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Tag: etailing

  • V-MORE announces planned Thailand expansion

    V-MORE announces planned Thailand expansion

    V-MORE, an e-commerce supply chain management platform, has revealed its intention of expanding into Thailand.

    V-MORE aims to recruit new Thai e-commerce merchants as part of its expansion strategy and has rolled out onboarding programs for new merchants and users.

    V-MORE is a one-stop marketplace where consumers can shop and be rewarded at over 500 marketplace and shopping sites including leading online brands, hotel and flight booking sites, technology as well as food and beverages merchants. Thai merchants can participate in its e-commerce program and increase their exports to other countries in Asia and beyond.

    “We are pursuing a plan of expansion and hope to achieve revenue growth through mass adoption by users and merchants in our ecosystem. Thailand is fast becoming the leading e-commerce market, and we seek to increase our user and merchant base through user incentive programs, brand awareness and marketing programs,” said Sir Eldee Tang, CEO and Founder of Noble Vici Group.

    According to research, there are more than 57 million internet users in Thailand who are well-versed with digital technologies, mobile and e-commerce. The market is valued at $3.5 billion and is expected to generate revenue growth rate of 13.2% annually, reaching $5.8 billion by 2022.

    “We look forward to new local merchants to come on board our platform and welcome sellers and buyers to experience the online marketplace for the first time,” Eldee added.

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  • Alibaba Group sales down this month

    Alibaba Group sales down this month

    Alibaba Group sales soared 41 per cent in the December quarter as its customer based neared 700 million.

    The Chinese company’s turnover for the three months reached US$17.057 billion and its net income attributable to shareholders $4.807 billion.

    “Our resilient operating and financial performance is a direct reflection of our persistent focus on better serving our growing base of nearly 700 million consumers across retail, digital entertainment and local consumer services,” said CEO Daniel Zhang. “Our growth is also driven by the power of Alibaba’s cloud and data technology that helps expedite the digital transformation of millions of enterprises.”

    Alibaba group sales from core commerce increased 40 per cent to $14.958 billion, while the cloud-computing division posted 84 per cent growth, turning over $962 million. The digital media and entertainment division achieved 20 per cent growth to reach $944 million.

    In a statement, Alibaba said its Taobao platform achieved “robust user growth and enhanced engagement”. Last December, its China retail marketplaces had 699 million mobile monthly average users, representing a quarterly net increase of 33 million. The annual active consumers on its China retail marketplaces was 636 million for the 12 months ended December 31, compared to 601 million for the 12 months ended September 30 last year, “reflecting successful user acquisition programs, such as referrals through the Alipay app”.

    More than 70 per cent of the increase in annual active consumers was from third-and-lower tier cities.

    Tmall thrives

    Alibaba said GMV on its Tmall business grew 29 per cent year on year in the December quarter, outpacing the industry.

    “This robust growth was driven by strength in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), apparel and home furnishing categories,” the company said.

    During the quarter, Tmall signed up new brands to the platform including Valentino, Ermenegildo Zegna, Stuart Weitzman and Sergio Rossi which opened flagship stores and joined the Tmall Luxury Pavilion.

    Meanwhile, Alibaba’s proprietary grocery retail chain Freshippo (formerly Hema) continued to expand its footprint, “optimise its stores and introduce new initiatives that improve customer experience”. As of December 31, there were 109 self-operated Freshippo stores in China, primarily located in tier 1 and tier 2 cities, which continued to achieve “robust same-store sales growth” through the quarter.

    ‘Robust’ Lazada growth

    Alibaba’s Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada achieved what the company described as “robust growth” in GMV. The company upgraded Lazada’s technology, which resulted in boosting the number of active users and achieved greater user engagement on Lazada’s mobile app.

    “We continue to invest resources to integrate Lazada’s business and technology operations into Alibaba with the aim of building a strong foundation for us to extend our offerings in Southeast Asia.”

  • Lazada Excels cross-border business across Southeast Asia

    Lazada Excels cross-border business across Southeast Asia

    Lazada is boosting its cross-border operations for international brands and merchants to after its cross-border sales quadrupled over the last three years The Alibaba-owned company says it plans to bring onboard more quality international brands and will identify and nurture the top 300 brands in each of the six. countries that Lazada operates in: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. This will allow those brands to grow their business and enjoy benefits such as higher visibility of their products when users search and browse the site.

