„Seismic consumer behaviour shifts”. E-commerce news by Nabil

This week…

• Shopify launched Shop, a new mobile app for shopping
• Walmart adds 2-hour delivery service
• Amazon will invest 4BLN in COVID-related expenses in Q2
• CocaCola sharing insights on the impact of e-commerce “seismic”
• Poshmark introduces shoppable Posh Stories feature
• Instacart turns to profit thank to COVID
• Reliance & Facebook pilot shopping on WhatsApp
• Reporting earnings this coming week is: Pinterest Shopify, Etsy, Square, PayPal!

Shopify launches Shop, a new mobile app

Shopify is known for supporting more than 1 Million online stores, now the company is launching its own consumer shopping app. of its own today. How many of us use an app for their favourite activities and companies? Most of us right!! This move is a response to a broader shift, consumers are not just moving from desktop to mobile commerce, but also from mobile web to native mobile apps, that’s why it’s critical to have an app that can connect the Shopify Ecosystem, excited to see the results of Shopify this Wednesday when they report earnings.

Check out THIS article about the new Shopify app.

Walmart adds 2-hour delivery service

One thing which is becoming evident is that Walmart is not planning to let Amazon win over the battle of eCommerce. As Covid is driving some huge consumer behaviour changes on the grocery purchases, it’s critical timing for Walmart to launch a direct competitor to Amazon Prime Now and Amazon Fresh. With the density and network of Walmart in the US and globally, this could be a game-changer if well executed.

Read more about the 2-hour delivery service HERE.

Coca-Cola: ‘We’re going to embrace some seismic consumer behavior shifts, especially in e-commerce’

Consumer companies have been generally slow to adopt e-commerce strategies and many of the companies are still trying to figure it out…believe me I speak to a lot of them every week. COVID pandemic might clear up a lot of the projects pipelines and help companies to refocus their efforts, resources and money on what will matter. One of these is Ecommerce sales channel, CocaCola reported that their growth rates doubled in many countries following the pandemic and they expect this to be a trend which will stay. No surprise to many of you but Ecom is the way to go for all sectors, not only retail…

Coca Cola had something important to say. Read more about it HERE.

Poshmark introduces shoppable Posh Stories feature

Poshmark is a social commerce marketplace where people can buy and sell new or used clothing, shoes, and accessories. As Pinterest, Instagram, Snap have introduced checkout options into their ecosystem of revenue generator, we are now seeing also the second hands brands doing the same. Shoppable stories, videos, streaming, games will become a major sales channels in the coming months and years.

More details HERE.

Amazon Profit Misses Street, To Spend $4 Bln In Q2 On Covid-related Expenses

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has always been a leader who makes long term bets!! And this is definitely one of these long term bets. He famously said in one interview:

„When somebody … congratulates Amazon on a good quarter … I say thank you. But what I’m thinking to myself is … those quarterly results were actually pretty much fully baked about 3 years ago.

This decision to double down in this period of crisis on Building Brand Image/reputation + ensuring that operations are running smoothly at the company will allow Amazon to continue reinforcing it’s dominance. Which other company can do this and invest entire profits of the quarter into brand reputation and investing for the future? Probably very very few…still looking for one?? While more than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the beginning of the pandemic, Amazon hired 175,000 new workers, this is more jobs than it added in 2019.

Nasdaq has published an interesting report on Amazon and the profit it misses.

Reliance and Facebook pilot JioMart grocery shopping on WhatsApp

JioMart is testing an “ordering system” on WhatsApp, this would be the first collaboration between Facebook and Indian telecom giant Reliance Jio Platforms.

While SuperApp like Wechat in China have been integrating entire consumer journey and many functionalities, in the rest of the world, companies are still trying to figure out how to leverage (and monetize) the use of certain apps like WhatsApp.

In this case, a user can now use JioMart’s WhatsApp business account for grocery shopping. They simply initiate an order by texting “Hi” to +91-8850008000, which prompts a link that opens a mini-store on the browser, allowing them to pick a range of grocery products including toothpaste, snacks, tea and coffee, rice, and cooking oil. Is that the future of commerce? Don’t think so ! but texting to buy products could have relevance for certain demographic, let’s see.

Check out the details HERE.

Coronavirus grocery delivery instacart profitable

In the case of Instacart, this crisis is not only generating exponential growth, it’s also a game changer potentially converting the business to a profitable business.

The company announced it would add 250K Instacart Shopper to meet consumer demand. Before the impacts of COVID-19, Instacart network has 200,000 shoppers, with this new workforce, the company will become one of the largest network.

Stat of the week:

Learn more about instacart HERE.