Droids Not Drones Are the Future of E-Commerce Deliveries

According to Bloomberg, the little delivery robots designed by billionaire-backed startup, Starship Technologies, and a competing U.S. startup, Dispatch, are the BB-8s and Wall-E's of e-commerce. The droids are up against the strongest forces in tech and retail. Amazon has tested airborne drones, as are Wal-Mart and Google. Additionally, Google has sought patents for a driverless truck. Finally, Uber is deploying drivers for food delivery, a concept that could be expanded to other products. The article points out that droids do have limitations and economic viability limited to urban areas. Drones have a higher sticker price and bigger regulatory hurdles to surmount, but may prove less expensive on a per-mile basis. And for the foreseeable future, some logistics experts say, humans still have the edge over any sci-fi inspired contenders.

How savvy, social shoppers are transforming Chinese e-commerce

According to McKinsey and Company, their latest survey finds emerging sources of growth in the world's largest e-commerce market, China, creating opportunities for retailers. At approximately $630 billion of sales in 2015, China’s online retail market is nearly 80 percent bigger than in the United States. Additionally, eCommerce in China accounts for 13.5 percent of all retail spending in that nation. That share is higher than that of all great economies, except for the United Kingdom. Chinese consumers spend 17 percent more on e-commerce than their mobile-only peers. Within this large and active e-commerce market, we see three trends that have important implications for how consumer-facing businesses can continue pursuing revenue and profit growth in China:

• Consumers in low-tier cities are outspending those in high-tier cities online—and the gap is likely to get wider.
• Social media has become a powerful channel for initiating online purchases.
• Consumers are buying goods from cross-border vendors to supplement what they buy domestically.

Amazon eyed up Everlane, Le Tote and more for acquisition in a wider fashion push

According to TechCruch, Amazon, which already has focus on areas such as media streaming, faster delivery and pickup services, hardware and enterprise via AWS is now also making further efforts in the area of fashion. The news source states that Amazon “has considered buying several startups in the fashion sphere as potential acquisitions to update and expand its presence in the category.”

Although the eCommerce giant’s stepping into fashion may appear to be recent, it actually goes back years. TechCrunch, quoting Amazon’s CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos: “In order to be a $200 billion company, we’ve got to learn how to sell clothes and food.”

The article explains that Amazon is interested in acquiring third-party brands because it lacks branding power – fashion wise, naturally. Historically, Amazon has considered acquisition when it starts to eye up a new business area (including delivery, food ordering or video).

Will Millennials Want to Go Shopping With Facebook Messenger Bots?

How do you feel about Facebook's vision of purchases enabled by chat bots? Picture this: as you chat with a friend on the company's Messenger service about wishing to buy a specific apparel, one chat bot chimes in to offer help purchasing that merchandise. The Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg believes that, if successful, the model would essentially eliminate the need to open a third-party app for a broad range of transactions.

As mentioned in the article (by Bloomberg) - while a great deal of millennials use Facebook, their approach to online shopping is systemic and drawn out, not necessarily in line with the immediate call-to-action button. If Messenger is truly better than using a third-party app, we still have to wait and see. Although the software powering chat bots has made improvements, they would have to play catchup with app-based platforms that have already spent countless hours improving their user experience.

U.S. e-retailers get more competition from Europe as the duty-free ceiling rises

The retail media outlet, Internet Retailer explains that online shoppers in the U.S. have a new incentive to buy from retailers in Europe after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the limit on duty-free purchases from the European Union increased to $800 from $200 (the retail value is based on the price of merchandise in the country of origin). Such a measure will favor companies like German shoe merchant Shoepassion.com, as many of its shoes are priced above $200 and 25% of web orders are from customers outside Germany, including the U.S.

However, the increase has not yet been widely publicized in Europe. Such a change in the duty-free limit should not be ignored. In fiscal 2015, U.S. Customs and Border Protection processed more than $2.4 trillion in trade and approximately 33 million imports. This sounds like a great opportunity for retailers all over the Union.

This is the end of another of our monthly roundups. However, check back in next month for a newly curated list of articles that will get you up to date with the retail industry’s latest buzz… Additionally, we invite you to stay tuned to our blog page and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for all of our musings.