E-commerce 2018

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Voice search in e-commerce

Voice search is an increasing trend in the e-commerce world. Apple has Siri, Google has Google home assistant and Amazon has Alexa/ Echo. Voice search device seems become a growing trend across all digital platform. And voice search shopping shown new opportunities in the e-commerce world. 

“The statistics about voice search today are proof of just how important this method of search is becoming. Microsoft Cortana has over 133 million active users, over 40 million people use Siri on their Apple devices every month and Amazon has already sold over 20 million Echo devices.”(Alexa – find me a house!) 

As we can see from the chart, young customers are more interested and adapt to voice search shopping. Voice search makes people’s life convenient and easier. Voice search accuracy has improved a lot which lead to more users adapt this technology. As for what I know, most of my friends who use voice search device are using them at home and in their car while they are driving.People are still not comfortable to use voice search in the public space due to privacy issue.

Search result and page rank are important in regular search engine. Google search has a related advertisement options and SEO for company to improve search results. Related to voice search, I believe voice search can also be a big opportunities for advertising fees. One of the main changes voice search introduces is the fact that only the first result is read out. Suddenly optimizing pages to be on the first page of Google is not good enough. Even being second on Google results is not much good. This means it is even more important to be the first result.

I believe voice search is important to add to company’s digital strategy.Voice search will have an impact on search engine optimization.

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Jewelry industry's new 'TrustChain Initiative' uses blockchain to track products

Talking about jewelry industries, there are  several problems rises.When customers purchasing jewelers, it's always important to make sure the jewelers are real.However, most consumers are lacking knowledge on how to distinguish the quality of jewellery. For jewellery companies, they also need to track the process of diamonds and precious metals been found from mine and then go in to manufacture process and distribute to retail. It's a complicated  process and involve different locations , distributors and factories.

Now, IBM is provide support to jewellery companies with blockchain technology to make it easier for consumers to track diamonds and precious metals through the various steps of the supply chain. This initiative is called the TrustChain which will run on IBM’s technology, includes precious-metals refiner Asahi Refining, US jewellery retailer Helzberg Diamonds, precious-metals supplier LeachGarner, jewellery-maker the Richline Group and verification service UL. Products being tracked through the program should be available to consumers shopping for jewellery by year-end.

From my perspective, this technology help to prove to consumers that their purchases don’t include low quality diamonds. I think this technology can increase consumers trust to the brand and increasing chances of purchasing. It also help jewellery companies to track its own supply chain. This technology will be faster and efficient than let employees to record process and update to its supply chain which may incur errors and it might not be trustworthy. Nowadays, young consumers have more access to information so they are more skeptical and doing more researches when making a purchase decisions.TrustChain is definitely helpful for jewellery companies to better target at younger consumers.

However, nothing is perfect. I believe Trustchain system will also have errors. But the benefit is that blockchain is a team sport and many, many eyeballs are acting as a check for each step along the way. If a problem is found, it can be fixed through the same level of consensus. So this system will also improve problem solving speeds and make the supply chain system more transparency.

Since TrustChain in mainly focusing on tracking process in supply chain, it can also apply on other industries such as food products and automobile. I am looking forward to seeing TrustChain system implementation in different industries.

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Airbnb’s new tool for event planners

According to the news,  Airbnb is helping event planners provide lodging ideas for attendees and is hoping to generate some revenue from it. Airbnb released a tool for meeting planners and group travelers to to show Airbnb properties near an event. It’s essentially a do-it-yourself tool that creates a landing page for an event on Airbnb along with a widget featuring a map for your website under the new brand Airbnb for Events.

I have always been interested in companies like Airbnb. Several years ago, Airbnb is only a platform that provide places for travelers to stay. Nowadays, Airbnb is really expanding its services in different areas. In 2015, the company launches Airbnb experiences which help the company growing. I personally love this feature, I have tried several experiences in New York and I absolutely love it and the price is fair. Airbnb CEO state that its experience feature growing about thirteen times faster than homes business.They've earned about a half a million dollars from social impact experiences in 7 months.

Now, Airbnb is provide a new tool for event planners. It reminds me of Airbnb’s business travel services. It's a competitive market with lots of potentials. Nowadays, people prefer meeting and event places that have nice interior design than traditional meeting place in a hotel.This tool just make business trips and meetings easier. However, this tool also reminds me of Wework’s sub brand Welive which is a platform providing short-term and long-term house rentals for business travelers and entrepreneurs. I feel like Wework is also targeting at the business trip market since they are not only providing co-working space, meeting space but also living space. One advantage is that Wework already have lots of business clients who are in their networks. The company have a royal base members. Wework also hold all kinds of events for its members. As for Airbnb, third party planner might be hold back from this tool because they can’t negotiate discounts with Airbnb, and they’re not getting a commission on rooms booked on the platform. Since Airbnb is planning to launch its sub brand Airbnb event, its interesting to see how can these two fast growing companies compete in the market.