    “We want to serve as that bridge between our quality cross-border merchants and some 560 million consumers in Southeast Asia,” said Lazada Group’s co-president Jing Yin, speaking in Shenzhen at the company’s first cross-border seller conference for this year.

    “Backed by the best expertise and infrastructure from Alibaba, as well as our in-depth understanding of Southeast Asia, we are able to equip our cross-border sellers and brands with the knowledge and tools to ride this massive growth in the region,” Yin told more than 1000 merchants at the event.

    What Lazada describes as “a meteoric rise in e-commerce spending in Southeast Asia” reflects the increasing demand for cross-border products as the GMV from Lazada’s cross-border category grew by 4.6 times between 2016 and 2018. According to industry estimates, Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market is on track to hit US$240 billion by 2025, surpassing earlier estimates by $40 billion.

    Among the key initiatives announced at this week’s conference was a revamped Global Collection: a dedicated channel showcasing an assortment of Lazada’s cross-border merchants from all around the world. Global Collection 2.0 taps on algorithm-based search functions to filter the wide cross-border assortment to spotlight sellers offering popular and good quality products so customers can find them easily.

    “With the new Global Collection, customers will get their parcels much faster,” said a Lazada spokesperson. “They can get their parcels within seven working days from the day they place their orders if they choose the standard shipping option.”

    First launched in 2013, Lazada’s cross-border business has grown to become one of the most diverse marketplaces featuring brands and merchants from all over the world. The top five markets which cross-border sellers come from are Mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea, the US and Europe, with women’s fashion, home and living and kids’ fashion ranking among the most popular cross-border items. Lazada is now looking at launching new categories, offering bulky products like furniture and home appliances.

    Last year, Lazada set a new record, with its last-mile delivery fleet across Southeast Asia delivering more than 1 million parcels in a day.

  • Shoppers prefer human interaction over bots, says study

    Shoppers prefer human interaction over bots, says study

    New research reveals 75 per cent of shoppers prefer live-agent support for customer service verses 25 per cent support for self service and chatbots. The research, from cloud contact-centre operator NewVoiceMedia, identified consumer concerns about sharing sensitive information, a lack of understanding of bots and their inability to resolve issues.

    “Chatbots can provide customers with quick answers to frequently asked questions or issues, and the survey notes the benefit of chatbots for certain interactions, such as 24-seven service,” the survey’s authors concluded.

    But when it comes to handling sensitive financial and personal information, most customers are more comfortable with a live agent, and just 13 per cent say they would be happy if all service interactions are replaced by bots in the future.

    Foremost among consumer concerns about using chatbots include:

    • A lack of understanding of the issue (65 per cent).
    • The inability to solve complex issues (63 per cent).
    • The inability of chatbots to provide answers to simple questions (49 per cent).
    • The lack of a personal service experience (45 per cent).

    While less than half of the people surveyed (48 per cent) said they would be willing to use chat bots for service – versus the 38 per cent who wouldn’t – 46 per cent also felt that bots kept them from reaching a live person.

    Banks (82 per cent) and medical services (75 per cent) were the businesses that people were least likely to want to deal with bots.

    Customers prefer live agents for technical support (91 per cent); getting a quick response in an emergency (89 per cent); making a complaint (86 per cent); buying an expensive item (82 per cent); purchase inquiries (79 per cent); returns and cancellations (73 per cent); booking appointments and reservations (59 per cent); and paying a bill (54 per cent). However, when asked about buying”a basic item”, 56 per cent would choose a chatbot over a live interaction.

    The top benefit cited for dealing with chat bots was 24-hour service.

    “When a situation becomes emotional or complex, people want to engage with people”, says Dennis Fois, president of NewVoiceMedia. “As businesses add more customer service channels, conversations are becoming more complex and higher value, and personal, emotive customer interactions play a critical role in bridging the gap for what digital innovation alone cannot solve,” he said.

