Top 4 Global E-Commerce Articles for the Week of March 21

???? to the +172 new subscribers that joined the newsletter over the last week, bringing us to 2,204 and counting!

For those who are new here, every week(ish) I'll share various topics that I think are important for the modern leader in E-Commerce.

Every Monday, I'll try to share the articles that stood out to me that are worth a few minutes of your time to read.

Article 1:?CommerceIQ Gets its Horn as Capital Continues to Flow Into E-commerce Infrastructure Startups?

Let’s kick off with an announcement that’s hugely important to me. CommerceIQ has closed its latest round of funding and achieved unicorn status! See the press release here. I’m immensely proud of the team we’ve built to get to this point and our customers and investors who have placed their faith in us.

What does this mean for the industry? It’s time for better retail ecommerce management. For streamlined ecommerce that relies on the always-on tactical automations that culminate in a coherent strategy. Manual, people-based management is too tedious and time-intensive to keep up with ecommerce which requires minute-by-minute alterations to be truly optimized.

However, despite the news, the best is yet to come. I’m confident in our team and people, and I know that we’re building something truly special in the industry.

Article 2:?Amazon closes $8.5 Billion Acquisition of MGM?

Amazon is most likely set to join the ranks of those companies involved in recent, big media mergers with its acquisition of MGM. It’s worth noting that much of Amazon’s revenue doesn’t even come from retail. By diversifying its base of products, Amazon can better afford to weather storms isolated in one industry or another. It can also fund expansion in a nascent or struggling division by pulling profits generated somewhere else. This ability is a privilege many smaller competitors don’t share and is more reason that Amazon is able to outpace competitors. There is an advantage to scale and operational diversity.

The other big takeaway is the ever-increasing value of a Prime membership. The more Amazon ads to Prime video, especially unique content unavailable elsewhere, the more shoppers will be willing to pay for their membership. Streaming is just one front on that push but contributes to Amazon’s core goal of becoming indispensable in its shoppers’ lives.

Article 3:?With Inflation Surging, Biden Targets Ocean Shipping

?As inflation persists, agencies, politicians, and pundits alike are hard at work looking for a culprit. Biden has recently turned his attention to the trans-oceanic shipping industry where record corporate profits during a time of price instability are particularly conspicuous. A key stat from the article: compared to two years ago, the cost of shipping from China to the West Coast has gone up 12x and the time spent in transit for an average trip has doubled. Yet the cost has been passed on to suppliers in the form of higher fees and penalties from rules that have not adapted to?today’s much more convoluted pace of shipping. In turn, suppliers have been able to pass these costs on to the consumer. I don’t think this can hold true for much longer if inflation continues.

I think no matter what happens, costs are set to increase in the short term. We may be over the hump of untangling legacy issues from 2021’s supply chain struggles, but 2022 has served up troubles of its own with disruptions due to fresh lockdowns in China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is little that Biden can do to eliminate the fallout from these issues. Examining the fee structure of these companies and preventing any major future mergers under antitrust grounds will not solve the situation.

We’ll look at our own data for this issue during our upcoming webinar. Check out the event here to register. CommerceIQ’s head of industry insights, Tim Campbell, will walk you through the retail and ecommerce industry trends in review for Q1 2022.

Article 4:?Reliance Retail Acquires Majority Staking in D2C Brand Clovia for $125 Million

Reliance Retail is in the warpath to acquire share in Indian retail. For the time being, it doesn’t look like Amazon can mount a legal counterattack that will be accepted in the courts, especially for Reliance’s takeover of many of Future Retail’s stores. The Clovia acquisition is just another feather in the cap of Reliance’s onward march as it acquires potential competitors and leverages its scale to build out these budding platforms.