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Thoughts on Instagram privacy polices change and its influences to influencers

Recently, Facebook’s privacy issues has become huge topics and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg went through congress hearing. Instagram, which is belong to Facebook has restrict its privacy policies regarding to third-parties accessing instagram users data. The company stated that “As of today, you will be able to shop Instagram content exclusively with a screenshot, as like-based shopping will no longer be supported due to changes in Facebook/Instagram’s third-party access to likes.” These policy changes upsets influencer economy.

Influencer economy generate lots of revenues in the past years due to the popularities of social media such as Instagram and Youtube. Influencers on social media have the power to control retail brand conversations and impact consumers' purchasing decisions. In the past several years, there were instagram influencers  who heavily focus on generate great contents on different platforms and earn millions of followers. Nowadays, the entry level to become an instagram influencer become much easier. Many influencers solely rely on instagram and post great pictures to become famous and earning money from brand.

Instagram’s new policy state that third-parties can no longer access follower lists, relationships information, see which posts users have “liked” or receive notifications when media is posted. Analytics companies that provide follower demographics will no longer have access to Instagram data and people can no longer use “bots” to follow accounts or “like” Instagram posts. This policy will affect those influencers who rely on instagram”liked” button to gain revenue. But many influencers have other platforms that are linked into instagram to lead sales.

An Instagram spokesperson said that in place of the old API, the company is expanding the new Instagram Graph API, which is designed for business profiles, including metrics on content performance and comment moderation. So I believe this policy change will make more influencers tend to switch to business account.

From my  perspective, instagram has upsets lots of users recently. As some of the influencers  have revealed stories of fake lifes on instagram, lots of my peers just feel tired of instagram. Users are kind of tired of similar pictures of hundreds of influencers and ads and promotions on the platform. Since Facebook’s privacy issues occured, users are more concerned about their privacies. So it's definitely a good thing for customers to heard that Instagram is improving its privacy policies.It makes customers feel a little bit safer than before. However, customers should always pay attention to putting personal informations online. On the other hand, I am wondering how long will influencer marketing exists and how long will customers loyal to their favorite influencers. Nowadays, brands are all collaborate with influencers to promoting their products or services. However, influencers can buy fans, buy likes even buy comments to pretend they have huge power over their fans and have a loyal fan base. Many influencers are not focusing on generating great content but ads and promotions.

Customers already get a little bit sick of these kind of promotions. I am wondering what platform will be the next Instagram that people are willing to use.

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Ant Finance is shifting the market

Chinese tech firms Ant Finance got huge attention in the finance industry recently.Last year, the president of the world’s largest asset manager said that  Ant Finance’s business models could upend the finance industry.

Ant Financial is an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group. Ant Financial is the most valuable fintech company in the world. It operates Alipay, the world's largest mobile and online payments platform as well as Yu’e Bao, the world's largest money-market fund. Ant Financial is one features in Alipay app so Chinese consumers can easily access to it. Ant Financial services include Alipay,Sesame credit, Yu’e Bao, Zhao Cai Bao and MYBank. Ant Financial also have online insurance services. Instead of putting money into the bank, people can store their money in Ant Financial for a higher interest rate. On the Ant Finance page it also provide people easy explanation of the benefits and attractive pictures. Ant Financial really break through a new world of online financing by providing people easy, fast and safe services.According to the Financial Times (paywall), by Ant Financial’s latest reported valuation of about $150 billion, which is up from $100 billion just a few months ago.

Nowadays, when you travel in asian countries, you can easily find Alipay option when you trying to purchase in a retail store or online e-commerce site. Last week, when I took a cab in NYC, the check out option provides Alipay payment. Alipay is aggressively taking over the global market. As for Ant Finance,its takeover of remittance company MoneyGram was blocked by US officials but it still has plans to expand globally, including ambitions to grow aggressively in Europe.

With the growing of online finance services and payment method, the traditional finance service firms are in disadvantage. Many traditional finance services firms are rely on giant tech companies for technology such as cloud computing, AI, big data analytic.

Obviously, Alibaba is not the only company that want to conquer the market.Amazon is in talks with banks like JPMorgan to start checking-account services, according to the Wall Street Journal. And American consumers without a bank will soon be able to deposit money into a  PayPal account and spend it with a Mastercard. However, online financial services are limited by lots of regulations and security problems.

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Founder Of Ecommerce Retailer Nasty Gal Launches Girlboss Media Brand

Nasty Gal was a fast growing Ecommerce fashion brand.By 2012, Nasty Gal  growing from an Ebay store to nearly $100 million in sales in just six years. The founder, Sophia Amoruso, was famous for its story of building Nasty Gal to a $100 million sales ecommerce site in 2012. She is even a member of  Forbes’ 2016 list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with an estimated worth of $280 million. Sophia was stepped down from  the CEO position in 2015 and bringing in Sheree Waterson as CEO.  

