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  • Amazon and the pros of getting personal

    Amazon and the pros of getting personal

    if you want people to use your application and give you their money and information, you must provide them with speed, efficiency or time savings in exchange. The average user looks at his phone 150 times a day (and rising), but each of those interactions is growing shorter. Users perceive value when their technology interfaces enable them to get done what THEY need to do more efficiently.  Lingering on a screen, scrolling through options…these are not things most users like. But every user is different. You can model behavior, and you can create 80/20 rules to hit a majority of users, but there is nothing like an application or an experience that just gets you. For users, feeling known is no longer a nice-to-have feature: it is an expectation.

    My own experience with personalization pre-dates the modern mobile phone era.  I was wrapping up my college career just as the first Internet boom was winding down.  At the time, Amazon was not nearly the behemoth it is today, and clouds were still puffy collections of moisture in the sky. Personalization of content on the still nascent internet was limited, to put it nicely. In order to graduate college, I had to complete my senior project. I drew inspiration from my own career history as a restaurant manager, and decided to create a Restaurant Food Delivery service website, which allowed a user to order food from any number of area restaurants, and arrange for that delivery through a third party. The project was narrowly focused on the creation of the website, and the rest of the necessary workflow was completely fake, so no I did not create an early, cave-man version of DoorDash. But, the user experience screamed the need for some kind of personalization, some way to make reasonable recommendations to users about meals they may enjoy.

    Enter Amazon.com.  

    As a student and technologist, the access to the knowledge provided to me by Amazon, through purchasing and delivery of books, was astounding. And as I bought books, Amazon would recommend other books, and these recommendations would get better and better, and this became the inspiration for the recommendation engine I would implement in my senior project.  In my attempts to reverse engineer the algorithm that Amazon uses, I implemented a basic engine that looked across the items a person ordered and matched other food orders with similar items, and then selected an item not on the current user’s list as a recommendation. It was basic, but it did the trick…I was allowed to graduate.

    Years later, well into my career, I learned this method of recommendation is called Collaborative Filtering, and was in fact the approach used by the nascent Amazon.com shopping system to make recommendations. As an early pioneer in the online shopping space, Amazon had the data to sign up the game in personalized recommendations. The eCommerce space has been using recommendation engines for many years now. Shopping platforms like Magento have plugins and extensions to enable recommendations, and while these tools are great and perform a similar function to Amazon.com’s engine, they are domain and platform-specific.

    “The Cloud” expands the pure volume of data available for making recommendations. This expansion, with no other technology changes, brings an opportunity for better recommendations. But that is not where the Cloud stops. By expanding access to high-performance computation, high-speed data storage, and high volumes of data, The Cloud has enabled an explosion in machine learning and artificial intelligence. And this has brought the concept of personalization to a whole new level.

    With Personalize, Amazon takes advantage of all that has gone into building the largest Cloud on the planet, and all that was learned through Amazon.com and what started as a Collaborative Filtering approach, and expanded, matured, and brought it to the technology community as a general-purpose platform for personalization.

    Amazon Personalize sets out to empower us, as technologists, to meet the expectation with which our CCO has challenged us. It brings an easy-to-use, highly scalable platform to power recommendations, and more, across nearly any domain. By allowing you to define a schema + additional metadata, and apply an HRNN based Machine Learning algorithm to that data, Personalize is able to surface recommendations about clothing, news articles, doctors, and even food. The model that is used for training is your data, and can be updated as frequently as you choose. This allows you to create a feedback loop to regularly enhance your recommendations. It also provides for preferential ranking of content. Enabling you to surface the most likely needs for your users when performing searches.

    Typically, the barrier to entry for this kind of machine learning technology has always been the complexity of establishing the machine learning data pipeline and processing model, which would typically include these activities:

    • Build a machine learning engine
    • Train one or more models
    • Test those models and then retrain as needed
    • Design and implement a method of generating inferences from those models
    • Create the data pipeline to serve the model
    • Deploy the model with an integrated data pipeline
    • Etc…

    By building on their other technologies, AWS reduces this barrier significantly by providing the machine learning engine that trains the model from your curated data and an easily accessible RESTful API for generating inferences across this trained model by user or by item. This also allows for sorting a list of items in a way that is most useful to the individual. It does this all on top of the core AWS services, like SageMaker and IaaS capabilities, which allows this engine to run at scale servicing all of your consumer personalization needs.