    “For this reason, companies must find the right balance between automation and human support to deliver the service that customers demand. Frontline contact centre teams will continue to be the difference makers on the battlefield to win the hearts and minds of customers, and organisations deploying self-service solutions should ensure that there is always an option to reach a live agent”.

    There is a sense consumers may warm to chatbots in the future, however, given that younger respondents (aged 18-44) were more open to using chatbots overall and across the individual scenarios compared to older consumers (45-60+).

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  • How to get the right online pricing strategy in 2019

    How to get the right online pricing strategy in 2019

    More than 70 per cent of e-commerce retailers are leaving money on the table – and it all comes down to a single digit in their online pricing strategy.

    ‘Left-digit bias’, or the economic behavior where consumers use the leftmost-digit of a price tag in guiding their decision making, is an age-old observation in the brick-and-mortar world. (For example, $5 is perceived as significantly more expensive than $4.99, while $4.99 is perceived as just one cent more than $4.98.)

    While this concept isn’t new – research was conducted as early as 1936 – with consumer spending increasingly moving online, the more pressing question now is whether the same principle can be applied to online businesses.

    It turns out the answer is “yes.” In looking at more than six years of anonymised data from 100,000+ online businesses operating on Stripe, we discovered that the left-digit bias holds the same sway over consumers online, as it does offline. And this is especially acute across subscription businesses models, such as media streaming services and even software-as-a-service.

    Today, more than 70 per cent of online businesses worldwide are not taking advantage of this pricing model, potentially costing their businesses millions of dollars. Meanwhile, online merchants that have made the switch to an optimal pricing model stand to gain a potential revenue uptick of several percentage points or more.

    Here are some key takeaways for online businesses looking to tune up their pricing strategies in 2019 and take advantage of left-digit bias:

    0 is the most popular pricing strategy:

    Despite the popularity of prices ending in 9 offline, the most popular pricing strategy for online merchants is actually 0. The only exception here were items priced in euros.

    Pricing ending in 9 are only second-most popular, with 27 per cent of subscription prices ending in 9.

    Prices ending in 5 are also popular, perhaps because the number is an optically pleasing midpoint.

    While these are the patterns for pricing among merchants, it does not mean that they are optimal for consumers, as we’ll see below.

    It’s time to bring back 9:

    Cross referencing merchant pricing with merchants that received the most website traffic and those that are VC-funded revealed that more sophisticated businesses are more likely to set prices ending in 9 compared to other online businesses.

    While correlation doesn’t equal causation, it is reasonable to assume that these more ‘popular’ businesses are likely larger, more well-funded, or have made it a priority for them to analyse a different online pricing strategy.

    This could be an opportunity for smaller firms that do not have the same resources to analyse pricing strategies to take advantage of the left-digit bias identified by their larger or better funded counterparts.

    .

    Left-digit bias applies to luxury items too:

    There is a widely-held opinion that only sale items should end in 9. However, this misconception may actually be causing merchants to miss out on significant gains.

    According to the study, left-digit pricing was found to be influential with both luxury ($700, $800, $900 and greater in cost) and non-luxury items. In fact, new customers cluster at these higher-priced cutoff points, buying products whose prices end in 9.

    Implementing your pricing strategy:

    For online businesses looking to test the 9-digit pricing in the new year, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

    • Larger online merchants with the benefit of higher volumes should consider testing 9-digit pricing on a portion of their offerings. The evidence shows that pricing items and subscriptions in such a way stimulates consumer buying behaviour for items as inexpensive as $0.99, all the way up to the hundreds of dollars.
    • Smaller, high-growth merchants should simply consider 9-digit pricing as a smart default. At lower volumes, running pricing experiments can take a much longer time and are prone to data ‘noise’. Instead, these businesses ought to consider 9-digit pricing as standard practice, helping to potentially level the playing field against larger competitors.

    Pricing is key in today’s competitive market, especially for lean online businesses. It can set a business apart from competitors and close a transaction with a fickle consumer. This is especially crucial in an industry where revenue gains of even a few percentage points can go a long way to ensuring long-term growth and success.

