Tuesday, October 7, 2025
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Shopify falls victim to fraudsters selling copied products; risk to shoppers

Thousands of sellers are making use of the Canadian-based e-commerce platform Shopify to scam consumers and sell copied products especially after the company’s rapid growth has brought the company into the eyes of the fraudsters. So many scammers and fraudsters have infested Shopify that roughly a fifth of the e-commerce platform’s stores pose a risk to customers, according to reports

As per the e-commerce authentication service FakeSpot, more than 120,000 Shopify sites were scrutinized out of which 21% of them were declared as a risk to shoppers.

Shopify is one of the biggest corporate platforms immune to the pandemic, with not only brick and mortar retailers rushing to the stores but also strong online websites that facilitated shopping online as the lockdown took to its effects.

There were around 39% of sketchy stores which FakeSpot called “problematic sellers” which means that they were hawking counterfeit goods, possibly infringing on brands, or had poor reputations, as per Yahoo Finance. Another 28 percent were seen as possible scam shops with suspiciously cheap listings and privacy leaks, the outlet reported.

These findings were known during an explosion in Shopify’s business stimulated by increased demand for online shopping as a result of the on-going coronavirus pandemic.

Merchants of the platform Merchants on the platform raked in a record $2.4 billion in sales on Black Friday alone this year, marking a 75 percent surge from last year’s levels, Shopify said last month.

Shopify did not respond to any of the requests immediately. However, the company informed the BBC that they are already trying to root out scammers.

“With the trajectory of Shopify’s growth, there comes a point in time when they will need to tackle this problem very seriously,” said Saoud Khalifah, FakeSpot’s chief executive. He explained that many of the stores they found appeared to be China-based merchants posing as US small businesses.

“We recognize there will be those — however few they may be relative to our base of more than one million merchants — that may abuse our service, and we take this matter seriously,” Shopify told the network. “To date, we have terminated thousands of stores and routinely implement new measures to address fraud and other activities that violate our policies.”

Spryker raises $300M for improvising its technology and upgrading B2B e-commerce

Spryker Systems is a commerce technology platform that enables global enterprises to build transactional business models. This 6 years old company of e-commerce technology provider announces recently that it has raised over $130 million in venture capital. This funding will be used for building products which in turn be employed to develop B2B e-commerce sites and online marketplaces for the purpose of thriving the market in the United States. In addition to this, the company also plans to introduce a new third- party technology called “App Store”.

This Berlin-based company is currently providing its services to more than 150 companies involved in B2B and retail e-commerce. The funding raised by the company from the investment firms TCV, One Peak, Project A, and Silicon Valley Bank increases Spryker’s value to $500 million.

Spryker Systems which was co-founded in 2014 by co-CEOs Boris Lokschin and Alexander Graf, provides what is often called a “composable” cloud-based technology environment. It is a “headless” e-commerce technology infrastructure based on extensive use of application programming interfaces, or APIs, which connects the e-commerce engine with a customized set of customer-facing front-end interfaces. This kind of set-up is designed to help companies conduct e-commerce transactions with customers across various numerous online venues such as websites, mobile apps, and internet search ads without having to modify the software code in the back-end eCommerce engine.

Lokschin believes that his company helps manufacturers, distributors, and their businesses to transform into “composable” enterprises with cloud modular commerce technologies to support and power their sophisticated B2B enterprise marketplace or unified commerce initiative.

Both Lokschin and Graf expect that the funding they have raised will help them to grow their international market presence and, in particular, expand in the U.S. It is noted that the U.S. now accounts for 10% of its annual software revenue, which the company didn’t break out.

“Spryker is largely a European-centric brand. But this latest round of investment will make it possible for them to expand name identification in North America and carve out a position in what has become a hypercompetitive North America e-commerce suites market,” says Andy Hoar, CEO of digital commerce consulting firm Paradigm B2B.

Gucci fixates in claws into the Chinese digital ecosystem via Alibaba post the pandemic wave

One of the biggest fashion labels Gucci opens online stores in China in collaboration with e-commerce group Alibaba to address the post coronavirus boom in luxury spending in the country. Gucci, owned by Kering SA would be available on Alibaba’s Tmall Luxury Pavilion, where Jack Ma (Alibaba’s CEO) said that it has managed to assemble high-end luxury goods companies that were earlier doubtful of online retail.

This partnership between Gucci and Alibaba has a goal of offering more than 750 million Chinese consumers on the platform. This was to be seen as a huge opportunity to experience purchasing items from Gucci’s fashion collection.

In order to join the Tmall Luxury Pavilion, Gucci launches a deepened strategic partnership with China’s leading e-commerce platform. The famous fashion store is all set to open its first flagship store for fashion and leather good collectibles on 21st December 2020 as stated by both the companies in a joint statement on Friday.  In addition to the fashion store, the brand is also launching its flagship dealing in beauty products which will open in February 2021. This deal is offering Chinese consumers exclusive access to Gucci’s full range of make-up and fragrances.

Alibaba says that launched in 2017, Tmall Luxury Pavilion is home and has been managing over 200 brands with products ranging from apparel and beauty items to watches and also luxury cars. Recent entrants include Balmain, Salvatore Ferragamo, Golden Goose, De Beers, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and IWC Schaffhausen.

