From International Markets
9 Billion Reasons Alibaba Loves Loneliness
It’s the world’s biggest online shopping day in the world’s biggest eCommerce market.
You might not have even heard of Singles Day, but it just made Alibaba over $9 billion.
Online Grocery Shopping: Can the U.S. Copy the U.K.’s Success?
With AmazonFresh, Instacart and Google Shopping Express competing against each other to find the perfect home grocery delivery solution, things are really heating up in the world of online grocery shopping. From a consumer’s perspective, this could revolutionize the way we buy groceries—the competition could lead to more choice, lower prices, and, of course, unrivalled convenience.
Despite the significant investments into finding that solution, the online U.S. grocery market is still in relative infancy. Yet while these three juggernauts are busy working out logistics and marketing ploys to encourage U.S. consumers to jump online to buy their food, elsewhere the online grocery market is reaching maturity.
In the U.K., for example, it’s been relatively common for families to do their grocery shopping online for years. In fact, this has led to the U.K. being heralded as one of the world leaders in the field of online grocery sales and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
Why has the U.S., with all its resources, lagged behind for so long when the rewards for cracking this market are so huge?
Global eCommerce Business: Learn from Birchbox, Braintree and HotelTonight
Do you sometimes wonder how you would expand your online store into a global eCommerce business?
We often hear how eCommerce is wonderful because you have the opportunity to tap a global market. While this is true to some extent, often a business will derive the majority of their success from a single market.
And just because something has worked well in the U.S., it won’t necessarily be a winning strategy in China, Brazil or Indonesia.
If these sorts of quandaries sound familiar to you, keep reading.
In China, eCommerce is a Lifestyle
“In other countries eCommerce is a way to shop, in China it is a lifestyle.” – Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba
With the excitement building for Alibaba’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) tomorrow (it’s expected to be the largest IPO in US history), I thought it might be time to start developing a better understanding of the world’s fastest growing eCommerce market.
2 Reports To Help You Understand International eCommerce
One of the great things about eCommerce is the opportunity to tap a much larger, potentially global, market.
But tapping the global market means contending with, and understanding, a diverse range of factors.
These factors influence the popularity and prevalence of eCommerce in particular markets. For example, some countries may have very favourable regulations, tax and customs practices, logistics and financial infrastructure and levels of income.
Others may have high levels of technology adoption and a preference for buying on mobile devices (mobile commerce).
Others still may rely heavily on the opinions and thoughts of family and friends, emphasising the importance of social commerce.
While we understand that considering all of these factors can be overwhelming, we found a couple of reports last week that might help you better understand at least some of the intricacies of the global eCommerce market.