    Amazon Personalize does not solve everything, however. It does not eliminate the need to know and understand your data. It does not replace your data science or development teams. Extracting, transforming, and loading data into Personalize is still something that needs to be done. Testing the validity of the trained model, and the accuracy of the recommendations is an absolutely necessary step you need to take, and Personalize does not change that.

    In addition to the concept of “fair exchange of value,”  another thing our CCO likes to talk about is the anxiety and fear users have when interacting with technology, and the importance of frictionless experiences to reduce that anxiety and eliminate that fear. The barrier to entry for many in the machine learning space is also anxiety and fear. It is anxiety about whether they can really build a machine learning pipeline, fear about both how long it will take and whether they will be finished just in time to miss this train of AI and machine learning-driven experiences. Amazon Personalize’s biggest accomplishment for technologists like us is the reduction of that anxiety and the elimination of that fear. It doesn’t solve all problems related to personalization, but it leaves space for data manipulation and reduces the problem space to something consumable and solvable.

    In a world where a user’s attention span is approximately 12 seconds, Personalize allows us to meet them where they want to be: in a precisely aligned window of time, with an interaction that is a fair exchange of value.

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  • Vietnam Internet economy to expand 31 pct

    Vietnam Internet economy to expand 31 pct

    Vietnam’s Internet economy is expected to grow by 31 percent this year to $21 billion this year despite little or no contribution from the online travel market.

    It is set to reach $57 billion by 2025 after growing at 29 percent a year, according to the e-Conomy Southeast Asia 2021 report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co.

    This means Vietnam will draw level with Malaysia this year and exceed it by 2025.

    It is now only below Indonesia ($70 billion) and Thailand ($30 billion) among the six major economies in Southeast Asia.

    It added eight million new digital consumers between the start of the pandemic and the first half of this year, 55 percent of them from non-metro areas.

    “Stickiness of adoption remains high as digital consumption has become a way of life,” the report said, pointing out that 97 percent of the new consumers are still online.

    The value of the online travel sector is set to plunge by 45 percent this year, but other sectors are headed for double-digit growth, led by e-commerce at 53 percent.

    Digital merchants are becoming tech-savvy and likely to become even more so in the future.

    Thirty percent of them said they would not have survived the pandemic if not for digital platforms.

    Digital financial services are also becoming critical enablers, with 99 percent of digital merchants now accepting digital payments.

    The country saw deal values in the Internet economy quadruple year-on-year in the first half of the year to nearly $1.37 billion from 89 deals.

    “Vietnam remains a very attractive innovation hub with more incubators, accelerators, and innovation labs than most other markets in the region,” the report said.

    The latest deal saw a group of investors led by insurance company AIA invest $258 million in e-commerce company Tiki.

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  • Profitability, customer experience & environmentalism: Streamline ecommerce returns

    Profitability, customer experience & environmentalism: Streamline ecommerce returns

    While ecommerce has been a lifeline for many retailers over the last 18 months, the inadvertent explosion of returns has manifested itself as a major pain-point too. These days many retailers are struggling to address how to get the vast volumes of goods bought online returned either to stores, pickup-points or distribution hubs accurately, and back into your inventory and ready to be sold again?

    Minimising the financial costs and logistical challenges of the ongoing ecommerce wave is certainly a primary factor for brands all over the globe, but there are other motivations to consider too, including potential benefits to the overall customer experience.

    THE FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF RETURNS

    In the USA alone, consumers returned over $101 billion worth of merchandise bought during the 2020 holiday season according to recent data from the National Retail Federation.

    While in another recent study from Retail Economics, it was revealed that UK consumers returned over 17% of the online clothing & footwear purchases on ecommerce sales across the whole of 2020, compared to a returns rate of less than 12% for store purchases. As a whole, this meant that retailers dealt with £4.3bn of returns across physical stores & online purchases in 2020.