During the course of recent years, Gucci has been able to build strong foundations in the digital ecosystem in a country like China where consumers shop mostly by mobiles (that is, online) than in countries like Europe or the United States.

Around 35% of luxury goods purchases are represented by Chinese customers before the occurrence of the global pandemic. However, now the percentage is expected to account for almost half of global sales of high-end, branded clothes, handbags, and jewelry by 2025, as per reports by consultancy Bain.

“Gucci has strategically invested in and cultivated a ‘digital first’ approach globally, including the establishment of a dedicated Chinese digital ecosystem over the past few years,” said Marco Bizzarri, president and CEO of Gucci. “Today’s announcement, therefore, represents the next step in this strategy as we provide our customers in China with an authorized, customized e-commerce experience on the Tmall Luxury Pavilion in partnership with Alibaba.”

Gucci has its own Chinese website, Gucci.cn, and is present on all major Chinese social media platforms, including Weibo and WeChat.

$300 Million move into pharmacy business could be Amazon’s next milestone

Amazon is reportedly trying to get an entry into the pharmacy market. However, this giant e-commerce platform seems to be less of a threat to already established players than Wall Street fears as per one equity analyst.  As CEO Jeff Bezos said “Your margin is my opportunity “, with this line famously quoted it feels no market is safe from the company’s onslaught. As soon as this announcement was made by the company, it sent shivers down the spine of the whole industry.

There was an episode of Fool Live which aired on November 18, 2020, “The Wrap” where the host Jason Hall and Fool.com contributor Danny Vena bring the talks of Amazon and the related industry to the table.

Danny Vena was asked more about the company getting into pharmacy, to which he responded that that company is focusing on prescription fulfillment. It’s also going to offer free delivery for Amazon Prime members. This new service is going to be called Amazon Pharmacy. It’s only going to be available to customers in the United States, but they’ll be able to order prescription medications and the medicines can also be delivered to their homes. Danny further added that this step to enter into pharmacy is the latest action in the long line for the company to take. Amazon wanted to get into the pharmacy business in 2017 and they wanted to do this very discreetly. However, when they began to apply for licenses, the tea spilled and the plan got delayed. After that, they merged with a company called PillPack which took daily medications, prepare them into little packets and then deliver them to its customers.

Hence the pharmacy industry is something that Amazon is aggressively trying to get into for a couple of years now. Amazon and JPMorgan got together and trying to work out a way that they could offer healthcare to their respective employees at a lower cost. So this is presumably one of the most influential steps that come out of this far. Now it has gone beyond Amazon employees. It looks like this was apparently the plan all along. This is a $300 billion industry, the pharmacy space is.

Christmas season makes platforms like FedEx and Amazon busier and increase hiring of more workforce

If you are still looking for Christmas presents to send to your friends and family, it may be too late to ship them in time.

Due to a drastic increase in online shopping this year, the demand for package delivery exceeding capacity this holiday season and stretching the delivery supply chain bleakly.

The overflow of packages and deliveries has many package sorting, distribution, and delivery workers at the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, and Amazon busier than they have ever been before.

Satish Jindel, founder and president of ShipMatrix, a company that tracks shipping data and provides technology solutions to shippers, says that it is due to the stay-at-home orders and consumers’ resistance to go out and shop in crowded stores during the pandemic “have added a whole different set of volume that was not there,” prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. He further adds that even the basic day-to-day items are being ordered online and subsequently the demand has increased by approximately 30% from what it was before.

Hence the annual 30% to 40% rise in holiday package delivery is coming on top of that 30% increase that has already happened this year.  Consequently, ShipMatrix expects that more than 3 billion packages will be shipped between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, rising up from 2.2 billion last year, a huge increase that exceeds the supply chain’s delivery capacity.

Initially, ShipMatrix was estimating that demand would exceed capacity by 7 million packages a day during the holiday season. However, increased hiring by shipping companies and additional overtime weekend deliveries by UPS and Postal Service have helped close the capacity shortfall. Still, about 3 to 3.5 million more packages will be left than can be delivered each day.

Platforms like FedEx and Amazon have been experiencing an unexpected rise in shipping volumes. Due to which FedEx stated that it has 70,000 new workers for the holiday season and expanded residential deliveries to seven days a week. Amazon, too promises delivery of many items right up until Christmas, has hired more than a quarter of a million new employees this year, including 100,000 for the holiday season.

Plug Power and Walmart joining hands into common e-commerce space

Plug Power, an American company engaged in the development of hydrogen fuel cell systems has recently announced that its hydrogen and fuel cell solutions are joining hands into Walmart e-commerce applications. As per a release, the expansion began in August 2020 and will continue into 2021. The Tuesday announcement said that across North America, Walmart has 37 distribution centers that use over 9,500 Plug Power-supported GenDrive fuel cell-powered vehicles.

Plug Power COO Keith Schmidt said in an interview with FreightWaves. That “[This expansion] gives us the opportunity to take our proven hydrogen fueling and powering solutions into Walmart’s e-commerce space,” He said the hydrogen solutions being deployed for Walmart e-commerce applications are very similar to Plug Power products already used for Walmart’s grocery and retail networks.

