E-commerce Industry News Recap - Week of May 8th, 2023
Paul Drecksler
12,000+ E-commerce Professionals Read My Weekly Newsletter - Shopifreaks.com is the Internet's highest rated weekly roundup of the top e-commerce news stories that impact your business.
This is a summary recap of the?120th Edition?of the?Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter?- brought to you by?Paul Drecksler?&?BigCommerce. Check out the?full edition?for links and sources.?
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1. STAT OF THE WEEK: 46% of Peruvians (15.6 million) made purchases online. E-commerce in Peru registered a 30% expansion in 2022, reaching $12B. – According to Peruvian Chamber of Electronic Commerce
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2. Shopify sold its logistics arm, including Deliverr which it acquired for $2.1B last May, to Flexport , a US-based supply chain management and logistics company, in an all stock deal. Shopify now owns 13% of Flexport, which was most recently valued at around $8B, meaning that Shopify’s $2.1B acquisition is now worth a little more than $1B (not including the stake Shopify bought at Flexport’s Series E round 15 months ago). As part of the deal, Flexport became Shopify's “preferred” logistics partner.
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3. Shopify also sold 6 River Systems, Part of Ocado Group , the warehouse robot maker it acquired in 2019 for $450M, to Ocado Group , an autonomous mobile robot fulfillment provider based in Massachusetts. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ocado said that the acquisition brings new IP and valuable commercial and R&D expertise in non-grocery retail to their organization.
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4. And last but certainly not least in regards to impact, Shopify is laying off another 20% of its staff, or around 2,300 workers. Ten months ago they laid off around 1,000 employees. Condolences to everyone impacted by this round of layoffs.
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5. Wix partnered with Shippo to launch its new native shipping solution, Wix Shipping. The partnership gives Wix merchants access to Shippo's end-to-end shipping technology directly from the Wix Dashboard without the need to subscribe to a 3rd party shipping tool. Wix merchants can now buy and print shipping and return labels, fulfill orders in the same dashboard they manage products and inventory, and access Shippo's negotiated discounted shipping rates.
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6. Facebook and Instagram will soon force their checkout experience on merchants who list their products within their internal Shops feature. In other words, customers will now be required to enter their payment info and complete checkout within the IG or FB apps, as opposed to being directed to the merchant's e-commerce website. Beginning June 5th, 2023 new Shops to onboard via Commerce Manager and Shopify will only be able to offer checkout on FB and IG, and for all other onboarding partners by Aug 10th, 2023. However existing shops have until April 24th, 2024 before the checkout experience becomes required.
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7. 苹果 's newly launched high yield savings account, which offers a 4.15% annual return, brought in $990M in deposits over its first four days. On launch day alone, the savings account drew nearly $400M deposits. By the end of launch week, roughly 240k accounts had been opened.
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8. Digital Commerce 360 released their 2023 Ecommerce in Manufacturing & Distribution Report, which offers a detailed study of the way online purchasing plays in these industries. US manufacturers and distributors grew total B2B sales in 2022 to $14.8B, up 15.4% YoY. It's not all sunshine and roses in the world of B2B e-commerce though. New research from Merkle found that only 34% of buyers give their repeat business to a B2B brand they used in a previous purchase.
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9. Airbnb announced that it would roll out over 50 new features and upgrades to its platform. One feature called “Airbnb Rooms” aims to make it easier for travelers to stay with locals in their spare bedrooms as a more affordable way to travel — which is how Airbnb originally started. Other changes and improvements include better / faster maps, a redesign of guest wishlists, listings now include clearer and more transparent checkout instructions, partnership with Klarna to offer BNPL, and tweaks to fees guests pay for stays over 3 months.
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10. TikTok , Meta , Vevo , and Condé Nast announced new ad products and media planning tools on the final day of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's 2023 NewFronts. Meta is bringing AR ads to IG & FB Reels, and new ways to pause a Reel ad for in-app reviews. TikTok is now allowing brands to buy ads on specific publishers' content, as well as ads for content tied to events. Vevo is introducing a branded content studio that will offer advertisers a chance to pay to appear within live performances. And Condé Nast is introducing a new custom branded video offering and giving B2B clients first-party insights and access to their editors and creators.?