    The report also discovered that the Gen Z age group (18-24) was the most prolific age group of returners, particularly for online purchases. As a comparison, like-for-like online orders for Gen Z returns doubled the entire value of apparel purchases compared for the over 65s age bracket.

    The true cost of trading online is being weighed heavily by higher return rates compared to store sales. This also comes on top of a competitive digital landscape and a backdrop of a rising cost per acquisition for online customers too.

    In the USA, processing online returns can cost anywhere between $10 & $20, & that’s not taking into consideration freight charges. For items under a certain price point or large items that may incur hefty shipping charges (that merchants can’t pass off to consumers), the cost-saving benefits of simply allowing consumers to keep certain items is a possibility as demonstrated over the US holiday period with Walmart & Amazon.

    The variability of online costs is putting pressure on traditional retailers to pivot their propositions and streamline legacy fixed costs. In doing so, retailers are increasingly opening their minds to digital investment, technologic advancements (such as microservice architecture and automation) to ease costs and increase overall supply chain agility.

    CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE & THE RETURNS PROCESS               

    Let’s consider customer experience for a moment now. Over the course of the last year, most of us will have experienced the excitement and let down of opening a new item of clothing delivered to the front door, only to find that it doesn’t fit or look quite as you had expected when you ordered it online, followed by the lethargy of realisation that you’ll need to return it.

    According to a December 2020 survey conducted by CivicScience, one in four consumers said that having to drop off packages at a mail facility or collection point (especially during the pandemic), is a major pain point when trying to return online purchases.

    As is often the case, the returns process can regularly make or break the overall brand experience and savvy retailers are increasingly viewing the return process as an opportunity to further engage with customers, providing as it does, an additional touchpoint to enhance the overall customer experience.

    BALANCING RETURNS WITH ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

    Returns come with environmental baggage too, in the form of boxes, plastic bags, bubble wrap, and other packaging, not to mention the added carbon footprint associated with additional courier and freight journeys.

    If a returns process can be streamlined and economised, brands can make significant, positive and meaningful environmental gains. And, at a time when there is an increasing shift in the consumer psyche towards environmentally aware and responsible brands, this is not something that can simply be ignored when it comes to returns.

    Retailers today need to have greater visibility and more intelligence around inventory (regardless of where it is currently residing in your network), smarter front-end omnichannel systems capable of efficiently dealing with customer enquiries and greater insight into data around transportation processes. These are key areas for brands going forward looking to solve challenges presented by the growing returns trend.

    For more information on how your retail outlet can better manage returns processes, please visit: https://www.manh.com/en-sg

    By Richard Wright, Managing Director, SEA, at Manhattan Associates

     

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  • Carousell snaps up sneaker marketplace Ox Street

    Carousell snaps up sneaker marketplace Ox Street

    Online marketplace Carousell has acquired Ox Street, a Singapore-based marketplace for authenticated sneakers and streetwear, the company announced on Monday. It did not disclose the deal value.

    Founded in 2019, Ox Street is focused on making the second-hand sneaker purchase experience more seamless for Southeast Asian youth by inspecting and authenticating the sneakers before they reach buyers.

    Post-acquisition, Ox Street will continue to operate as its own brand, retaining its name, platform, and team.

    “We initially started a conversation with Carousell on partnering up to provide authentication as a service for sneakers, but as discussions progressed, we found so much common ground in how we see the future, that we decided it would be much more powerful for Ox Street to fully join the Carousell group,” said Gijs Verheijke, founder and chief executive of Ox Street.

    “Our focus markets align nearly one to one, and in these markets, Carousell was actually the first, and remains the largest marketplace for sneakers and streetwear.”

    Data portal VentureCap Insights shows that Verheijke owns 90 percent of the company, with the remainder held by an entity, Aito Ventures. The company recorded US$18,975 in revenue in 2019, with a US$206,931 loss.

    Carousell chief executive Quek Siu Rui said that he sees “immense opportunity” in Ox Street’s authentication capabilities. He is optimistic about the “brand love they have created among their dedicated community of sneakerheads and fashion enthusiasts, especially among Gen Z”.