Schmid also stated the company is not only seeing its customers grow in number but also strong as they are working hard to meet burgeoning consumer demand in e-commerce and home delivery. According to a release, Plug Power’s products are helping customers meet increasing demand quickly. It said Walmart’s material handling fleet that runs on Plug Power products operates at 99% uptime consistently. Schmid said that Plug Power sees this as an opportunity to expand within Walmart, one of the company’s foundational customers.

“Walmart has been an innovator in fuel cell technology and an early adopter with Plug,” partnering with Plug Power to provide hydrogen fuel cell technology in Walmart’s electric vehicles for its material handling fleet since 2010, Schmid said.

Plug power has been growing steadily over the past years. Schmid believes that the company expects high growth in the coming years, demonstrating its growth plan for a $1.2 bn revenue stream by the end of the year 2024. He also believes that the company started in the logistics material handling where hydrogen first made economic sense, however, is now going towards on-road applications, targeting class 3-8 commercial vehicles.

“In 2021, you’ll see Plug continue to grow in the on-road vehicle segment and continue to expand its market reach in green hydrogen,” Schmid said and the company will also begin building green hydrogen plants by the same following year

Amazon and eBay health products to cause potential health risk; FDA issues warning

Warnings were issued to eBay and Amazon by FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on Thursday for proposing consumers not to use nearly 50 dietary supplements it purchased on eBay and Amazon. The reason the authorities gave was that it found the male enhancement and weight loss products with a warning that they contain potentially dangerous hidden ingredients that might pose a significant health risk.

Irrespective of the FDA warnings given about similar products for the past decade, potentially dangerous products continue to be available and sold on the interest and online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, as well as in retail stores. The agency urges consumers to beware of purchasing or taking these products since it can cause serious damage to their health.

“Protecting the health and safety of Americans is the FDA’s highest priority, and we will remain vigilant and communicate about products and companies that place U.S. consumers at risk,” said Donald D. Ashley, J.D., director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “While the FDA has engaged in discussions with online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay regarding these issues in the past, we believe they can do more to protect consumers from these fraudulent and potentially dangerous products. We continue to urge stores, websites, and online marketplaces, like Amazon and eBay, to take appropriate steps to protect the American public by not selling or facilitating the sale of illegal FDA-regulated products.”

All 26 products purchased on amazon and 20 out of 25 products on eBay purchased by the FDA were declared to contain undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients. Upon testing in the FDA’s laboratory, it was found that the products contained ingredients including sildenafil, tadalafil, vardenafil, sibutramine, desmethyl sibutramine, phenolphthalein, and/or fluoxetine. Many of these are active ingredients for use in FDA-approved prescription drugs, which are restricted to use under the supervision of a licensed health care professional hence proving that all these drugs are harmful for human consumption.

FDA urges the consumers to first confirm with a health care professional before using or considering using any over-the-counter product marketed for sexual enhancement, weight loss or bodybuilding, or any product marketed as a dietary supplement for pain relief. In addition, consumers should search for product information from sources other than sellers and ask a doctor for help distinguishing between reliable and questionable information for their own safety.

FedEx’s online shopping scale booming in millions around the US’s holiday season

With Christmas around the corner and during the US’s peak holiday season, FedEx has topped the scale of the online shopping boom, producing its highest quarterly sales to be recorded after the company’s logistics team was able to handle millions of additional packages and implemented surcharges on shipments.

The company an American multinational delivery services company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. The company is known for its overnight shipping service and pioneering a system that could track packages and provide real-time updates on package location, a feature that has now been implemented by most other carrier services. However, this time it has broken its own realms and gone beyond.

As per the earning scale released on Thursday which confirmed that in the FedEx ground, the company’s small package ground delivery business in North America handled 12.3 million packages every day on an average in the three months till the end of November, up from 9.6 million for the same period almost a year ago.

FedEx, which serves globally,  680 aircraft, 200,000 autos, and 600,000 staff, additionally carried 6.2m kilos of freight day by day via its “international priority” freight service — 19 percent greater than 2019 ranges.

Subsequently, demand for parcel supply has in the meantime boosted the pricing energy of FedEx, which has launched a spread of peak charges of greater than $1 per bundle. Revenue per bundle at its Ground division saw a rise from $8.80 12 months in the past to $9.42.

“Peak surcharges for the holiday season are the new normal for our industry,” stated Brie Carere, govt vice-president. “There’s been some fundamental shifts in the market.”

The results confirm the position of FedEx as one of the largest company winners from the coronavirus disaster, with quarterly revenues throughout the group up 19 percent year-on-year to $20.6bn. Net earnings greater than doubled to $1.23bn.

L’Oréal driving online sales through latest technology, keeping the brand fly even during pandemic

During the stressful times of the pandemic, when every brand was struggling just to stay afloat, L’Oréal was one brand that grew 65% representing 25% of the revenue as stated by its chief digital officer Lubomira Rochet said during a marketing roundtable conversation recently convened by Business Insider.

Furthermore, its e-commerce business made it possible to cover more than 50% of its losses in the brick-and-mortal during the pandemic, and it’s expected to account for 50% of its sales by the year 2023. The company’s business online business was leveraged to cover up these losses. There was a growth in online sales by spending more on platforms like Amazon that are performance-driven, SEO to increase online customer traffic to its own websites, and on ad formats like YouTube for Action.

