ShipHero, Byrd, OceanX, Shippo, and many more — have essentially built a logistics operation that lets those companies outsource the work of doing that themselves, much as they would use a payments provider like Stripe rather than building a payments flow from the ground up. ShipBob also, by virtue of working with many businesses, creates that economy of scale by bringing their orders and work altogether, mimicking essentially what Amazon does for itself. Moreover, “Many consumers who were forced to adapt to online buying are continuing to buy things online. It’s for this reason and the fact that ShipBob is profitable, that investors are happy to make a bullish investment now.

Shopify like mobile e-commerce platform, Tapcart raises $50 million of Series B funding

June 28, 2021

Shopify has changed the e-commerce scenario by making it easier for merchants to establish their websites both quickly as well as affordably. Now, there is a start-up called by the name Tapcart that is going to do the same for mobile commerce. This company is being referred to as “Shopify for mobile apps,” today powers the shopping apps for top brands, including Fashion Nova, Pier One Imports, The Hundreds, Patta, Culture Kings, and thousands more.

Following a year of 3x revenue growth, in part driven by the pandemic,it is today announcing the close of a $50 million round of Series B funding, led by Left Lane Capital. Having clearly taken notice of Tapcart’s traction with its own merchant base, Shopify is among the round’s participants. Other investors in the round include SignalFire, Greycroft, Act One Ventures, and Amplify LA.

Founded by Sina Mobasser and Eric Netsch, Tapcart’s platform itself offers a simple drag-and-drop builder that allows anyone to create a mobile app for their existing. Shopify stores using tools to design their layout, customize the product detail pages, integrate checkout options, including product reviews, and even optionally add other branded content, like blogs, lookbooks, videos (including live video), and more. Everything is synced directly from Shopify to the app in real-time, so the merchant’s inventory, products, and collections are all kept up to date. That’s a big differentiator from some rivals, which require duplicate sets of data and data transformation. Tapcart, meanwhile, leverages all of Shopify’s APIs and SDKs to create a native application that works with Shopify’s existing data structures.

This collaboration with Shopify enables Tapcart sine it has to focus on e-commerce infrastructure as the things are structured around inventory and collections are roughly 90% the same across brands. Instead, Tapcart focuses on the 10% that makes brands stand out from one another, which includes things like branding, content, and design. Its CMS allows merchants to create exclusive content, change the colors and fonts, add videos, and more to make the app look and feel fully customized.

Moreover, Tapcart also helps merchants automate their marketing. Tapcart platform enables merchants to communicate with their customers in real-time using push notifications that can alert them to new sales, to encourage them to return to abandoned carts or any other promotions. The marketing campaigns can be automated, as well, which helps merchants schedule their upcoming launches and product drops ahead of time.

“Our sweet spot is when you have maybe a couple of hundred customers in your database,” notes Netsch. “That’s a perfect time to now focus less on the paid acquisition portion of your business and more on how to retain and engage those existing customers, [so they’ll] shop more and have a better experience,” he says.

Today, Tapcart generates revenue by charging a flat SaaS (software-as-a-service) fee, which differentiates it from a number of competitors who charge a percentage of the merchant’s total sales.

With the funding acquired by the company, Santa Monica-based Tapcart can hire 200 people over the next 24 months, up from the 70 it has currently. These will include new additions across time zones and even in markets like Australia and Europe as it moves toward global expansion.

New e-commerce changes in India might be bad news for some like Zomato, Uber, MMT

June 28, 2021

There have been a few changes to e-commerce rules in India which have picked up a storm. The changes proposed by the Department of Consumer Affairs are wide-ranging in nature, spilling into multiple aspects and sectors beyond just e-tailers like Flipkart, Amazon India, and their flash sales. The government’s proposed changes for the e-commerce sector will impact a wide range of online companies selling goods and services, at least four industry sources.

The Department of Consumer Affairs’ proposals will hit online travel company MakeMyTrip, food delivery firms Zomato and Swiggy, ride-hailing service providers Ola and Uber, besides home services company Urban Company, they said. subsequently, These companies are currently reviewing the potential impact of the draft India e-commerce rules. Some of these firms are likely to participate from Friday in discussions through industry associations such as FICCI, CII, and IndiaTech. All these companies when asked to comment on the situation, they denied to.