    The deal comes weeks after Carousell raised US$100 million in a round led by South Korean private equity firm STIC, valuing the company at US$1.1 billion. It is said to be considering a public listing in the US through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company. Previous regulatory filings indicate that Carousell aims to provide its investors with an exit by 2024, at a valuation of at least US$1.13 billion.

  • Indian coffee platform to launch brick and mortal network

    Indian coffee platform to launch brick and mortal network

    E-commerce coffee platform, Something’s Brewing, is planning to roll out brick-and-mortar stores across India with its first offline store set to open next month.

    Something’s Brewing’s first physical store will open its doors to the public in Bengaluru on October 1. The launch is part of a plan to move offline, expanding its physical presence in the country. The company has initially raised about US$677,000 for the expansion plan.

    According to CEO of Something’s Brewing, Abhinav Mathur, next year will see the opening of 30 brick-and-mortar stores across the country through franchising and self-operated models. Estimated to cost around US$33,800 to set up, Something’s Brewing store will be designed as a space where coffee lovers can brew different kinds of roasted and blended coffee before purchasing.

    Euromonitor International estimated the value of India’s coffee and retail chains market at Rs 2,579 crore, or approximately US$350 million, in 2018. The market is led by Cafe Coffee Day and Tata Starbucks.

    Founded in 2019, online platform Something’s Brewing offers coffee equipment and products from more than 40 brands, including Baratza, CoffeeSock, Ratio and Bellman.

  • Inmarsat launches new customer experience platform for airlines to monetise inflight connectivity

    Inmarsat launches new customer experience platform for airlines to monetise inflight connectivity

    Inmarsat announced the launch of its innovative new OneFi customer experience platform (CXP) for airlines. The first-of-its-kind solution will serve as a catalyst to monetise inflight connectivity by bringing a host of onboard services together within a single portal interface, which passengers can easily access using their own personal devices.

    OneFi delivers a rich airline-branded digital platform to enhance the passenger experience onboard flights. It allows passengers to order food and beverages, purchase seat upgrades, receive the latest flight and destination information, and sign-up to the airline’s frequent flyer programmes, all in real-time from the comfort of their seat. In addition, passengers can browse the internet, stream videos and audio, shop online and enjoy other ecommerce offerings, using high-speed inflight broadband that airlines could choose to offer free-of-charge, funded through OneFi’s sponsorship and advertising features.

    The launch of OneFi comes at a critical time for airlines, with the global pandemic having accelerated passenger demand for digital inflight experiences. Inmarsat’s recent 2021 Passenger Confidence Tracker, the largest and most comprehensive global survey of its kind since the pandemic began, found that digital solutions that keep passengers connected and minimise their contact with cabin crew and fellow passengers can go a long way in boosting confidence. In addition, out of the 10,000 respondents worldwide, 41% believed inflight Wi-Fi had increased in importance after the pandemic.

    Philip Balaam, President of Inmarsat Aviation, said: “For many years, Inmarsat has advocated the vast commercial opportunities of inflight connectivity. However, until now, airlines have struggled to realise the full potential of the business model. OneFi is a step change for those looking to monetise their Wi-Fi services and ensure they keep pace with evolving passenger needs. It will empower a digital transformation in the cabin, which is especially important at this critical time for the aviation industry.

    “OneFi allows airlines to improve their brand experience and secure passenger loyalty, with the flexibility to incorporate their own services and use existing and new partners, such as content providers, advertisers and retailers. We are in advanced discussions with leading airlines about adopting this innovative new platform and expect to see a rollout with our first OneFi customer by the end of this year.”

    In recent years, airlines have continued to increase their focus on unlocking new revenue streams through broadband-enabled ancillary services. The market for digital inflight advertising alone is forecast to grow from $266 million today to $3.3 billion by 2030, representing a 10-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.9% between 2020 and 2030, according to Valour Consulting.