  • Coles starts selling food on eBay

    Coles starts selling food on eBay

    Coles on Wednesday started selling a range of ‘everyday essentials’ on eBay, in a bid to reach some of the marketplace’s 11 million unique monthly visitors. The offering includes perishable and non-perishable items in Coles’ everyday essentials range across several categories, including select pre-packaged fresh food, pantry, personal care and household items. The items at launch are available to eBay shoppers in metro Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Shoppers will initially have just one delivery option, though more will be added throughout the year, according to a statement from eBay and Coles. 

    Alister Jordan, chief executive of Coles Online, described the partnership as being all about convenience.

    “By partnering with eBay, we are providing our customers another convenient way to access our products and have them delivered straight to their door,” he said in a statement.

    The idea is that consumers who are already buying fashion, homewares and electronics on eBay can also complete their food shopping on the online marketplace, rather than having to make a second – virtual – trip to Coles’ e-commerce site.

    “It really comes down to convenience and being able to choose from a great range of groceries as well as those bigger ticket items you can’t get from a supermarket,” Julie Nestor, eBay’s CMO told.

    “Think about planning for a dinner party and being able to purchase everything from the table setting to the meal ingredients on the one site – it’s a more convenient, seamless way to shop online.”

    There is also the fact that more and more brands stocked on supermarket shelves are increasing their direct-to-consumer sales through their own websites or marketplaces like Amazon, which expanded into the pantry category last October, though it doesn’t yet offer fresh food in Australia. For eBay, the partnership seems to be about growing its eBay Plus membership program, which it launched in May 2018 in what many saw as a response to Amazon Prime. The program, which costs $49 a year, includes unlimited delivery and returns on new items bought on eBay, discounts on the Stan streaming service and opportunities to earn points through Coles’ flybuys loyalty program.

    Nestor confirmed that launching Coles’ food offering on eBay has been in the works for some time.

    “After we successfully launched our partnership with flybuys last year, this is a natural extension of our relationship with Coles,” she said.

    Nestor declined to say how many members are currently signed up to the eBay Plus program, but she described the uptake so far as “really positive” and said the company expects it to continue to grow with the launch of Coles on eBay. EBay Plus members get free delivery on orders that are $49 and over, and they earn double the number of flybuys points on all orders.

  • Amazon crafts new grocery offerings

    Amazon crafts new grocery offerings

    E-commerce giant Amazon is plotting a new grocery business in the US. The online retail giant is planning to strengthen its supermarket brand by purchasing local grocery chains that operate at least a dozen stores, the report claims.

    The first store is expected to open in Los Angeles by the end of the year, with leases signed for two more locations, set to open by early 2020. The business is in talks to bring the grocery stores to shopping malls in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.

    Amazon, which bought the healthy supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, had “ambitions in this space” for a long time.

    Amazon’s big rival, Walmart has already been preparing for a battle with the retail giant, the source said. Walmart is introducing grocery pickup at 3,100 stores by next January and will also offer grocery delivery from about 800 more stores by the end of 2019.

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  • Farfetch announces the first chief fashion officer

    Farfetch announces the first chief fashion officer

    The close relationship between luxury e-tailer Farfetch and Browns, the physical store that it acquired back in 2015, has become even closer with Browns’ CEO Holli Rogers having taken up a new role at the parent company. Rogers will stay on as the senior manager at Browns but has also become chief fashion officer at Farfetch, which will see her working closely with the e-tailer’s marketing, styling and VM teams “to ensure the company’s fashion approach is incorporated into the DNA of the overall customer experience of the brand”.

    Rogers, who was formerly Net-a-Porter fashion director, has had an impressive career at the cutting edge of both luxury physical retail and high-end e-tail. She has also worked at Neiman Marcus and Chanel.

    Farfetch CEO and founder José Neves said she “could bring her unique experience to the broader Farfetch business at an executive level. [Her] reputation, high regard among fashion CEOs, influencers and the wider industry, her relationships and her incredible aesthetic will be a huge benefit to Farfetch.”

    It is clear that she’s highly regarded at the company after having overseen a number of success for Browns from the opening of the Browns East location to the revamped visual image, launching collaborations at home and abroad and continuing to nurture new names.