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11. The FTC alleged that Meta violated its 2020 privacy order and is now proposing new protections for children and teens. Under the proposed restrictions, Meta's services would face limitations on the usage of data obtained from children and teenagers, only being able to use its data for providing services or ensuring security, while commercial exploitation would be prohibited.
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12. 阿里巴巴集团 is exploring a U.S. IPO for its international online shopping unit, as part of its plan to split up the company into different businesses units. The company is in the early stages of the plan and has not yet determined the size of the offering, however they are currently in talks with banks to serve as its underwriters.
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13. Squarespace launched a new guided website design system called Squarespace Blueprint that offers an upgraded set of styling options and a new layout for building a site. The service works by customers answering questions about the type of website they want to build, and then the tool combines multiple template elements together to create a tailor-made starting point for businesses.
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14. E-commerce sales were down 8% in Canada YoY in Q1, worse than globally which collectively experienced a 2% decline. The report said that price is now the number one reason customers are switching brands and making purchasing decisions, which has impacted the average spend by customers.
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15. eBay appointed Vidmay Naini as its general manager for global emerging markets, a role that covers the company's growth in SEA, India, Eastern Europe, Israel, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Naini has been with the company for 18 years, where he previously led eBay's Southeast Asia and India businesses.
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16. eGrowcery , a developer of a white-label e-commerce platform for the food industry, released a new option that allows retailers to own their e-commerce technology, as opposed to subscribe to it via a SaaS product. At the end of a mutually-defined period, the retailer has the option to migrate their e-commerce platform over to their own servers, where they can then control the product development moving forward.
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17. 亚马逊 introduced Fire TV Channels, a new, free, ad-supported streaming video experience. The channels will be integrated into various Fire TV interfaces including Home Screen rows, within Fire TV's Free Tab, and in category specific pages devoted to certain genres. Fire TV is also gaining new channels form NHL, Xbox, TMZ, and a new Travel category.
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18. 亚马逊 is also launching a new unit to distribute its movies and TV shows to other media outlets besides its own Prime Video. Some of Amazon's programming will soon be available to rent or buy on other streaming services, on airplanes, and on foreign TV networks.
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19. Meesho laid off 251 employees, or around 15% of its workforce, to cut costs as part of its efforts to achieve profitability. All affected staff members will get one-month extra severance pay beyond the notice period and ESOPs irrespective of the period they have been with the company.
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20. eBay recently told buyers to “get friendly with the seller” and “build that relationship” to discuss things like price or delivery options to arrive at a good deal — advice that's contrary to their previous stance. eBay has historically discouraged buyer-seller communication because it is fearful of people coordinating sales off its platform to avoid paying fees.
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21. Equifax introduced an app for the Shopify marketplace called Kount Essentials, designed to address fraud challenges faced by merchants. Maybe I can use the $5.21 data breach settlement they sent me last year to cover the first eight minutes of the service.
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22. Splitit and Visa partnered up to offer merchants a BNPL solution that can be embedded within the merchants' existing credit card process, allowing them to offer the installment service to their customers. The pilot product will be launched by Splitit and Visa during the second half of 2023 in select markets.
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23. Amazon Labor Union's VP Derrick Palmer is facing criminal charges over allegations that he choked his girlfriend. Police bodycam video shows Palmer admitting to strangling his girlfriend, and if convicted, he could face jailtime and the possibility of being barred from serving as a union officer.
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24. Salesforce added new generative AI and real-time data capabilities to its Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Data Cloud offerings via an enhanced version of Einstein, its AI assistant that launched earlier this year. New capabilities include Einstein Bots for Sales, which automates lead conversion and prequalifies web visitors, and Einstein Conversation Insights, which provides insights to sellers through conversational and transcription analysis.
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25. Plus 9 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including Mozilla's acquisition of Fakespot.?
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I hope you find this news recap helpful.
Read the full edition w/ sources here:?https://www.shopifreaks.com/everyones-going-back-to-their-roots/
Subscribe to my weekly e-mail here:?https://www.shopifreaks.com/
See you next week!
Editor of?Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter