Ecommerce & Marketplaces Newsletter – Oct 20th, 2023

Oct 20, 2023 | Newsletter

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) shaping the future of business in nearly every industry, our lead story this time is our latest whitepaper on AI. It is essential to look at how AI is changing the business landscape in the context of online marketplaces. Our whitepaper examines the mainstream utility AI brings to the table through the lens of buyers, sellers, and marketplace operators and studies the specialized use cases for each. Digital Commerce 360 story covers Halloween spending projections. NRF projects that about 32% of Halloween spending will occur online, while early Amazon search data shows more consumers started Halloween shopping in August. Halloween participation is set to surpass pre-COVID levels this year. Walmart is beefing up its third-party marketplace to challenge Amazon this holiday season. While Walmart is the biggest retailer, its e-commerce business is still much smaller than rival Amazon. More than half the items included in Walmart’s sales event last week, which kicked off the season, were from its third-party marketplace. The CNBC story has more details. AIContentfy has a comprehensive guide on entering the online marketplace business. It covers everything you need to know about selling products or services online. From choosing the right platform to setting up your online store, promoting your products, and managing customer relationships, this guide provides step-by-step instructions and valuable tips. Signifyd has an excellent guide on transaction fraud and detection, unraveling the intricacies of the threat landscape and highlighting the latest transaction monitoring and chargeback prevention to secure online purchasing activities. Dive in to understand how the world of fraud detection in online transactions is shaping the future of ecommerce and what it means for you. Read this and other great stories in this week’s edition.

Notable news from the past week


The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Online Marketplaces

The use of AI is rapidly changing the business landscape, often as the most impactful transformative technology since the invention of the Internet. Its mainstream utility can be seen in how many organizations are starting to use AI as a standalone technology for specialized use cases while others are embedding it within common enterprise systems that run core business processes. In fact, artificial intelligence is shaping the future of business in nearly every industry and as per as per Insight Ace, global AI-Enabled E-Commerce Solutions Market size is expected to reach US $16.8 Billion in 2030. As digital commerce practitioners decide how to navigate these newly AI-augmented waters, many have already taken the plunge. This white paper examines the possible perspectives and benefits of artificial intelligence within a marketplace from the customer, seller, and site operator viewpoints while also taking into account the AI skeptics and how to navigate some very real cautions.

A Circular Economy Investment Pioneer Reveals How to Unlock Impact

There is no shortage of circular economy startups, products and services vying for funding, offering investment opportunities across every industry. On a global scale, there’s a massive financial incentive to invest; Accenture estimates the economic potential of realizing a circular economy is $4.5 trillion. The circular economy offers a model for a profitable and regenerative system, but intelligent investments are essential to advance circularity at scale. To learn more, I spoke with Bridget Croke, managing director at Closed Loop Partners (CLP), an investment firm accelerating the transition to the circular economy. Pioneers in the field, CLP has made over 65 investments, which it says have helped to keep 4.8 million tons of materials in circulation.

Halloween Spending Will Surpass $12 Billion: NRF

U.S. Halloween spending is projected to reach a record $12.2 billion in 2023. The National Retail Federation predicts the October holiday will surpass the previous record $10.6 billion in 2022. About one-third of that shopping will take place online, according to NRF. NRF projects average spending per person to be $108.24, based on a survey of more than 8,000 consumers conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Per-person spending declined slightly in 2022, down to $100.45 from $102.74 in 2021. Now, it’s projected to grow about 8%. Halloween participation is set to surpass pre-COVID levels this year, NRF says, after a dip in recent years. 73% of surveyed consumers plan to celebrate Halloween, up from the 2020 low of 58%.

Walmart Beefs Up Its Third-party Marketplace As It Challenges Amazon

It was summer in Las Vegas — the temperature hit nearly 110 degrees that late August day — but Christmas was on everyone’s minds. While Santa Claus wandered around during an invitation-only conference, businesses that sell items on Walmart’s website attended how-to sessions and swapped advice. Walmart leaders gave third-party marketplace sellers an early gift, too: Waiving extra fees for storing merchandise during the peak season. Doug McMillon, who leads the world’s largest retailer, took the stage and made a sales pitch to the smaller businesses and brands. “We hope you’ll choose to grow with us,” the CEO told the more than 1,500 attendees, invoking the memory of company founder Sam Walton, who was at one time a small-town entrepreneur. “We want you to bring great items to our marketplace. Our team is here to serve you.”

Entering the Online Sales Marketplace: A Comprehensive Guide

So, you’ve decided to take your business online and dive into the world of online sales. Congratulations! You’ve just made a clever move that could potentially revolutionize your brand. But wait, isn’t it a bit overwhelming to enter the vast, ever-evolving, and sometimes bewildering realm of the online marketplace? Don’t fret, my friend. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll be your trusty companion, holding your hand through the maze of online sales, and helping you navigate the twists and turns with ease. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or completely new to this game, together, we’ll unravel the secrets, strategies, and trendy tricks that’ll take your online sales to soaring heights. So, buckle up, sharpen your virtual pencil, and let’s embark on this exciting digital adventure!

What Instacart’s IPO Foretold About Digital Ads, Retail And The Future Of Search

When Instacart came out of the gate with its IPO on September 18, it made its debut dressed up in green finery that few others have bothered to don in the digital era: Its business had already been turning a profit since 2022, and “that trend has continued in the first six months of 2023.” While some would argue that this was a delivery story, a digital-company story, a market story, it is in fact more of an advertising, retail media and search story. When Amazon went public in 1997, it was losing $5.78 million a year. When Twitter went public in 2013, its net losses for the same period were $69.3 million. When Doordash IPO’d in 2020, it reported $1.9 billion in revenue for the first nine months of that year and a net loss of nearly $150 million.

Your Guide To Transaction Fraud Detection And Prevention

We are living in a digital world more than ever before. From the quick tap of a mobile payment app to the seamless checkout of ecommerce giants, our financial behavior has shifted dramatically to favor convenience. But with convenience comes a lurking danger, transaction fraud. Fraudsters and those looking to protect businesses from them are engaged in an escalating battle. On the one side, merchants, banks and fraud protection providers work to improve transaction fraud detection to catch fraud before or when it happens. For their part, fraudsters are employing a myriad of tactics to commit fraud against unsuspecting victims. Ensuring the safety of financial transactions through bank transaction fraud detection, which can include fraud transaction detection using machine learning, has become an essential part of online business.

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