    The launch of OneFi is a significant step in turning that untapped commercial opportunity into a reality. OneFi promises industry grade targeting features, media inventory and calls-to-action that are made available to the airline and its partners. These ensure that content is contextual and relevant to the individual passenger. It also enables partners to engage in more meaningful ways with passengers and boost sales lead generation rates. The platform’s intuitive, user-friendly interface will enable airlines to boost passenger take-up rates and create a frictionless funnel to purchase.

    In addition, OneFi is network agnostic and uses open architecture, meaning it can integrate with any technology infrastructure and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) used by airlines, ensuring a uniform experience across mixed aircraft fleets. The platform is also scalable, giving airline customers the flexibility to add new third-party services over time and helping to future proof their onboard offering.

    Inmarsat is transforming global aviation by bringing complete connectivity to aircraft and flight paths across the world. It recently unveiled plans for ORCHESTRA to bring existing geosynchronous (GEO) satellites together with low earth orbit satellites (LEO) and terrestrial 5G to form an integrated, high-performance solution, unmatched by any existing or planned competitor offering. ORCHESTRA allows capacity to be boosted in high-density areas such as at airports, eliminating congested network ‘hot spots’ and ensuring the connectivity needs of aviation customers are met well into the future, with capacity scaled directly to match their requirements.

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  • Carousell Group raises US$100 million for SEA rollout

    Carousell Group raises US$100 million for SEA rollout

    Carousell Group, the leading classifieds group in Greater Southeast Asia, today announced that it has secured an investment of US$100 million to accelerate its leadership in the region, and to reimagine the classifieds experience with a focus on convenience and trust, to make secondhand the first choice.

    This round of funding, led by STIC Investments, a leading Korean private equity that invests across Asia, marks a significant milestone that will bring Carousell’s valuation to US$1.1 billion. The investment will power the group’s ambitions to redefine commerce for secondhand goods and automobiles in an increasingly digitally savvy, affluent and sustainability-conscious region.

    “The pandemic has shown us that our mission to inspire the world to start selling and buying secondhand is more relevant than ever. People in the community are using our platforms to make more possible for each other—through shared passions, making ends meet, affording what they need, or simply because it is more sustainable. We believe that the accelerated adoption of digital experiences is an opportunity for us to double down on our recommerce efforts with a focus on convenience and trust, to unlock step-change growth in our community,” said Quek Siu Rui, Co-founder and CEO of Carousell. “STIC’s investment is a validation of our mission and strategic direction. We’ll deepen our investments in recommerce across more categories and markets, and will continue to seek opportunistic acquisitions in scaling up.”

    “We have been monitoring Carousell as one of the leading platforms in Greater Southeast Asia, and are excited to partner up with a significant stake in its growth story,” said Jason Cho, Managing Director of STIC Investments.  “Carousell continues to achieve tremendous user growth as they transform the recommerce market, adding new features that are focused on creating trusted marketplaces and enhancing overall user experience.  We are highly confident that Carousell will be at the center of the secondhand economy in this region at a time when an increasing number of socio-economic and environmentally conscious consumers are shifting towards a circular economy”. As part of the funding round, Mr. Cho will join the Carousell Board of Directors.

    Since its founding in 2012, the Group serves a community of tens of millions of users across eight markets in Greater Southeast Asia under the brands Carousell, Mudah.my, Cho Tot and OneKyat. Carousell’s pioneering mobile-first approach reignited the classifieds space, making selling and buying easier and proving to be an essential one-stop shop across all categories.

    “We have grown way beyond categories like fashion, electronics and general goods,” said Siu Rui, “As the region becomes more affluent, people want to enjoy the finer things in life. We are looking at authentication capabilities for higher-value products, including luxury goods and cars. Our goal is to make transacting in a secondhand marketplace as convenient and trusted as any e-commerce platform so that secondhand can truly be the first choice.”

