e-Commerce news & more I 2nd Mar to 8th Mar

While we celebrate women across the globe! Happy women’s day! We close another complicated week in the stock market, and the week coming promise to be even more complex as OPEC deal failure sparks price war! In the meantime in the world of Ecommerce: Amazon continues it’s dominance on speed launching same day delivery for 3 millions items + night delivery, Burlington goes offline?, Walmart continues it’s omnichannel efforts, ContactlessDelivery goes global, EBay introduces image tool to help sellers, Brooklinen raises $50M for global expansion!

Same-Day Delivery just got faster

Same-Day Delivery just got faster, Amazon is now offering up to 3 million items with same day service in Philadelphia, Phoenix, Orlando, and Dallas. There are two very interesting things in this enhancement of service: a) The huge increase of items offered compared to previous prime now service. b) The overnight delivery which would be deliveries done between 4:30am & 8am ready in your doorstep when you wake up. As I mentioned before, in the next 2 years same day will be a normal expectation for any kind of product (It’s already the case for Groceries and will extend to all categories of products and brands).

Burlington Pulls The Plug On E-Commerce; Can Any Retailer Afford To Do That?

I don’t think that this is a good long term strategy for any retailers, we have seen many examples of brands & retailers which took very very long to enter the space of ecommerce thinking that the strength of the brick & mortar was unbreakable and finally either changed or went bankrupt! Will be interesting to see how Burlington perform but I think moving away from the fastest growing channel is simply not a good strategy!

Walmart Grocery is merging with Walmart’s main app and website

We are seeing week after week the efforts of Walmart to create a cohesive & unified customer experience through multiple changes in organizational structure and technology. As grocery online sales are exploding in many mature markets, I think that joining both business is a critical step to grow (in 2018 Amazon joined Amazon Fresh & Prime now due to the same synergies & consumer experience)

Delivery startups set up contactless delivery options as coronavirus fears grow in U.S.

Few weeks ago, we covered the Contactless delivery initiative in China following the Coronavirus outbreak. It’s now time for the US based companies to implement this kind of solutions as well with the announcements from Postmates & Instacart following their Chinese delivery counterpart, we can expect this trend to continue to grow in the coming weeks.

EBay introduces image tool to help sellers display better product images

As sellers have many marketplace options to sell their products today, it’s critical for marketplaces like Ebay to offer more than just traffic of potential Buyer. This new tool called “image cleanup” is an example of the technologies that Marketplaces are putting in place to help sellers sell more and facilitate their life! This is a good initiative from Ebay but not sure it will be appealing enough VS 225 new tools and services ($15 Billion investment) launched in 2019 by Amazon to help Worldwide Third-Party Sellers…

Start up of the week: Brooklinen

Following the wave created by Casper, It seems that Brooklinen is on a great track to be the next Direct to Consumer online powerhouse for home goods products such as sheets, pillows, towels, robes and loungewear. The company is already profitable which is a real challenge in this direct to consumer category. The 50 M in funding will go towards growth methods like wholesale distribution, international expansion, and new stores (up to 30 total over the next three years, yes yes stores!)

One more thing

As we celebrate womens across the globe! Happy Women Days! I wanted to celebrate few entrepreneurs who I think are building some incredible companies in the Ecommerce space!

Emily Weiss (Glossier), Katrina Lake & Erin Flynn (Stitch Fix), Katia Beauchamp & Hayley Barna (Birchbox), Jennifer Hyman & Jennifer Fleiss (Rent the Runway), Ankiti Bose (Zilingo)! keep going as you are inspiring our daugthers, sisters and mothers ! (and mens as well btw)!

Enjoy, Cheers

Nabil