Tag: ecommerce

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TikTok’s Logistics Network and Impact on the Competitive Environment

In my opinion, one of the main reasons behind Amazon’s success is its attractiveness for 3rd party sellers. The large amount of traffic and the easy way to generate sales (profitability is another story) certainly helped. Another big reason is their fulfillment network, notably their FBA program. When I didn’t know much about Ecommerce, I thought the idea of 3rd party logistics programs was genius and a huge opportunity for ecommerce entrepreneurs. It is no surprise that Walmart, a serious contender in the US Ecommerce space, launched their marketplace along with their WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services) program.

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Halloween’s Sweet Treat: Record-Breaking Consumer Spending

It is estimated that consumers will spend $12.2 billion on this year’s spooky season. This would be the highest amount ever recorded, and a massive growth of 8% compared to last year. It is interesting to notice that the increase over the last 10 years is similar to inflation between 2013 and 2023 (35% vs 32%), although most of the inflation happened in the last three years. Even accounting for inflation, consumers spent less in the last three years, but Halloween is still a very popular holiday. Customers are shopping weeks ahead. According to Phil Rist, Prosper Executive Vice President of Strategy  “Younger consumers are eager to begin their Halloween shopping, with more than half of those ages 25-44 planning to shop before or during September.”

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Amazon in Hot Waters: A Deep Dive into the Recent Antitrust Lawsuit

Having spent many years as a seller on Amazon in multiple countries, I was very interested to hear more about it. The lawsuit accuses Amazon of using monopoly power to push higher prices for consumers, overcharge its 3rd-party sellers, and stifle competition. I would like to go through the key parts of the lawsuit, and reflect on what can be done to improve the situation for all stakeholders, including customers.

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Indonesia’s Ban on Social Commerce : The Impact on Consumers and Social commerce Giants

In addition to shrinking our attention spans, short videos are highly addictive, with the average TikTok user spending a whopping 95 minutes a day on the app. With this data in mind, it is no surprise that the recent TikTok ecommerce venture, TikTok Shops, is successful. But this success might be short-lived in some countries, with Indonesia very recently banning shopping transactions on social media apps.