The spread of the rules to platforms across sub-sectors of online commerce has drawn further criticism from industry stakeholders. The main grouse: online platforms offering services say they have been clubbed together with platforms selling goods. They have also expressed concern over multiple proposals—including the blanket ban on flash sales, promoting domestic alternatives at the pre-purchase stage, and a ‘fallback liability’. This factor is another area of concern among companies offering services like travel or food aggregation. This clause essentially makes the platform liable if “a seller registered with such an entity fails to deliver the goods or services ordered by a consumer”—due to multiple factors including negligent conduct. E-commerce firms are not in favor of this clause, but it has become harder for platforms offering services like travel to take liability, because of the disruptions wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Moreover,the changed e-commerce rules only allow e-commerce portals to conduct conventional sale events while disallowing “only specific flash sales or back-to-back sales,” had compounded the confusion among e-tailers, brands, and sellers. The government directive said flash sales will not be allowed as they “limit customer choice, increase prices and prevent a level playing field.”

“Flash sales are important for the travel sector, and it’s been happening for a while where airlines offer a number of seats at low prices. Even suggestions like offering local alternatives, how will it work? Do we flash an Indian airline every time someone tries to book a flight on a foreign airline, which might be cheaper than an Indian alternative?” a person aware of the discussions asserted.

AI to the rescue of Walmart to make smart substitutions when going for e-grocery orders

June 25, 2021

Last year, owing to the global pandemic, there was observed a radical shift in America’s shopping behavior. Customers increasingly began shopping online even for their everyday needs, including food and groceries. That hike in demand was a gift for online grocers, however, it also threw some light on a unique challenge to retailers as the combination of in-store shoppers and online volume meant some popular items  could quickly sell out. As a solution to this problem, Walmart came up with one. Rather than relying on human intelligence to make the switch, the company will offer the ability for in-store shoppers to use artificial intelligence (AI) to more accurately fulfill customers’ orders when the requested items are out of stock. Simply put, with the use of AI both the customers as well Personal shoppers choose the best substitute for an out-of-stock item.

The decision on how to substitute is complex and highly personal to each customer. If the wrong choice is made, it can negatively impact customer satisfaction and increase costs.

To help ensure a substitution that will result in a happy customer, Walmart’s team created a technology solution to help identify the next best item for customers if an item they selected is out of stock. This technology uses deep learning AI to consider hundreds of variables — size, type, brand, price, aggregate shopper data, individual customer preference, current inventory, and more – in real-time to determine the best next available item. It then preemptively asks the customer to approve the substituted item or let them know they don’t want it, an important signal that’s fed back into their learning algorithms to improve the accuracy of future recommendations. Until now, the company reports that more than 95 percent of the feature’s suggestions are approved.

This solution has helped to make the company’s associate work easier. Rather than having to guess, the personal shopper can be informed of what the customer exactly may prefer. If in case, that particular product isn’t available, this system suggests an alternative product. The tech even shows the Personal Shopper where the item is located in the store, simplifying the decision-making process for our team and enabling them to prepare orders quickly and efficiently.

Considering the success rate of this technology, the company will continue to enhance this tech, and also the customers have been responding positively to it. Their primary, however, is to never be out of stock and never to go for substitutions. But, when it happens, AI they built is there to ensure the customer gets nothing but the best.

To stand out from the rest, Alibaba launches cloud products and live-streaming shopping

June 25, 2021

Alibaba, a Chinese multinational tech company that specializes in e-commerce, retail, and the internet, has recently introduced a number of new cloud computing products as the company looks forward to expanding across the Asian continent. Cloud computing has always been regarded as the key driver of profits for Alibaba over the long term and for the past couple of years, it has been boosting its presence aggressively outside of China.

The Chinese e-commerce company has recently made an announcement to launch a new data center in the Philippines before this year ends and also opened a third data center in Indonesia. By expanding these data centers across several places will allow the cloud providers to boost their capacity in certain countries or regions.

The concept of live-stream shopping which involves a host talking and spreading awareness about products that customers can buy directly via live broadcast is hyping up, especially in China, and also can be observed in other parts of Asia.