The brand has also been spending on virtual try-on technology along with social commerce and product personalization to create a better experience for the customers. Its try-on technology, ModiFace is available across 15 other sites and apps including  Amazon, YouTube, and Google Search.

With ModiFace, the Beauty experience is re-invented since it has unique technologies to show real results in real-time. Virtual makeup try-on, virtual hair color and augmented reality shopping- the customers can enjoy the red carpet treatment, anytime and anywhere. From virtual try-on to smart mirrors in stores and to our newest device, Perso, ModiFace empowers its users to discover, try, and choose products that best match their needs.

L’Oréal also invested in a social commerce platform, Replika Software which lets its influencers, makeup artists, and hairstylists use the products to sell them directly to people online.

“L’Oréal brands have all embraced the trend of social commerce and have experimented with different models — influencers, e-beauty advisors, as well as consumers — with very promising results,” Rochet said. “We want to crack this new e-commerce channel that has a very strong potential in beauty and build a solid ecosystem of advocates and social sellers around our brands.”

Walmart to use driver-less trucks for making deliveries in 2021

Walmart is joining hands with a start-up called Gatik to start a new service of delivering with a driverless truck in the US state Arkansas starting next year. The company has already been working on a delivery pilot for the last 18 months.

Gatik is a software company based in Palo Alto and Toronto which works as an autonomous delivery network for the middle mile. They move goods from micro-fulfillment centers and dark stores (a store that stock items but are not open to the public) in urban environments to pick-up locations like brick-and-mortar retail stores and distribution centers. They provide numerous multi-temperature box trucks fitted with sensors and software to enable autonomous driving. Gatik’s approach to self-driving hardware and software is described as “Radically Divergent”.

Starting next year, both the companies, Walmart and Gatik fully intend to incorporate their services and plan on fully autonomous truck deliveries. They are even planning on expanding the service to a second location in Louisiana to test an even longer delivery route. The trucks will have safety drivers delivering items from a “live” Walmart Supercenter to a designated pickup location where customers can retrieve their orders. Those routes, which will begin next year, will be longer than the Arkansas operation — 20-miles between New Orleans and Metairie, Louisiana.

“This achievement marks a new milestone that signifies the first-ever driverless operation carried out on the supply chain middle mile for both Gatik and Walmart,” Tom Ward, Senior Vice President of Customer Product, Walmart US, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Walmart, also announced in September that it will begin testing drone delivery of grocery and household essential items in a bid to take on Amazon since amazon announced that it had received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US for drone delivery of packages.

Walmart said it has partnered with Israel-based drone delivery company Flytrex to launch the pilot in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Made for you, with love from Amazon – Virtual modeling custom clothing

In an attempt to revolutionize the concept of online apparel clothing, Amazon launched a new service called, Made for you which allows its customers to create a customer T-shirt to their exact measurements.  However, unlike some companies which make use of mobile technology to scan and measure your body from an application, Amazon’s new service of custom clothing requires its users to provide their height, weight, body style, and two photos of themselves for measurements.

Initially, users choose between the 2 types of fabrics to be used for the custom T-shirt. This includes either a 100% Pima cotton shirt or a light-weight 56%Pima cotton, 38% Modal and 6% Elastane tri-blend. They can also provide specifications as to preferred shirt style (slim, classic, or relaxed fit).  After providing the necessary information, customers have the option of choosing from a selection of eight colors along with their preferred style of sleeves, shirt lengths, necklines, and fabrics. The shirt to be made costs around $25 but the service is only available in the US yet.

After finishing, the user can view the final product on a virtual body before placing the order. The purpose of building a virtual body is to help the customers visualize how the T-shirt they designed would actually look on them. This experience of virtual shopping works both on the web as well as the Amazon app.

Amazon says that if the service succeeds based on user’s feedback they would like to expand their services and include more styles. Furthermore, although the customers can choose only from two body types- masculine and feminine, Amazon plans on incorporating additional options to choose from.

At the launch of this technology, influencers like Black Scott, Caralyn Mirand, and Sai de Silva were seen marketing the new features in their posts on behalf of Amazon.

Custom clothing is often looked upon as a luxury but Amazon adds this to outgrow its own realms into the fashion world. The company launched luxury stores for designer fashion brands and also offers a broad range of private label fashion brands on its site in September. Both this success and the ‘made for you’ app make use of body modeling technology. In recent years, Amazon has also experimented with personalized shopping experiences. One of these includes Prime wardrobe, a service that lets its prime members try on clothes before making the final purchase.

Gearflow, a promising B2B digital market platform for construction companies

Launched in 2018, Gearflow is an emerging construction industry online marketplace that manages more than 70 online stores for equipment and parts ranging from backhoes to hydraulics and engine components. They accept orders between $800 and $900 on average and the number of buyers they supply is on the rise. CEO Luke Powers says that the company is serving more than half of its online orders from repeat customers whilst in the third quarter of this year the customers have doubled in numbers.

Even in today’s fast-growing digital world where everything is just a single click away yet finding and getting a replacement part for a piece of construction is not easy. There exists a huge gap in the business of selling construction equipment parts. A number of manufacturers and part dealers still don’t have an online presence and even if they do, their websites fall short of many e-commerce features which the buyers usually expect like estimated delivery dates, real-time inventory availability Furthermore, many construction companies face difficulty in researching and procuring the best value on parts and tools and equipment.

