Top 4 Global Retail Ecommerce Articles for the Week of October 31
Guru Hariharan
CEO at CommerceIQ ?? | Host of Leaders in REM feat. C-Suite Ecommerce leaders | ?? DM me if you run a Fortune 100 brand and need help growing your Ecommerce business
???? to the 17+ new subscribers that joined the newsletter over the last week, bringing us to 2958 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 Retail Ecommerce.
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.
?There are some great informational nuggets in this Wall Street Journal interview with Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner of venture-capital firm Forerunner, and?Lydia Jett, managing partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers.
?First, I agree with the interviewees that 2022’s ecommerce slowdown is a one-off cooldown period. Once we anniversary that shock in year-over-year earnings reports, I expect ecommerce to continue to grow at a strong, double-digit clip. A more protracted recession could prevent retail growth altogether, however. According to the panelists from WSJ, warehouse inventories are up 20% YoY while 30% of consumers are saying they will have tighter budgets. The takeaway? Expect more discounts this holiday season. Our CommerceIQ data on Prime’s Early Access Sales suggest discounts have already started to rise for key holiday periods.
?Despite ecommerce’s great reset, the Retail Ecommerce Management (REM) industry is still in its early stages. Those brands and retailers that treat their business like a single, unified entity across platforms are best positioned to succeed as ecommerce continues to grow. As a brand, that means providing access to easy data sharing, having attribution metrics that work across different accounts or platforms, and automating away routine tasks.
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?Last week was important for the retail and tech world. Though Amazon’s reported earnings fell short of expectations as sales and profitability remain pressured, the big question remains: how much of these results are a reset from COVID and how much of it will continue into 2023?
?Just as ecommerce will recover in 2023, I also believe Amazon’s slowdown is temporary. As brands aim to pull back on expenses, expect brands to shift investment away from DTC and toward larger marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart long term. Don’t be surprised if Amazon gains ecommerce share over time despite its current size.
?This excellent piece from PYMNTS showcases just how much Amazon and Walmart dominate the retail industry. Each retailer accounts for 7% of consumer retailer spending, yet they achieve that mark in vastly different ways. Amazon accounts for 45% of US ecommerce spending while Walmart only accounts for 5.4%. Amazon beats Walmart on total captured share of all discretionary spending across platforms by 2.5x whereas Walmart beats Amazon’s market share for food and beverage sales by over 7x.
?Unsurprisingly, Amazon continues to gain ground over time, but Walmart has still proven to be exceptionally resilient throughout the pandemic considering how it already saturated many US markets. Both retailers will succeed in the future as they can each leverage their resources to wait out and invest through any downturn.
?Article 4:?Chinese tech giants’ push into U.S., Europe’s markets sets up a potential clash with Amazon
?Chinese firms Pinduoduo and ByteDance are trying to establish an overseas ecommerce presence after witnessing the success of Chinese fast fashion brand Shein in the US. The problem? They lack brand recognition, and livestream/influencer-based social shopping has not taken off in the US the way it has in Asian countries. Nevertheless, they are betting that foreign consumers will be open to native Chinese brands, not just international products manufactured in China.
?Selling across borders requires knowledge of local shoppers and competition. The more data a brand can incorporate into a single source of truth, the easier it will be to make confident decisions grounded in reality. Data sharing across continents should be no different from comparing sales data across retailer accounts in one market. Managers should have the tools they need to determine how different items will sell in different markets, or even how they should be adapted. Too many overseas ventures have failed because no one paid attention to how an offer should be adapted abroad.