    This year alone, Carousell has piloted a Certified Mobiles programme in Singapore, offering a 12-month warranty for used mobile phones to offer users a like-new experience at secondhand prices, and launched integrated shipping with PosLaju (the Malaysia national postal service) to provide contactless transaction options for sellers and buyers during the Movement Control Order. Carousell Auto Group, which was formed earlier this year to leverage its regional leadership position in car classifieds, has in a short period rolled out a Certified Autos programme in Malaysia that achieved the largest inventory of certified cars in the country, with other key markets to follow

    “We are grateful and privileged to have investors, teammates and users who believe in our mission and our journey in building a meaningful and enduring company,” Siu Rui added.

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  • Amazon developing new point-of-sale system to attract small businesses

    Amazon developing new point-of-sale system to attract small businesses

    Amazon.com is working on a new type of point-of-sale system that can be sold to third-party sellers.

    The new system can handle both online and offline transactions and can also link to other services including Prime and Flex, the report added, citing an internal document.

    The move will allow Amazon to compete with Canada’s Shopify and U.S. payments giant PayPal, which already offer POS systems for payments for small businesses, that have moved online during the pandemic to boost sales.

    Project Santos, created by an internal Amazon team to compete with Shopify, is leading the project, the report said.

    Amazon declined to comment.

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  • Woolies sells stake in Marley Spoon

    Woolies sells stake in Marley Spoon

    “Marley Spoon experienced strong growth over the term of W23‘s investment and has matured into an established listed company, and no longer fits squarely within the investment criteria of W23,” a Woolworths spokesperson said.

    “Woolworths Group and Marley Spoon remain committed to the continuing five-year strategic growth alliance that covers marketing support and customer origination programs as well as co-operation on logistics and supply chain operations.”

    Earlier this year, Marley Spoon chief executive Rolf Weber said the business’ growth had been boosted by the impact of the pandemic – despite supply chain pressures from drought, bushfires, floods, food shortages, and the global health crisis.

    Weber attributed the business’ impressive retention rates in part to the continued innovation of his team, including the launch of ready-to-heat meals earlier in 2020.

    “Our numbers are very strong and customer retention is extremely high, even as the impact of the pandemic has begun to decrease across Australia,” says Weber. “Ready-to-heat meals had been in product development prior to the pandemic, however, the launch was expedited by lockdowns and the demand from the influx of news customers. With many Australians returning to the office in recent months, the number of ready-to-heat meals sold continues to impress and opens future opportunities and streams to reach new customers.”

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  • E-commerce platforms cater to large groceries demand in Vietnam

    E-commerce platforms cater to large groceries demand in Vietnam

    Leading e-commerce platforms in Vietnam saw bigger demand for groceries, including fresh foodstuffs and beverages, in the second quarter of this year, a market research firm says.

    Google searches for keywords relating to online grocery stores in the second quarter of this year surged 223 percent against the first quarter, Malaysia-based market research firm iPrice Group said. Searches for fresh foodstuff, drinks, pre-packaged items, and fruits and vegetables rose 99 percent, 51 percent, 30 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

    According to a second-quarter e-commerce report by, online grocery has been the only goods segment with continuous growth since the pandemic broke out.

    When HCMC started applying social distancing rules in early July, demand for buying groceries online increased sharply. E-commerce platform Lazada Vietnam sold 120,000 fresh milk cartons in the first three hours of July 7, and 10,000 poultry eggs in the first 12 hours of the day.

    According to iPrice researchers, the surge in searches for online grocery stores and supermarkets is linked to the social distancing regulations imposed by municipal and provincial authorities. Retail sales of essential goods will also go online rapidly, they said.

    The higher demand for groceries prompted e-commerce platform Tiki to open fresh groceries stalls (September 2) that would deliver the products within three hours in Hanoi.

    To lure more customers, online shopping platforms have held shoppertainment (shopping in combination with entertainment) activities since early July. Lazada and Shopee have launched online mini-game contests and music shows, and conducted more livestream sales in combination with recreational activities.

    Lazada’s livestream channel reported that its daily views in the second quarter of this year rose 2.5 times over the same period last year. Shopee said the number of Shopee Live users in the first half of this year surged over 200 percent on-year.

    Online payment and shopping platform MoMo attracted eight million players in one month after organizing a game contest with prizes totaling VND10 billion (nearly $435,000). “We will continue to organize similar programs,” said co-founder and vice chairman Nguyen Ba Diep.