To provide an ideal solution and bridge the e-commerce gap for construction equipment parts, Luke Powers and Ben Preston got together and launched Gearflow. This provides a marketplace that brings both the suppliers and buyers of construction parts together. It is a destination platform for construction companies to find sellers and also check out their shipping, return, and warranty policies. Some of the companies benefitting from Gearflow are Blue Diamond Attachments, Genie Industries, Abbasi Equipment.

 

“E-commerce is scarce in the construction equipment parts business,” Powers says. He points out that general online marketplaces like eBay.com or Amazon.com are of no help to meet the needs of the contractors. Hence, this is where Gearflow comes into the picture allowing the contractors to buy replacement parts online.  Fortunately, this company was such a success with both the suppliers as well as the buyers that they re-designed the site and re-launched it in the month of April due to rigorously increasing demand. Last fall, Gearflow also said that it procured $1.1M of funding from investors including Thomas H. Lee Partners, Annabelle LLC, and Chicago Early Growth Ventures mainly for growing the business more.

Taxdoo raises $21M in Series A bringing automated financial compliance mechanisms for E-commerce businesses

Hamberg based start-up, Taxdoo which is an “automated platform for financial compliance” announced that it has raised around €17 million ( $20.6 M) Series A capital investment round. The money was procured in collaboration with investors led by Accel along with the participation of Visionaries Club, 20VC, and existing investor HTGF. Along with the funding, Accel’s  Harry Nelis had also joined the board.

It is ascertained that the amount raised will be used to support the company’s rapid growth purposes, including cross-border expansions, increased hiring, R&D, sales, and customer support.

E-commerce in Europe is booming with thousands of customers moving online and is expected to surpass the €17 billion mark in 2020. In response to such an opportunity, many retailers and businessmen are also shifting to online platforms like Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and more to sell their products internationally. Nevertheless, they are forced to face increasing complexity around VAT, accounting, and other requirements due to data across multiple online systems. This also provides scope for fraud of tax collection resulting in around 164 billion of VAT revenue leakage across Europe in 2020, forcing the government to increase legislations for e-commerce businesses.

All the founders of taxdoo (Matthias Allmendinger, Roger Gothmann, and Christian Königsheim) taking advantage of this tax drawback system came up with a solution to the problem. They developed an idea to connect compliance with an API-driven platform in the e-commerce system. Basically, they assemble the data at a single place and then use their programs to automate transaction-level data ingestion, tax calculation, and fillings all across Europe. Customers also have the option to join forces with their tax advisors on the platform and reduce other compliance issues.

The company subsequently has grown profitably since it empowers more than a thousand merchants from the DACH region to see across Europe and is also leveling up aggressively in order to meet demand.

“Our goal is to contribute to seamless cross-border commerce in Europe and beyond, where companies are able to focus on their core business, not on bureaucracy,” states Christian Königsheim, co-founder of Taxdoo. “With a booming e-commerce landscape and companies of all sizes looking to sell their products and services internationally, we see an acute need for integrated financial and tax compliance,” says Harry Nelis, partner at Accel. He further adds “Taxdoo’s founders bring together unique experience at the intersection of tax, finance, and software and we are excited to work with them to build Taxdoo into a category-defining company.”

M-commerce payments on the play; to rise to 3.1 trl USD by 2025 post global pandemic hit on wallets

Where there are strange times and the situations are uncertain, the new normal is changing, and it’s very overwhelming. Yet, there are some business models that seem to be immune to the ongoing global pandemic hit of Covid-19. Among them, one of them is M-commerce. According to a new study from Juniper Research, it has been concluded that m-commerce payments have the possibility to cross the 3.1 trillion USD mark by the year 2025. Currently, it stands at 2.1 trillion USD in 2020.

Under the pandemic effect, where the shops are shut, limited public movement and reduced discretionary spending by the consumer has resulted in a massive boost to digital wallet services. There are a few areas that are seeing an uptick in digital payments like grocery stores, online pharmacies, OTT players (telecom and media), EdTechs, utility/bill payments, etc.

The usage of digital payment systems is also being promoted by the Government. The finance minister along with the CEO of the National Corporation of India has also urged people to increase the use of digital payments for the purpose of making payments contactless.

Digital payments have become a necessity in these times owing to their convenient nature. In another research, “E-commerce payments: Emerging Trends, Opportunities & Market Forecasts 2020-2025”, it was found that the two largest e-commerce markets, the USA and China will observe growth in the percentage of smartphone payments for remote goods by 55% and 74% respectively.

In a country like China, digital payments are on the way to becoming so dominant that the People’s Bank of China started had to restrict discrimination against cash by merchants who accepted only digital payments.  China’s new system is driven by digital wallets, QR codes which are well established. In Asia, there exists the dominance of digital wallets by players such as Alipay, WeChat Pay, Paytm, PhonePe, LINE Pay, Rakuten Pay, GO-PAY and others, and others. Asia- Pacific’s mobile payments users are not only large in number but also the most active, contributing a major share to global mobile wallet transaction value. In India, the two largest mobile wallet platforms are Paytm and Mobikwik. Furthermore,  India has even imposed KYC regulations to restrict illegal bank transactions.