  • Grofers eyes $2.5 billion in revenue by 2020

    Grofers eyes $2.5 billion in revenue by 2020

    SoftBank-backed Grofers aims to garner $2.5 billion (approximately Rs 17,500 crore) in revenue by 2020 as it scales up its private label offerings in the country and focusses on expanding repeat purchases in its platform. The company, which has recently completed five years of its operations, has a revenue run rate of $360 million (about Rs 2,500 crore) currently.

    Grofers Co-Founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa said Grofers has been witnessing over 30 percent month-on-month growth.

    “While we do not sell gourmet products that usually offer higher margins, we have been able to create a set of dedicated customers that usually promote our brand as well… We will continue to ramp up our business and we aim to clock $2.5 billion revenue by 2020,” he said.

    Outlining the expansion strategy, Dhindsa said about 40 percent of the selection on its platform now comprises of private label products.

    “There are a number of local manufacturers, who have great products but can’t compete with the FMCG giants and therefore, their products often don’t find shelf space in retail stores…we continue to grow the number of manufacturers that we work with,” he said.

    He further explained that putting these private labels on its own platform has helped the company provide aspirational products like muesli, peanut butter at more affordable prices.

    These private labelled products are also making their way on retail shelves at Grofers’ over 1,500 partner stores, which the company aims to ramp up to one million in the next two years.

    Asked about competition, especially with Walmart-backed Flipkart and Amazon expanding their presence aggressively in the online grocery segment, Dhindsa said the company is not worried.

    “Grocery is not the same as books and electronics. We may carry a smaller selection but the focus for us is on affordability. Consumers are very conscious when it comes to the grocery buying and that is what we want to ensure for our customers,” he said adding that Grofers is focussing on further enhancing its coverage of the cities it operates in.

    In March 2018, Grofers had announced raising Rs 400 crore in funding led by SoftBank, Tiger Global and Apoletto Asia. It has raised funding of $226.5 million till now. Its average daily order volumes were over 35,000 per day in June this year.

    Grocery segment accounts for a significant portion of the unorganised retail segment in the country. With people becoming comfortable buying even milk and bread online, the online grocery segment is projected to witness a strong growth over the next few years in India.

    As per the estimates, e-tail is just 0.5 percent of the total grocery market in India, which is pegged at $400 billion or 70 percent of all retail.

    In a recent interview, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had said grocery is one of the key focus areas for the company currently and, the segment will play an important role in getting access to the next 200 million customers.

    Amazon India, too, has been aggressively ramping up selection and focussing on speedier delivery to consolidate its position in the segment. In February this year, Grofers’ competitor Bigbasket had raised USD 300 million led by Chinese e-tailer giant Alibaba and others.

  • ‘E-commerce share in India’s FMCG retail sales triples in 2 years’

    ‘E-commerce share in India’s FMCG retail sales triples in 2 years’

    Growing consumer trust and confidence in online buying has helped e-commerce platforms expand their share in India’s total FMCG retail sales by as much as three times, according to market researcher Nielsen. This has led to online purchase of a broader range of categories, with a particularly interesting upswing seen in fresh and packaged groceries, Nielsen said in a report.

    It further stated that global online grocery purchasing is up 15 percent in the last two years, leading to an estimated US$ 70 billion additional sales in online FMCG.

    The 2018 Nielsen Connected Commerce Report said e-commerce categories — travel (69 percent), fashion (66 percent), and IT and Mobile (63 percent) continue to account for the largest proportion of online transactions in the country.

    Interestingly, categories posting the most significant growth in e-commerce channel included packaged grocery (where 40 per cent of respondents said they made a purchase), fresh groceries, and baby and children products.

    “From tracking the e-commerce evolution in pioneering countries like South Korea where online sales now account for a staggering 20 percent of the total FMCG sector, we know that consumers follow a certain pattern of online shopping behaviour,” Sameer Shukla, Executive Director (Retail Measurement Services), Nielsen South Asia said.

    Travel, fashion and IT/ Mobile products are typical categories for first-time online shoppers and as their familiarisation, comfort and trust levels increase, their category repertoire expands into areas like beauty, personal care and baby products, he added.

