e-Commerce news & more I 1st Jun to 7th Jun

Economy reopens, Bankruptcies rise!

While Business Bankruptcies Rose 48% in May VS last year, economies across the globe are re-opening and the stock market is at record high levels!

This week exciting announcement includes…

Alibaba expanding presence in US, Gucci bet on personalized video shopping, Honda is developing first in-car voice shopping, Decathlon turns stores into fulfillment centers, Pinterest adds a ‘Shop’ tab to its Lens Camera, Locus Robotics raises $40M to accelerate automated picking

1. E-commerce giant Alibaba expands its US presence with new programs designed to help small business owners struggling during the coronavirus

Following announcements from Shopify, Google, Facebook around programs to help small businesses in this time of crisis, it’s now Alibaba joining their ranks.

Alibaba is offering SMB:

-      Invoice payment terms (To ease pressure on cash)

-      New freighting partners (To smooth bulk shipping)

-      Virtual trade shows (To help reach out to customers)

Alibaba is investing to build a strong position in the US, will be interesting to see if they can compete with Amazon!

2. Gucci’s new tech bet: Personalised video shopping

The luxury megabrand just launched a bid to recreate its crucial in-store experience virtually! Gucci just launched Gucci Live, a video service that lets staff communicate with shoppers on their mobiles or laptops. As luxury brands move online, this could be a great solution to give a personalized and differentiated experience to their customers.

3. Honda is developing world’s first in-car voice activated shopping system

You can’t drive and buy stuff online (at least legally)! That might change soon!

Honda is partnering with Chinese tech giant Tencent to develop the world’s first in-car voice activated shopping system. As autonomous vehicles becomes the norm, people will have a lot of time while in transit and voice activated shopping will be a big competitive advantage to convert these purchases!

4. Decathlon turns stores into fulfillment centers

The world’s largest sporting goods retailer Decathlon is keeping its U.S. stores “in the game” during the COVID-19 pandemic by using the store as fulfillment center for online orders. We saw recent announcement of large grocery chains like Wholefood & Kroger using their stores as fulfillment centers and we can expect this to continue and increase, we are in a time of Omni-Supply!

5. Pinterest adds a ‘Shop’ tab to its Lens Camera search results to showcase matching in-stock products

Pinterest joining the ecommerce race with the launch of “Shop” tab in its Lens camera search results. This function will show you the matching in-stock merchandise similar to a photo you take of something offline in the real world or even uploaded as a screenshot. This could be a great way for Pinterest to leverage its huge platform & audience to penetrate further in ecommerce

6. Start Up of the week: Locus

Locus Robotics raises another $40M as retailers increasingly look to automate

Have you ever wondered what happens once you push the “buy button”?

Well, it’s amazing! A network of people, facilities, technology, planes, trucks, robots are deployed to prepare your order as fast as possible and get it delivered to you on time!!

With Covid19 impact and regulations on social distancing, we will see more and more automation in supply chains to prepare your orders on time. Locus is one of the leading technology companies providing picking assistant robots and supporting automation for the picking process which is one of most critical step in Ecommerce Supply Chain! Excited to see the news as I personally love this technology & company.

Cheers

Nabil