Alibaba is in hopes that a product like this can help it stand out from the rest of the other among its U.S. rivals, including Microsoft and Amazon who are also in the cloud market.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Alibaba was the biggest public cloud market vendor at the end of 2020 with a 19.2% share, according to IDC, boosted by success in China. Amazon was second with a 10.5% share. Nevertheless, when considering the global market, Alibaba still lags behind Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

The company’s announcement regarding cloud computing came out after it reported its first net loss as a public company in the January to March quarter. The company was hit with a massive $2.8 billion fine as a result of an anti-monopoly investigation by Chinese authorities.

Maggie Wu, Alibaba’s CFO, said the company would invest “incremental profits and additional capital” in “new businesses and key strategic areas” in its current fiscal year.

In China, Alibaba faces growing competition from other technology giants including Huawei and Tencent which more recently have stepped up their cloud computing investments.

Online earnings of 2021’s Amazon Prime Day crosses off the $11 billion mark, Abode says

June 24, 2021

Total online retail sales in the United States during Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day have crossed off the $11 billion marks which accounts for more than 6.1% of overall e-commerce transactions generated by the 2020 event, according to Adobe Analytics data.

The total was slightly more than last year’s Cyber Monday, which was the busiest digital sales day on record, Adobe said. However, the Prime Day event was for 48 hours rather than the 24-hour Cyber Monday splurge after Thanksgiving.

As per the data provided by Adobe Analytics, more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites and over 100 million items across 18 product categories.

During the first day of this 2-day event of Amazon Prime Day, total online earning amounted to $5.6 billion on Monday, Adobe said. With this data, Monday ranks as the biggest day for digital sales this year and Tuesday, the second-busiest. In comparison, last year’s Prime Day of 2020 generated $10.4 billion in overall U.S. digital revenue, according to Adobe.

Sales during Cyber Monday 2020 amounted to about $10.9 billion, marking the largest U.S. online shopping day on record.

“There’s a pent-up demand for online shopping as consumers look forward to a return to normalcy,” said Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital insights. “The halo effect of Prime Day also played a significant role, giving both large and small online retailers significant revenue lifts.”

Big retailers — those with $1 billion in annual revenue — have reported an increase in sales of 29 percent during Prime Day in comparison to a typical day in June. Small merchants — those with less than $10 million in annual revenue — reported a 21 percent increase in sales on Prime Day, CNBC reported, citing Adobe’s research.

Additional findings of Adobe also found that discount levels were fairly consistent on Monday and Tuesday, with toys marked down by 12%, on average, and appliances discounted by 5%. It still said the best deals are expected to come closer to the holiday shopping season.

U.S’s top retail chains launch their own deals increasing the challenge on Amazon Prime Day

June 23, 2021

During the promotions of annual Amazon Prime Day, the company is anticipated to face certain obstacles from big retailers as they are offering heavy discounts and promotions only to coincide with Prime Day, which takes place on Monday and Tuesday this year. These retailers include multibillion-dollar Target Corp, Walmart Inc, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Macy’s Inc, and Kohl’s Inc, some of America’s top retail chains.

Amazon’s 2-day event had managed to generate $10.4 billion in gross merchandise sales for Amazon last year, and this year it took place on the 21^st and 22^nd of June 2021. Traditionally this event takes place in the month of July but was held earlier due to COVID-19 and the digitally inclined shopping habits of consumers.

However, this year, retailers are not missing the opportunity to get a share of that pie.

Department store chain Macy’s is teasing customers with an “Epic Specials” event for two days starting Monday, while rival Kohl’s is promoting cash backs and discounts on beauty, apparel, and household goods through its Prime-day coinciding event called “Wow Deals.”

In the same way, Target is increasing the number of products and discounts on its website during the ongoing Amazon Prime Day. This is in contrast to most U.S. mall stores, which have been cutting down on assortment and promotions this year.

Home furnishing retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond is offering an “even bigger and better” challenger event to Prime Day this year, with same-day delivery on orders $39 or more and rewards that give customers up to $100 for future purchases. Among its top deals, there is an offer of 60% off on Crux appliances and 25% off on Graco Pack ‘n Play baby cribs.

Walmart is no different either. Its challenge-some-day deals are starting a day earlier when Amazon Prime Day is supposed to start and will end on June 22. The world’s biggest retail chain, which launched its own subscription program called Walmart Plus last year, is offering deals on built-in Roku TVs and Roomba vacuum cleaners, among other electronic items.

Amazon Prime Day, which has grown into a two-day shopping bonanza rivaling the U.S. holiday shopping season, will see 20 countries participate this year. The event in India and Canada, however, has been postponed due to COVID-19. Moreover, this day to going to surpass the $11 billion marks in total online spending for U.S. retailers this year which will be even more spent than on Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year.

First day of the Amazon’s Prime Day 2021 mega-sale bags the most online sales as per Adobe

June 22, 2021

The first day of the Amazon Prime Day event anticipates the most online sales over a period of 24 hours so far this year. Sales during this mega-sale picked up the pace at 3 A.M ET on Monday and are set to cross off the $5.6 billion mark, representing 8.7% growth year over year, according to an index tracked by Adobe Analytics, which looks at more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites and over 100 million items across 18 product categories. According to Adobe, Monday also surpassed the $5.1 billion that consumers spent online over Thanksgiving Day last year.

Nevertheless, Adobe isn’t comparing this year’s Prime Day shopping extravaganza with last year’s, which occurred in October. The event h traditionally takes place in July until the Covid pandemic forced a delay. And this year, Amazon shifted the deals slightly sooner so that Prime Day would fall during what is typically a shopping lull in the second quarter. Hence, the event took place in the month of June.

Meanwhile, in order to compete with rivalries, Businesses including Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Kohl’s have been offering competing markdowns this week.

Adobe said that retailers that bring in more than $1 billion in revenue each year reported a 28% increase in e-commerce sales on Monday compared with the same day a year earlier, while smaller retailers doing less than $10 million in annual revenue saw a 22% lift.

“The first day of Prime Day successfully accelerated spending momentum for U.S. e-commerce to new heights, in an online retail environment that is already experiencing an elevated level of growth due to the pandemic,” said Jason Woosley, vice president of commerce product and platform at Adobe.

The biggest discounts during the 2-day event were observed for toys with price dipping by 12% on average. Appliances averaged a 5.2% discount, while electronics were marked down about 3%, Adobe said.

The firm said the best deals across all categories of products are still expected to come later this year during the holidays. A number of brands have opted not to discount any products this week. Logistics headaches have also put a tightened grip on inventories and have meant retailers have fewer goods on hand to markdown.

Digital shoppers overwhelmed with a series of sale events on top of an on-going Amazon Prime Day

June 22, 2021

With the much-hyped on-going 48-hour Prime Day sales, along with rival company’s promotions going on, consumers are facing a tsunami of sales to sort through. As a consequence, a shopper’s ability to search through the most appropriate product for oneself becomes a little challenging if not daunting — task instead of a fun forage through a single site.

Simply put, when everything and every site is on sale, there is nothing different and everything feels the same especially when consumers are being bombarded with a deluge of emails, newsletters, text alerts, tweets, posts, and pop-up ads are all concurrently pointing consumers to the next fleeting opportunity.

This series of events however is happening at a time of digital shopping when almost everybody is now placing e-commerce orders, digitally paying bills, and booking travel online.

While some retail analysts are expecting that total Prime Day plus competitor sales could rise as much as 17 percent this year — topping the record $10 billion haul in 2020 — a larger-than-ever chunk of that increase will come from in-store sales via recently ramped-up omnichannel fulfillment offerings from retailers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy, which have thousands of physical locations.

Add the fact that capacity and other health-related COVID restrictions on retail stores have recently been lifted, including in New York and California, which have a combined 70 million residents. Plus, the surge of maskless in-store shoppers is set to contribute another big boost.

Nonetheless, the Prime Day economy is in full swing, not only spurring large rivals to offer their own alternative events but also pressuring small unaligned or independent sellers who have little choice but to match the no-cost, two-day shipping policies offered by literally every large retailer.