    “… and then moves even wider afield to packaged and fresh grocery categories, and this is evidenced in the significant jump we’ve seen in online purchasing within grocery and food delivery in recent years,” he said.

    The report also revealed that consumers are more open to purchase packaged and fresh groceries online when they are offered certain purchasing options and quality assurances.

    About 60 percent of consumers pointed towards the need to offer and improve hassle-free refund, replacement experience as well as free cost delivery, which if offered, would boost their confidence to buy online with higher frequency.

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  • Valentino joins Tmall Luxury Pavilion

    Valentino joins Tmall Luxury Pavilion

    Valentino, whose name is synonymous with high fashion across the globe, has opened a flagship store on Tmall Luxury Pavilion, Alibaba Group’s dedicated site for premium brands. The online store features selected products from the Rome-based fashion house’s womenswear and menswear lines, as well as five limited-edition items available only to Tmall shoppers including sneakers, pants and shirts.

    The launch late November coincided with Valentino’s 2019 Pre-Fall Runway show in Tokyo, which was livestreamed on the Pavilion.

    China’s Millennial and Generation Z shoppers are on track to make up 46% of purchases in the global personal luxury goods market by 2025, up from 32% in 2017, according to a November report from consulting firm Bain & Co.

    Online sales channels are becoming more critical than ever for luxury brands, with official sites and e-commerce platforms expected to account for 25% of the market’s value in 2025, up from the current 10%, Bain’s research showed.

    To create a shopping experience that stays true to the brand’s heritage and values, Tmall and Valentino worked together to design the storefront’s interface, adjusting the layout to enhance branding, boost audience retention and encourage deeper interaction with consumers.

    Noonoouri, the Pavilion’s new CGI ambassador, also “attended” Valentino’s 2019 Pre-Fall Runway show, posting images of all of the behind-the-scenes action to her Instagram account.

    The digital avatar has already collaborate with luxury brands Chanel, Dior, Gucci and Saint Laurent.

    Before opening the new store, Valentino partnered with the Luxury Pavilion in April to launch a 3D virtual store that mirrors a brick-and-mortar pop-up store the brand has launched in Beijing.

    Shoppers can experience the physical location via the Tmall mobile app and browse a selection of Valentino’s collection.

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  • Miniso launches online store in Singapore with Shopee

    Miniso launches online store in Singapore with Shopee

    Discount Chinese merchandise chain Miniso has partnered with e-commerce platform Shopee to open its first online flagship store in Singapore. Shopee will exclusively host the Miniso Singapore online offering in the territory as a part of the retailer’s omnichannel strategy for Singapore in the coming year. The partnership will offer home delivery, special promotions and exclusive product launches on the platform.

    Miniso Singapore general director Alex Zhang Li said: “We foresee numerous key opportunities that will be pivotal to our growth strategy next year as we enter our first e-commerce partnership. As a global variety store chain, we aim to be able to deliver meaningful experiences, and leveraging Shopee’s user base, extensive operational support and other value-added services to grow our business will allow us to do that.

    “We are very excited to engage with a new segment of online customers and are confident that this partnership with Shopee is a leap forward to securing our long-term online and offline success in retail.”

    Shopee’s chief commercial officer Zhou Junjie added: “This partnership also marks our dedication to enabling offline retailers extend their reach online. We are confident that this partnership will be a fruitful one, and we look forward to working with them to bring to users even more exciting deals and exclusive offers from the brand.”

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  • Almost all Vietnamese internet users shop online

    Almost all Vietnamese internet users shop online

    Up to 98 percent of internet users in Vietnam have made purchases online, up one percentage point over 2017. Increasing effectiveness of the online retail ecosystem in meeting the convenience of its shopper base has strengthened the online shopping habit, according to the 2018 Nielsen Connected Commerce Report.

    Fashion, travel, books and music continue to account for the largest proportion of online transactions in consumer goods, with 59 percent, 52 percent and 51 percent of Vietnamese consumer respondents saying they have purchased goods in the above categories in the respective order.

    These are also considered typical categories for the first-time online shoppers.

