Marketplaces

What Amazon’s Private Label Business Means for Retailers
January 29, 2018 at 8:22 am

Amazon.com has more customer search and purchase data than any e-commerce business. It can build a private-label brand in six months using these data. Amazon’s private-label products have access to the best merchandising and targeting on the marketplace. And the brand doesn’t even need to be profitable. How do national brands compete with this? According…

Alibaba Blames Politics as Taobao Retains Place on ‘Notorious Markets’ List
January 17, 2018 at 1:59 pm

Alibaba's Taobao marketplace is one of the 25 popular e-commerce sites listed by the USTR (United States Trade Representative) for counterfeiting and global piracy. It's the second year in a row Taobao has been included. TechCrunch reports the key concern of the report on Taobao is how Alibaba works with IP holders to remove counterfeit…

4 Steps to Stop Unauthorized Online Sales of Your Products
January 12, 2018 at 12:41 pm

As retailers are well aware, the rise of online marketplaces on which anyone can sell products with little to no up-front investment has led to an abundance of products marketed over the internet by unauthorized sellers at steeply discounted prices. These products are often diverted from a brand’s authorized distribution channels and cause considerable consumer…

Inside Tophatter's Growth Strategy
December 4, 2017 at 12:25 pm

In episode 121 of Total Retail Talks, Andrew Blachman, chief operating officer at Tophatter, a live mobile auction marketplace, discusses the brand's strategy for growth in the competitive e-commerce space.

Amazon Says Cyber Monday Was its Biggest Shopping Day Ever
November 30, 2017 at 1:34 pm

Amazon.com said this past Cyber Monday was its biggest shopping day ever, beating out this year's Prime Day, the sales holiday the company held in July. Fortune reports that while Amazon has self-proclaimed Cyber Monday to be its highest selling day, the company has yet to release any numbers supporting this claim. This past week,…

Jumpshot's Data Report: Jump the Garden Walls
November 15, 2017 at 5:17 pm

Jumpshot's data report reveals that the growth of e-commerce platforms has driven consumers away from brand sites to marketplaces where consumers make over 50 percent of their retail purchases. Depending on product category and brand, this rate can increase to 60 percent. Jumpshot studied 42,000 consumer purchases among four major retail brands in the third quarter of 2017. This report analyzes conversions on the brands’ websites as well as popular marketplaces. The brands analyzed include Calvin Klein, Clinique, Michael Kors and Nike, across marketplaces including Amazon.com, Macy’s and Nordstrom.

Alibaba, Retailers Gearing Up for Successful Singles Day
November 10, 2017 at 10:34 am

This Saturday, Nov. 11, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will hold its annual Singles Day event, which last year grossed $17.8 billion (USD) in sales, up from $14.3 billion in 2015, according to a report from Fung Global Retail & Technology (FGRT). The 24-hour phenomenon has quickly become the world's largest shopping day, consistently surpassing…

Amazon Now Lowering Prices on Third-Party Seller Products
November 6, 2017 at 11:31 am

Amazon.com has quietly started lowering prices by as much as 9 percent in recent weeks on certain products offered by third-party sellers, according to a Wall Street Journal report published on Sunday. Until now, Amazon has controlled prices only on the merchandise it sells directly to consumers. Now, according to the report, it's discounting the items…

Have the Reports of Retail’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated?
October 20, 2017 at 10:36 am

Everywhere you look, all you see is doom and gloom for retail. Foot traffic is in decline by 50 percent in recent years. Eight thousand-plus U.S. retail stores projected to close this year. Is this the beginning of the end? Hardly. We all know that people are doing more shopping than ever, but their shopping…

Ikea to Sell its Goods Through Online Retailers
October 11, 2017 at 9:38 am

Ikea will soon sell its products through third-party online retailers in an attempt to reach more customers. A pilot program is scheduled to start sometime next year, the Swedish furniture retailer said Tuesday. The company is "curious" about what will happen as it plans to gather new insights from the pilot, Ikea spokesperson Josefin Thorell said…