However, Nasty Gal claimed bankruptcy in 2016 and the brand was sold to Boohoo, a British online retailer. After Sophia stepped out from CEO position, she published two popular books sharing her stories of building the Nasty Gal brand. One of the book is called “Girlboss” which encourage women to be independent and pursue their dreams. Now, Sophia Amoruso is back with her new media brand called Girlboss.

I have read Sophia Amoruso’s book before and I was surprised by the bankruptcy of the Nasty Gal.From my analysis, Nasty Gal failed its business due to several reasons. First, the company spent too much on marketing and advertising.Secondly, the company failed to hold on customers. It’s hard to turn one time customers into loyal customers. Many customers only buy once and stop buying. Thirdly, the company spent a lot on expanding its offline retail store which is unnecessary. In addition, the brand image appeals to california young girls. The style itself has limited amount of  target audiences. The story of the Nasty Gal world makes me think of how can fast fashion brand survived in the ecommerce world. It's really important to know your target audiences. Your audience will grow up and their tastes will gradually change. So I believe brands need to grow with their audiences and keep pace with customers purchasing habits and social media trends.

Now, Sophia Amoruso is back with her new media brand Girlboss. She has raised $1.2 million to grow the media brand. Sophia Amoruso explains that“Girlboss is emerging out of something very different than what most women’s media brands have, which is beauty and fashion. We do cover beauty and will eventually spend more time with fashion, but our core is about our reader’s life as a whole. I think it’s become trendy to have a conversation about a variety of topics like feminism and finance, but for us, it’s where Girlboss came from.”

After reading her new concept about the Girlboss media brand, I am concerning about the survivability of this new media brand. Certainly, feminism is a big trend right now. However, will this topic become untrendy soon? The company also opens a Girlboss academy for women who want to start their own business. The academy provides workshops and panels. However, how many people are willing to pay to join this kind of event? How can this brand compete with cosmopolitan which also provide similar contents? I do have lots of concerns of this new media brand. One thing I like from this new brand is that it focusing building a Girlboss community and have conversions with them and  help them which will make customers have belongings.I have visited their websites, the loading time is around 10s which is really slow. The company might have to put more efforts on website design and content design. I am looking forward to seeing the future of the brand.

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Thoughts on blockchains

After the trend of bitcoin, blockchains have become a huge topic in the business world. It seems like all of sudden, everybody is talking about blockchain. So what is blockchain? Blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way.“With blockchain, we can imagine a world in which contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in transparent, shared databases, where they are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision. In this world every agreement, every process, every task, and every payment would have a digital record and signature that could be identified, validated, stored, and shared.” (The Harvard Business Review)Many people think blockchains can change the way of todays’ business and economy. Blockchain will help us save money from third party when we making a deal. Blockchain can help us eliminate mistakes and save times through tracking records and transactions.

However, I think there are many barriers for blockchains to change the current games. It’s still hard for organization to adapt blockchain. With blockchains’ development, there could be one day that blockchain can replace people’s job. This will effect employments. If there are too many people lose their jobs, the society won’t be stable. Also, the most important barriers are government regulation and governance. 

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Dropbox:” it just works”

This case introduces the history of Dropbox, a downloadable application that allowed users to easily share, sync, and store files. When Drew Houston, the founder of Dropbox, decided to launch the dropbox, there are 80 existed competitors in the market. This is a highly competitive market. In order to compete in this market, Dropbox not only optimize its overall features but also found the right marketing strategy.

One thing interests me is Dropbox’s marketing strategy.As an tech company, Dropbox paid lots of attention on online marketing  where its customers are. Instead of using traditional marketing method such as out of door advertisement. Dropbox uses SEO and SEM at first to grow its customers.However, the cost per click for search keywords cost  dropbox $300 to acquire a paying customer. The cost is super high due to the highly competition .Then Dropbox start to improve its analytic features.Its interesting that Dropbox acquire vast of customers through organic growth. Word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing had help Dropbox accelerate its growth. 

One problem dropbox faced was product segmentation. Dropbox could segment its diverse and growing user base and tailor separate products or add-on features for segments. Dropbox adopted a freemium strategy by offering a small amount of storage. Dropbox could provide different version for small business.

Personally, I am a google drive lover. I feel that google drive are more organized than dropbox. When I was working in a media company, the company was using dropbox. My user experience is not that good. It was kind of confusing for me and when two people edit the same doc it messed up the name. So I am more of a Google drive user and google drive is complimentary. So one question I have is how can Dropbox retain its freemium users to pay for upgrading. When it comes to payment, lots of users will turn away. Since there are many substitutes in the market. User can easily find a substitute service.So I think its important to develop a user community or provide more benefits for the users. User experience is super important in retaining a customer.