This prime day is coming out to be a “shopping holiday” that is “on par with high-profile shopping days like Thanksgiving and Black Friday, in terms of total online spend.”

Facebook launches Live Audio Room as a new feature with the booming podcast culture

June 21, 2021

INDIA - 2019/07/31: In this photo illustration the most popular social networking application Facebook logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In April 2021, Facebook had made a series of investments in new audio products such as clubhouse Live audio competitor as well as new support for podcasts. Today, the platform is officially coming out with the introduction of Live Audio Rooms in the U.S. on iOS, starting with public figures and select Facebook Groups and the debut of an initial set of U.S. podcast partners.

The platform mentions that these Live Audio Rooms will be made available to any verified public figure or creator in the U.S. who is in good standing with Facebook and is using either a profile or the new Facebook Pages experience on iOS. For Facebook Groups, the feature is launching with “dozens of groups.

Both the products are anticipated to be available in weeks or months to come as more people, Groups and podcasts are being brought to be a part of it.

Just like any other audio apps, Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms offer a standard set of features.

The event’s hosts appear in rounded profile icons at the top of the screen, while the listeners appear in the bottom half of the screen, as smaller icons. The active speaker is indicated with a glowing ring. If verified, a check appears next to their name, as well. There are also options for enabling live captions, a “raise hand” tool to request to speak, and tools to share the room with others on Facebook, through things like News Feed or Group posts. However, there are a few things that Facebook does a little differently than others. For instance, hosts are able to invite people to join them as a speaker in advance of the session, or they can choose listeners during the stream to join them. In each session, there can be up to 50 speakers and there’s no limit on the number of listeners, Facebook says. During the session, users will be notified when friends or followers join the chat, too.

Moreover, while listening, users can “Like” or react to the content as it streams using the “Thumbs Up” button at the bottom of the screen which connects you to Facebook’s set of emoji reactions. There is an additional feature of “Stars” to show support to the public figure of the Live Audio Room. By sending Stars, the listener is bumped up to the “Front Row,” a special section that highlights the people who sent the Stars. This allows the event’s hosts to easily recognize their supporters and even give them a shout-out during the event if they choose.

Another new feature allows hosts to select a nonprofit or fundraiser to support during their conversation, and listeners and speakers can directly donate. A progress bar will show how much has been raised during the show.

Facebook users are alerted to all the new Live Audio Rooms via the News Feed and Notifications and can sign up to be reminded when a room they’re interested in goes Live. They can be also be discovered in Facebook groups, if available in them.

The tests for this feature were quietly run by the company in Taiwan and internally with Facebook employees Those tests will continue. Facebook expects to expand its audio products globally in the months ahead.

Amazon continues to grow, holds the title of the largest online retailer along with coming Prime Day

June 19, 2021

With the approaching Annual Prime Day of the company, Amazon this summer, it is currently ruling as the biggest online retailer in the country. Moreover, it is anticipated to be raking in more than 40% of the nation’s e-commerce sales by the end of 2021.

Amazon’s power on the internet has only grown as shopping on online platforms had become the second nature of the consumers during this global pandemic.

In 2008, , e-commerce sales accounted for just 3.6% of total retail sales in the United States, according to data from eMarketer. Following gradual growth year after year, that figure skyrocketed to 14% in 2020, as the Covid pandemic fueled online spending on everything from groceries and toilet paper to spin bikes and workout clothes. E-commerce sales are predicted to account for 15.3% of total retail sales by the end of this year and jump to 23.5% by 2025, eMarketer said.

Falling second to the race is Walmart which has the prediction to take about 7% of the online retail market this year. The following retailers line up as eBay, Apple, Home Depot, Target, and Best Buy.

With the rising hype of the Annual Prime Day, Walmart and Target also are holding competing deal events — as they have in past years — to coincide with Amazon Prime Day 2021. Both discounters will start sales on Sunday, but Walmart’s offers extend through Wednesday, while Target and Amazon end on Tuesday. Both Walmart and Target hope to reach customers who are already browsing the web on Prime Day for summer discounts.