    According to rankings complied by iPrice Group and Israel-based digital intelligence provider SimilarWeb, Lazada Vietnam saw its website visits in the second quarter of this year increase 14 percent against the first quarter to 20.4 million, ranking second after Shopee. Shopee ranked the first for the 12 quarters, with 73 million web visits in the second quarter, up 9.2 million visits against the previous one.

    Among e-commerce platforms in Vietnam, Lazada and Shopee have been the most active in terms of shoppertainment events in recent months. They are expected to host more such programs on September 9, the super shopping day.

    The visits to top 50 shopping websites in Vietnam in the first half of this year totaled over 1.3 billion, the highest number so far. Specifically, web visits in the second quarter rose 10 percent over the first.

  • Online retailers in APAC drew 154 million new customers last year

    Online retailers in APAC drew 154 million new customers last year

    Asia Pacific’s online retail market is in good form, despite being one of the slowest growth markets when compared to global rates.

    According to new research from Forrester, Asia Pacific’s online retail market will be worth $2.8 trillion by 2025, up from $1.7 trillion in 2020.

    Last year Asia Pacific achieved $230 billion in online retail sales, with China accounting for almost an entire third of global sales.

    Within the e-commerce space China also dominates with an 82% share of the market, supporting overall APAC market growth of 16%.

    The grocery category will reach $473 billion by 2025, surpassing the consumer electronics category for the first time.

    The pandemic also drove newcomers to online retail – in Asia Pacific, 154 million more people bought online last year, which Forrester says is the highest number of new users ever in a single year. Of all the new buyers added globally in 2020, 69% came from Asia Pacific and 53% specifically from China.

    The Australian market experienced the fastest growth, while India was the slowest. Retailers also see the online market as a key way to leverage their distribution centres as a way of improving their reach.

    Forrester notes, “Alibaba took a controlling stake in Sun Art Retail, China’s largest supermarket chain, which has 76% of its stores outside urban areas, allowing Alibaba to break into the underserved nonurban customer market.”

    The strong grocery category attracted players such as Reliance Retail in India, which opened an online grocery company that covers more than 200 cities across the country.

    Forrester notes, “Flipkart in India had a limited presence in grocery; it then added a 90-minute delivery service to make the most of the fastest-growing category in India. Tata Group acquired BigBasket, the largest online grocery player in India, to make inroads into the Indian e-commerce market.”

    Organisations are increasingly looking to livestreams as a way of promoting their companies and fostering brand engagement.

    “ Farmers used livestreaming sessions on Douyin — Tiktok in China — to sell fresh produce, with some earning more than $1 million per month.”

    Social commerce also gained momentum. Forrester notes, “Meesho, a pure-play social commerce retailer in India, reports seeing monthly users grow from just 0.5 million to 5.5 million and monthly orders jump by 500% from 2019 to 2020. In China, community buyers (i.e., buyers congregating on WeChat) purchase grocery in bulk and pick it up from a nearby drop location. Retailers save on the last-mile shipping cost, and buyers get groceries at a discounted price.”

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  • Shopee launching platform in Poland

    Shopee launching platform in Poland

    Sea Ltd’s Shopee is preparing to launch in Poland and is currently recruiting sellers, two company sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

    The move will be the first expansion into European e-commerce for the $190 billion Singapore-headquartered technology group, whose gaming arm Garena is already active in the region.

    Shopee is simultaneously preparing to launch in India, Reuters reported last week, after aggressively expanding in Latin America since earlier this year.

    One of the sources told Reuters that Shopee is cautiously scaling up its global expansion by testing out possible new markets.

    The two sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, said Shopee will also launch in Argentina in the coming months.

    The firm is already the dominant player in e-commerce in Southeast Asia, according to market researchers, bringing in $1.2 billion globally in revenue for the quarter ending June 30.

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  • JD appoints president, freeing founder to focus on strategy

    JD appoints president, freeing founder to focus on strategy

    China’s JD.com said on Monday Xu Lei will become the e-commerce giant’s first ever president, making way for chief executive and founder Richard Liu to devote more time to formulating long-term strategies.