    Nguyen Anh Dung, director and head of Retail Measurement Services for Nielsen Vietnam, said that as levels of familiarity, comfort and confidence grow, consumers are likely to move on to purchasing items such as beauty products, personal care, packaged food or fresh groceries.

    For relatively new products, about two in three consumers said that return policies for products not of satisfactory quality have encouraged them to shop online.

    The other concern of consumers is free or same day delivery services.

    Vietnam has targeted that 30 percent of its population shop online between 2016 and 2020, with yearly sales value of approximately $350 per person.

    The country’s e-commerce value climbed to about $4 billion in 2016, becoming one of the fastest-growing markets in the world.

    Revenue from online retail in Vietnam is forecast to hit $10 billion by 2020, accounting for five percent of the country’s retail market.

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  • Ebay expands authentication platform to luxury jewelry

    Ebay expands authentication platform to luxury jewelry

    U.S. e-commerce giant Ebay announced plans to extend its product authentication program to cover luxury jewelry, in a bid to stem the resale of counterfeit jewels across its global marketplace. Dubbed “EbayAuthenticate”, the luxury jewelry category is the newest addition to Ebay’s new verification platform, which first launched in 2017 with the resale of luxury handbags. Following its success, Ebay went on to add luxury watches to the authentication service in early 2018.

    This month, Ebay confirmed it wants to offer “holiday shoppers more than 45,000 high-end diamond and other gemstone jewelry, verified by professional authenticators,” according to press release.

    Ahead of the busy Christmas period, Ebay customers can browse for high-end necklaces, earrings, rings, and bracelets, which are now all marked with an “Authenticity Verified” label.

    That’s in addition to engagement and wedding bands, loose diamonds and gemstones, and fine, vintage and fashion jewelry.

    Much like the verification its luxury handbags and watches already go through, all jewelry items will be approved by third-party authentication experts and sourced from more than two dozen of Ebay’s top-rated sellers.

    “Ebay is home to the largest selection of luxury goods, which includes tens of thousands of jewelry items, fine watches, and rare and designer handbags,” said James Hendy, Senior Director of Ebay Authenticate.

    “Expanding the Ebay Authenticate service provides customers an added layer of trust and confidence as they shop for fine jewelry this holiday and beyond.”

    The popularity of Ebay’s jewellery, and an industry-wide crackdown on fake goods across online marketplaces, means the authentication of goods is fast-becoming a perquisite for customer satisfaction and therefore, sales growth.

    Some 50,000 jewelry items are sold per day on Ebay (approx. 2,000 item sold per hour), with one diamond ring sold every minute, according to figures released by Ebay.

    Ebay said its most popular jewelry stone is diamonds, followed by sapphires, acquamarine, amethysts and onyx rounding out the top five precious stones sold online.

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  • JD.com and Intel launch new research lab for smart retail

    JD.com and Intel launch new research lab for smart retail

    Chinese online retail platform JD has launched a joint lab with Intel that will explore the use of IoT in smart retail solutions. The Digitised Retail Joint Lab will develop next-generation vending machines, media and advertising solutions, and technologies to be used in the stores of the future, based on Intel architecture.

    Scientists at the new lab have so far integrated Intel’s technologies with JD’s computer vision algorithms to analyse customer traffic and in-store purchasing habits, working on solutions designed to help store owners provide a more personalised and convenient experience to their customers.

    Zhi Weng, VP of JD and head of JD Big Data Platform said: “This lab will combine our collective strengths to develop cutting-edge solutions to bring the precision of online shopping to offline players. We look forward to expanding our cooperation with Intel to deliver a best-in-class, personalised shopping experience wherever consumers shop.”

    Wei Chen, VP of Intel & GM of Intel IOTG China added: “As China’s most influential retailer and a leader in data-driven offline retail innovation, JD is an important partner for us to continue to develop a wide range of use cases for our latest technology developments. We are happy to take our partnership to the next level.”

    The new lab adds to JD’s “Retail as a Service” conceptual framework in a bid to share its technology and infrastructure with other retailers and industries. Other efforts include a suite of technology upgrades for brick-and-mortar store owners, including smart shelving, smart price tags, checkout solutions, and more.

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