Additionally, according to research by JP Morgan, Amazon is on track to overtake Walmart as the largest U.S. retailer in 2022, as it gains a greater and greater share of the total e-commerce market. Consumers’ accelerated adoption of internet shopping during the Covid pandemic has also provided a lift to other areas of Amazon’s business, too, JPMorgan said.

EMarketer is forecasting those total digital sales in the U.S. on Prime Day will jump 17.3% year over year to $12.18 billion. Sales made exclusively on Amazon on Prime Day will grow 18.3% from 2020 levels to $7.31 billion, it said.

Social media famous, Instagram Reels rolls out ads in different parts of the world

June 18, 2021

The social media company, Instagram which aims to make money from its short-form video feature now commenced Instagram Reels ads in India, Brazil, Germany, and Australia in the month of April and then expanded those tests to Canada, France, the U.K., and the U.S. more recently. The company announced today its launching ads in its short-form video platform and TikTok rival, Reels, to businesses and advertisers worldwide. The ads will be up to 30 seconds in length, like Reels themselves, and vertical in format, similar to ads found in Instagram Stories. Also like Reels, the new ads will loop, and people will be able to like, comment on, and save them, the same as other Reels videos. The tests ran with brands such as BMW, Louis Vuitton, Netflix, and Uber.

The company mentions that the ads will be displayed in most places where users view Reels content, including on the Reels tab, Reels in Stories, Reels in Explore, and Reels in your Instagram Feed, and will appear in between individual Reels posted by users. However, in order to be served a Reels ad, the user first needs to be in the immersive, full-screen Reels viewer.

However, the company couldn’t assert how often a might be able to use a Reels ad, specifying that the number of ads a viewer may encounter will vary on the basis of how frequently they use Instagram. To solve this problem as well, the platform is keeping an eye on user sentiment around ads themselves, collecting data and the overall commerciality of Reels.

Like Instagram any other advertising model, Reels ads will launch with an auction-based model. Nevertheless, until now, Instagram is neither sharing any sort of performance metrics nor s it yet offering advertisers any creator tools or templates that could help them get started with Reels ads. Instead, Instagram likely assumes advertisers already have creative assets on hand or know how to make them, because of Reels ads’ similarities to other vertical video ads found elsewhere, including on Instagram’s competitors.

Instagram Stories is used by some 500 million users, which demonstrates Instagram’s ability to drive traffic to different areas of its app. Instagram declined to share how many users Reels has as of today.

GoDaddy rolls out Payment processing solution making transactions easier and faster

June 16, 2021

GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware. This platform recently introduced a new feature on Tuesday (June 15), that enables its e-commerce customers to manage transactions directly on its business platform. This will make the payment easier and faster for businesses to get paid and manage orders

The platform was built using Poynt, a tech startup that GoDaddy acquired last December that lets businesses accept payments and sell anywhere. It bought Poynt for $320 million to expand its e-commerce and payments capabilities and said at the time that the deal would accelerate its strategy to provide a complete suite of commerce and payment services for its customers that could rival Shopify, which has emerged as a leader in the e-commerce tech category.

By combining Poynt with its existing websites, marketing, and WordPress commerce services, GoDaddy is now positioned to offer its customers a unified commerce platform bridging both online and offline shopping.

According to a press release, Both GoDaddy Websites + Marketing customers and Managed WordPress WooCommerce customers can add the solution, called GoDaddy Payments, to their dashboards.

Businesses will be able to use to it manage orders, billing, refunds, and payments. The solution processes all major debit and credit cards — such as Mastercard, Visa, and American Express — charging a small fee on each transaction. Funds arrive in the business’ bank account the next day.

“GoDaddy is hyper-focused on empowering our customers to sell everywhere with a single solution in a seamlessly intuitive experience,” said GoDaddy President of Commerce Osama Bedier. “GoDaddy Payments represents a major step towards centralizing every tool and service a business needs to successfully sell online. Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we look forward to accelerating our efforts.”

Over the course of the pandemic, GoDaddy saw record net new customers and acceleration across its three core product categories — domains, hosting and presence, and business applications. GoDaddy said in its Q1 financial report last month that bookings passed the $1 billion mark for the first time. In November, GoDaddy said it had added over a million customers so far in 2020, net of churn, which was its highest nine-month rate of additions in its history.

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