    Lei, previously the CEO of JD Retail, will fill the new position and lead the day-to-day operation and development of JD.com’s various business units, the company said in a statement.

    Liu, who started the company that would become JD.com in 1998, will also spend more time mentoring younger management and contributing to the revitalisation of rural areas, it said.

    Xin Lijun, who had previously headed up JD Health, will take over from Xu as JD Retail’s chief while Jin Enlin will become JD Health’s new CEO.

    “Looking to the future, the correct long-term strategic design, the growth and development of young talents, and the healthy and coordinated development of various business units will continue to be the driving force for JD in doing the hardest and most challenging, but right and most valuable things for the industry,” Liu said.

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  • Vietnam considers tightening import tax on e-commerce deliveries

    Vietnam considers tightening import tax on e-commerce deliveries

    The Ministry of Finance is considering limiting the import of low-value packages through e-commerce platforms to close a suspected loophole.

    It wants to issue a new decree to limit each organization or individual buyer to be free of import tax on four orders at most each month.

    The proposal came amid the rising popularity of shopping on e-commerce platforms in Vietnam, with many products delivered directly from China.

    Vietnam currently does not apply an import tax on packages with a value of VND1 million ($44) or lower delivered via postal and delivery services.

    However, because there is no limit on the number of packages being sent, many buyers take advantage of this policy and split their goods into small packages to avoid tax, according to the Ministry of Finance.

    In the first six months last year, Hanoi alone imported $1 billion worth of products via postal and delivery services. The value in June was five times that of January, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Finance.

    A Hanoi company that imports products for Shopee and Lazada saw its value of imported products surging 50 times year-on-year to $70 million in the first quarter of 2021, the ministry said.

    Vietnam’s e-commerce market has seen an average annual growth rate of 25-30 percent in the last five years, according to Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM).

    Should the growth rate be maintained, Vietnam would rank third in e-commerce market size in Southeast Asia by 2025, behind Indonesia and Thailand.

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  • Amazon Global Store launches in Korea

    Amazon Global Store launches in Korea

    Global online retailer Amazon and South Korean e-commerce platform 11st launched the Amazon Global Store on 11st on Tuesday.

    The move has made it easier to buy tens of millions of products available on Amazon’s US website, ranging from PCs, toys and fashion to electronics, with free shipping on orders over 28,000 won ($24).

    Though the service has been in operation in 12 other countries, it marks the first time Amazon is working with a local company for the launch. It also makes 11st the country’s “most extensive bookstore,” with millions of books now available.

    “Starting today, customers in Korea will be able to enjoy the most convenient way to shop global products, with free international shipping from the US,” said Somana Konganda, director of Amazon Global.

    Lee Sang-ho, CEO of 11st, said, “The launch of Amazon Global Store on 11st brings together the best of 11st’s local know-how and Amazon’s global retailing experience.”

    How does it work?

    Amazon Global Store was launched jointly with 11st, which means you have to sign up for 11st to place an order.

    You also need a personal customs clearance code, a 13-digit number starting with a P, for online international shopping. But foreign nationals living in South Korea can use either their passport number or alien registration number instead.

    After signing on to the platform, you can either search for a product you saw on Amazon’s US website or go to the main page for the Amazon Global Store to check out special deals and recommended items.

    Before your selected item goes into the basket, the website will show the price in Korean won and estimate how long it will take to be delivered, as well as how much the total cost will be including a customs clearance fee — which occurs when your order is worth more than $200, or $150 if certain items such as health supplements are included, for instance.

    ‘Universe Pass’

    On the same day the Amazon Global Store was launched, SK Telecom, which operates 11st, also unveiled the “Universe Pass Mini” and “Universe Pass All”

    Priced at 4,900 won, the more affordable version of the monthly subscription-based service offers free shipping to members regardless of the product’s price, though benefits are subject to change in the future, according to 11st.

    It also gives access to South Korea streaming platform Wavve, while the premium plan offers access to a wide range of subscription-based services including music streaming service FLO.

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