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Thoughts on Ad block

When I am browsing online, I always get tired of endless Ad that appearing on my browser. So I use Ad blocks in Google chrome and Youtube. Ad blocker is a software, browser extension or a mobile app that blocks ads from being loaded on a page. I blocks makes my browsing experience more enjoyable. And now even Apple allow Ad block app in the app store.I know that most of my friends are also using Ad blocks. Ad block is not only free but also easy to download. When I doing research, there are some data shows that today publishers are unable to reach more than 20% of their audience in the US due to AdBlockers. I knew that Facebook and Youtube are earning money through Ad. And many bloggers earning income through Ad on their blogs or websites.Since Ad block will influence numbers of Ad views, I am wondering how companies or individuals that earn their revenue through Ads reacts to Ad blockers.

There is a Youtube blogger that I followed for a long time uploaded a  video  talks about how ad blocker and Youtube’s new policy discouraged her making videos. She said that from 2015 to 2016, she made lots of money through Youtube Ads and sponsorship. From 2017, Youtube had new policies came out that regulate blogger’s ad. Also, Ad blockers effects the number of views of the ad.All these situations affect bloggers’ income. 

I also wondering how ad blockers earning money.Its interesting to know that some ad blockers making money by collecting anonymized data on what those trackers pick up. It repackages that data and resells it to publishers, websites, and other companies it says can use the information to help improve the speed, privacy, and performance of their sites.

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Thoughts on pandora case and soundcloud

The pandora case talks about the freemium business model that Pandora use.A freemium strategy is based on giving away some products or services for free while relying on a certain percentage of  customers to pay for premium versions of the same product or service. I have always been wondering will company be profitable if it provide freemium to customers. Freemium will definitely attract many users since free services are huge incentives. However, when customers get used to free services. They are unwilling to pay and they can find substitute to use. I think this is a challenge for all business that use freemium model. Pandora then focus on launching Pandora one which aim to providing chargeable services to customers.Even Pandora still not shown profit, its listeners are still growing and it gain revenue from advertisement. This is interesting in music industry. QQ music in China used to provide freemium services to customers and then it struggled a lot with copyright problem. Finally, it changed to subscription model. There are many strong competitors in music industry, such as Apple music, Spotify and Tidal. Apple music and Tidal are fully paid service. Spotify also use freemium model and struggled issues such as copyright. 

Pandora’s case reminds me the story of Soundcloud. Soundcloud is a music and podcast streaming platform for both creators and listeners. At first, it provide freemium services to listeners and charge a amount of fee for creators. Soundcloud identify itself as a cool kids platform since  there are many indie music artists create and upload music in this platform. However, Soundcloud  faces serious financial challenges. The platform is great and cool but the profit is low. Soundcloud then trying to earn profit through advertisement and go premium. However, the result is not as we expect. As a customer standpoint, I have some advices for Soundcloud. I am one of those customers who are not willing to pay extra money to use Soundcloud since I can easily find substitute music streaming services. However, one unique thing about Soundcloud is that it provide those young and indie artists a platform to show their works. And I know there are many artists get famous and signed to label because their works get spread through Soundcloud. And Soundcloud provide creators easy and functional ways to create and upload their works. So I think Soundcloud could transform to an interactive community for its creators and listeners.And charge monthly subscription fee. This community will make its creators and listeners have sort of belongings and identity. Nowadays, customers want to be part of the culture and movement. Soundcloud could see as a rebel of traditional music platform. Soundcloud could throw lots of exclusive event such as workshop,single release party, music making lessons, DJ lessons for their members. Creators could be the teacher or host of those event. And listeners will be the attend for those event. Since Soundcloud already works with several labels, Soundcloud could also collaborate with labels to host contest in which the winner can sign to the label. Its time for Soundcloud to make some changes!

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Self Introduction

My name is Ying Wang. I come from China and this is my 7th year in the States. This semester is both exciting and frightened for me because I am going to graduate this May. I have interned in many industries such as  real estate; music; fashion and education. I am currently working in a Fashion company that operates in  both US and Chinese market. And e-commerce  is our main selling platform.Interestingly, our company is identified as the leader in Chinese  fashion industry that incorporates blockchain technology into supply chain.During fashion week, we teamed up with VeChain. Our clothing collection can be verified on the blockchain through scanning the QR code on the label. A person’s phone communicates with the small VeChain chip embedded inside the clothing or accessory, which then tells its “story” to the consumer. This helped us to better interact with our customers. I am currently responsible for brand’s digital marketing campaigns but I want to learn more knowledges of e-commerce in this class. I want to know online marketing for e-commerce, the future of e-commerce, e-commerce consumer behavior and how to improve consumer experience in e-commerce shopping. Moreover, I would like to hear more real world examples and tips since I am going to graduate this may and start my full-time career.