According to Juniper Research, it is said that the rise in M-commerce can give birth to new payment models like BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later). This system can change the perception of those who still hesitate with credit card ownership. It not only has significant benefits for merchants providing them the scope to increase average basket size but also has the potential to boost customer experience.

Australian E-commerce platform, Shippit procures $22.2 Million in collaboration with Tiger Global

Shippit, an Australian (Sydney) e-commerce and logistics company has recently raised AU$30M (US $22M) through Series B equity funding led by an investment firm, Tiger Global. They are expanding in Southeast Asia along with participation from a local representative, Jason Lenga.

The company, after raising its equity brings the total to $41 million AUD, which will be used not only to expand in Southeast Asia but also to make its team twice the number by hiring 100 more people, including 50 software developers.

Being founded in May 2014, Shippit powers deliveries of hundreds of various well-known retailers in a single month including Sephora, Target, Big W, and Temple & Webster. The company also launched its reach in Singapore in May, followed by Malaysia in the month of August.

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William On, the CEO of shippit has full confidence in the place they have chosen to expand in, that is, Southeast Asia since he believes Southeast Asia to be the world’s largest e-commerce market in the coming five years. He told TechCrunch, a leading business newspaper that the market for them in Southeast Asia is alone 5 times the size of Australia and twice the size of the US, giving them more scope and opportunities to be explored. They are positive about their expansion in Southeast Asia and expects its business to grow 100% for the next 3 consecutive years minimum. Not only that, but the company is also thinking to expand in countries like the Philippines and Indonesia.

Talking about growth, its Australian operations have also witnessed a threefold rise in delivery volumes over the past year, resource adds.

It is in such present difficult times of a global pandemic when the companies like Shippit have gained importance for the online delivery services it provides.  In the midst of current COVID-19 situation, their team has been working hard to eliminate the scope for any potential impact to the customer and also to ensure that parcels continue being delivered to people wherever and whenever they need them.

There are other spaces working in the same domain, including, ShipStation, EasyShip and Shippo. Even with cut-throat competition in the air among these, Shippit believes in making online fulfillment as simple as possible for the merchants. Its competitive strategy to survive mainly lies in effective managing stock across multiple locations.  This way the process is not only made easier but it removes the frustration of doing it all by oneself.

Elevating E-commerce to new heights through trending social apps

Instagram’s gradual but multi-purpose innovation – INSTAGRAM REELS is turning the platform into an e-commerce powerhouse that has been recently added to the app. For anyone who is unaware of what reels exactly are, they are an in-app creation that works a lot like TikTok. One can create and share 15- 30 seconds videos, match videos to music and other audios not only for entertainment purposes but also for business marketing now.  The reels are another way for creators to generate revenue directly from the videos they create. Creators also have the option of adding “Branded Content “tags to the reels, giving the viewers more transparency about paid promotions.

Long advertisements can be seen to be failing at places where the content itself can be just seconds long. Although it is challenging for creators to create unique content yet the viewers enjoy it owing to their decreasing attention spans and can also share them with their fellow mates. Twitter had once found a similar application, Vines with the vision of turning it into a revenue-generating platform.  It was also used to browse videos it was hoped that videos would trend, though nothing as such happened.  It failed to be recognized as a sustainable business model due to its inability to keep pace with its competitors and hence it lost all its star users.

TikTok, at the same time, is on its way to facilitate product placement options on its clips. The Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, is believed to generate the majority of its revenue from e-commerce listings. With its growing popularity, TikTok is also on the same path.

Live streaming allows the audience to share small tips in the form of donations,  which is a great way to earn even for budding creators. In addition, TikTok had also launched link-sharing via your bio and through posts, helping users reach out to more audiences and make more lucrative deals with brands. TikTok’s new partnership with Shopify, an e-commerce platform further gives way for in-stream purchases also while waiting on a huge retail store like Walmart to becomes its new part-owner in the US.

Both TikTok and Instagram Reels are starting to major play role in online business marketing strategies due to their billions of users and reach among them. However, do these platforms are big enough to revolutionize the user’s purchasing behavior?

However, no matter to what degree it does bring a change in customer’s shopping habits, yet it is still a change we witness today.

Troy Graham, VP Business Development at Descartes on Better Returns Management with Rising Ecommerce Volumes

Team eCommerce Next interviewed Mr. Troy Graham, VP Business Development at Descartes to get more insights on Better Returns Management with Rising Ecommerce Volumes. Following is our interview with him:

How do retailers traditionally handle their returned orders?

As you can imagine, it depends on the size of the business and volume of returns. It is not uncommon during peak holiday times that returns are “put in the corner” to be dealt with after peak season. Some retailers bring in extra staff to try and receive returns, issue customer credits and coordinate the disposition of returned goods quickly, but this comes at a fairly high cost.

What are the biggest pain points associated with these processes?

Typically, returns-related procedures are manual and, therefore, very labor-intensive. Manual processes are not only expensive, but the time it takes to issue customers their refunds is lengthy, which results in customer service complaints, poor online reviews and additional communications with customer service teams. Additionally, these processes often result in returned items not being available for sales right away. Take, for example, a hot holiday item that is selling well. If that item is returned and ends up sitting in a warehouse, the retailer may end up missing the opportunity to quickly sell that item. In extreme cases, a delay in making that item available for sale may mean the retailer must hang onto the item and, ultimately, discount it to sell post peak season or key event.

Another big challenge for some retailers is combatting fraud and validating that returned items are real and actually purchased from them. In all of the above examples, leading retailers will have an integrated barcode scanning-based solution that allows returns to be received quickly, customer credits to be issued in a timely manner, and goods to be made available for sale right away.

From your experience, what are the biggest challenges organizations are facing as they gear up for this year’s holiday shopping season?

Unlike previous years, some retailers are facing new challenges with obtaining inventory, as manufacturing and supply chains are backed up and retailers are scrambling for new suppliers and products to fill their shelves. There are also labor challenges as many people simply are unwilling to work in a retail or warehouse environment, which is making the labor that is available more expensive than in previous years.

As COVID-19 continues to impact consumer shopping habits, how has this shift impacted customer sentiments around returns – and how does this shape sales strategies for retailers?

Given the pandemic has been a significant accelerant of e-commerce growth, retailers must prepare for the highest level of returns in history. Consumers are expecting to be able to return items faster, more easily and for a longer period of time than ever before. If, therefore, companies do not have a clear and efficient returns process stated online, they can lose a sale to a competitor. Retailers may also consider strategies to offer exclusive in-store items to attempt to drive consumers into their stores. Additionally, ecommerce brands are working hard to start sales early in hopes of capitalizing as much as possible on consumer demand.

With decreased foot traffic in stores, how can retailers get returned products ready for resale and in the hands of consumers?

Many retailers are offering “open box” type items on their web site for the first time ever.  In addition, many are evaluating alternative off market channels to sell returned items in bulk vs. reselling them directly to end consumers.

Can you tell me more about the profit potential of returned orders? How severely can returns hinder a retailer’s profitability?

How severely? Dramatically is the simple answer. I once went into a retailer’s warehouse in December and looked at its returns area. Generally, it was supposed to have less than 50 packages in it at any given time; on the day I was there, approximately 1,500 boxes were in the area. When I inquired about the returns area, the operations team said they were simply overwhelmed and didn’t have the time or the people required to verify the condition of all of the returned items and make them available again for sale.

How can retailers streamline their returns management processes? Which technology solutions should these organizations turn to?

The key here is to have a technology-enabled integrated process that encapsulates four key capabilities:

  1. Integration with the core order management system for rapid customer refunds
  2. Real-time validation that the correct item is being returned
  3. Capture disposition decisions by allowing staff to quickly identify the return and determine whether to make available for sale, return to manufacturer, refurbish or recycle
  4. Finally, the technology must provide a mechanism to make the item available for sale as soon as it has been received and evaluated. The most effective solution here is an app running on a mobile device that supports barcode scanning of RMA documentation, item barcodes and condition/disposition barcodes.

Can you tell me more about the benefits of automation in the warehouse as they relate to returns? What are the specific advantages of this approach?

There are three main advantages to warehouse automation for better returns management: 1) provide a great customer experience by quickly issuing refunds and giving consumers real-time updates on the status of their return 2) drive streamlined, efficient, consistent practices to allow the warehouse team to process a large number of returns quickly and 3) improve the ability to make a returned item available for sale as quickly as possible.

What is the timeline required to set up and implement a warehouse management system (WMS)? Does this timeline vary based on the size of the company?

WMS deployment timeframes definitely vary based on company size. They also vary based on integration requirements and internal technology stacks. I would say a rapid deployment for a single warehouse location can be as short as 7-8 weeks in an ideal situation, but a more common timeline is 12-16 weeks.

When the pandemic ends, do you anticipate any long-term, industry-wide trends/changes around how retailers (both big and small) handle their returns? If so, what are they?

While the pandemic itself is not directly influencing returns handling, it is definitely accelerating a tremendous surge in ecommerce growth. With rising ecommerce volumes, return shipments are also increasing—and more returns equals more fixed capital. To improve cash flow, fast processing of returns is critical. The quicker returns are processed, the sooner companies can make returned items for sale again.

Long-term, convenience for customers will be key for retailers of any size. Some examples: returns procedures need to be consumer-friendly, pre-printed labels for returns must be included in packages, and returns portals can support customer self-service. In addition, more retailers will look at increasing inbound shipment visibility for returns during peak seasons to improve labor planning and ensure quick turnaround/processing.

About Troy Graham

Troy Graham is the VP of Business Development at Descartes, where he is focused on helping businesses succeed in the high growth eCommerce market, enabling excellence across the e-commerce supply chain, and providing integrated e-commerce solutions that facilitate digital transformation for retailers and online pure players.

About Descartes

Descartes (Nasdaq:DSGX) (TSX:DSG) is the global leader in providing on-demand, software- as-a-service solutions focused on improving the productivity, performance and security of logistics-intensive businesses. Customers use our modular, software-as-a-service solutions to route, schedule, track and measure delivery resources; plan, allocate and execute shipments; rate, audit and pay transportation invoices; access global trade data; file customs and security documents for imports and exports; and complete numerous other logistics processes by participating in the world’s largest, collaborative multimodal logistics community. Our headquarters are in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and we have offices and partners around the world. Learn more at www.descartes.com, and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

e-commerce websites are getting much stronger on Thanksgiving day compared to 2019 record spending

eCommerce websites

According to the Adobe Analytics data, the retailers are offering the curbside pickup that got it benefits up to 31% higher conversion rate on their traffic to their e-commerce website. This data is indicating that the trend is going to increase due to the coming Christmas weekend. Also, it is going to approach with so many free and low-cost shipping options.

As per Adobe, analysis is evident of the 1 trillion visits to the US retail sites. Therefore, it also shows that 80 of the 100 largest retailers in the US and 100 million to the SKUs.

Thanksgiving day has made a new record by hitting the new record with the consumers spending up to $5.1 billion, which is 21.5% higher than the $4.2billion rate of Thanksgiving 2019.

Many retailers opted for the closing of their brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving day to force US consumers to shop from the online e-commerce sites. With the increase of people searching for the products online on the e-commerce stores, outages were not within the discussion topic for the companies and brands on Thursday. This shows that the companies have spent most of their investments in the past year for support.

Taylor Schreiner, the director of Adobe Digital Insights, said that “While yesterday was a record-breaking Thanksgiving Day with over $5 billion spent online, it didn’t come with the kind of aggressive growth rate we’ve seen with the start of the pandemic.”

He further said that the heavy discounts and aggressive promotion at the beginning of November has made many customers open their wallets for shopping quite earlier.

The COVID-19 and the election have impacted much the consumers’ shopping behavior this year, which makes this financial year an unprecedented one for e-commerce websites. However, some consumers are still relying upon the gift purchases today and on Cyber Monday to get the best of the deals.

eCommerce attacks are about to surge in 2020 with the Black Friday alert

eCommerce attacks are about to surge in 2020 with the Black Friday alert

There is an imposing warning for the threats on a spike in the cyberattacks against the retailers this season. It is more likely going to leave its impact upon the coming Black Friday and holiday season shopping with a Black Friday alert.

As per the reports of Imperva’s State of Security Within e-commerce comes up with all the data from its multitude of security products. It comes with the note of several approaching attack trends this year, which is very likely drawing its influence from the great number of shoppers who are leaning on online shopping due to COVID-19.

The report first claimed that e-retailers had experienced more account takeover attempts than any other niches or industries this year – almost 62% of the pages facing the hit, compared to 25%. Therefore the 79% of the retailers suffered due to the credential stuffing. In such cases, the previously breached credentials were used for the automated attacks to operate the attacks on a huge number of sites.

As per an Akamai study, the retails accounted for more than 90% of 64 billion credentials with the stuffed attempts during 2018-2020.

Moreover, the API attacks have crossed the usual past levels from 42% of the cross-site scripting and 40% of SQLi. The majority of attackers are targeting the customer database to make this work out.

The XSS only accounted for 16% of the retailers’ attacks this year, which is more common to the remote code of execution for 21 %and 20% of data leakage. Therefore, it also approached 49% of attacks on the US sites using the anonymizing tool.

The DDoS attacks enhanced the volume and intensity this year. As per the monitoring of Imperva, an average of eight layered attacks each month against the online retailers occurred in the April months due to the lockdowns.

Imperva also warned about exposing the retailers to Magecart and other attacks for those who use the 31Javascript. And the attackers are targeting Black Friday for the sales season with a Black Friday alert.

Edward Roberts, the application security strategist at Imperva, said, “Amid this historic holiday shopping season. The retail industry is likely to experience a peak in human traffic that exceeds anything measured this year and unlike anything in recent memory. The question is, how many attackers are going to hide within this expected traffic spike?”

Amazon grows its business with online pharmacy

Amazon grows its business with online pharmacy

Amazon is now going to sell insulin and inhalers on their site. The company launched its online pharmacy on 17th November in the USA. It will give the Amazon users a chance to order their medication and refills through their phone and get it delivered on their doorsteps within a couple of days.

This new move by Amazon is to start with a new business, to shake up the pharmacy industry just as their previous business as the toy seller and bookseller and grocer. Big chains like CVS and Walgreens depend upon their pharmacies to generate a steadier flow of shoppers to their business who shop quite frequently for their medication supply.

Amazon said that they are going to offer commonly prescribed medications, which will start on Tuesday. It would include pills, creams, and other medications like insulin. Users need to set up a profile on Amazon to send their doctor suggested prescriptions near the Seattle-based eCommerce giant.

Moreover, Amazon will help its customers with the facility of comparing the prices of the drugs. The company also aims to let the users save 80% on generic medicines and 40% on branded medicines while buying without insurance.

TJ Parker, the vice President of Amazon Pharmacy, said, “We designed Amazon Pharmacy to put customers first – bringing Amazon’s customer obsession to an industry that can be inconvenient and confusing.”

Amazon said that most of their insurances are accepted. Moreover, Prime members who do not have any insurance can also purchase medicines of generic brands and drugs from Amazon for discounts.

Amazon has had their experience in the healthcare industry for some time.  They spent an amount of US $750 million two years ago to buy an online pharmacy, PillPack. This company provides organized medications in packets mentioning the day-to-day time when it must be consumed. Amazon said that PillPack is going to continue while focusing on shipping medication for people who come with chronic conditions.

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