Tag Archives: ecom

Alibaba’s Audacious Goal To Reach $1 Trillion In Merchandise Sales

Alibaba ( BABA ) says it’s on a path to realizing its vision of achieving $1 trillion in gross merchandise volume in about four years, as it also pursues a goal of reaching 2 billion consumers on its e-commerce platforms. During the company’s conference call after posting its fiscal-fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, company CEO Daniel Zhang cited reasons he’s optimistic of hitting the $1 trillion GMV goal. One big reason, he noted, is Alibaba’s successful transition from PCs to mobile devices. By comparison, e-commerce software firm ChannelAdvisor ( ECOM ) estimates Amazon.com ‘s ( AMZN ) GMV in 2015 at $225.6 billion, with 310 million users. At the time of Alibaba’s initial public offering in September 2014, mobile contributed less than 40% of GMV. Today, it’s 73%. Success also depends on international expansion and in continuing to transform its e-commerce business, along with continued investments and growth in its media and digital entertainment platforms, as well as its cloud computing business. Alibaba is one of the four largest Internet companies in China. The others are JD.com ( JD ), which runs a direct-to-consumer e-commerce site similar to Amazon ( AMZN ); China search-engine leader Baidu ( BIDU ); and Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ), which dominates in gaming and mobile messaging. For all Zhang’s bravado, Alibaba is less than halfway toward its goal: For its fiscal year ended March 31, Alibaba had GMV of $485 billion, up 27%. And it said it had 423 million active buyers, up 21%. GMV is the total value of goods sold across Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Alibaba does not take part in direct sales, hold inventory or compete directly with its merchant base. Businesses and consumers use Alibaba’s e-commerce platform, and Alibaba takes about a 2.5% cut of GMV sales. It also makes money from advertising. Alibaba Counts On Growth For Tmall, Taobao Alibaba’s core e-commerce retail platforms are Taobao, Tmall and Juhuasuan. Together, they have 367 million active buyers, with about 90% of Alibaba’s revenue generated in China. Getting to $1 trillion will depend on the growth and expansion mainly of Tmall and Taobao. Tmall is China’s largest business-to-consumer website. Taobao is a consumer-to-consumer e-commerce website similar to eBay ( EBAY ). Taobao is the larger of the two. In fiscal 2016, it hit GMV of $295 billion, up 18%. Tmall reached $190 billion, up 43%. Part of Alibaba’s GMV growth is pegged to global expansion. Alibaba last month announced it acquired a controlling stake in Singapore-based Lazada, a leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, for $1 billion. Lazada operates online retail platforms across Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore, with GMV of $1 billion in 2015. “Our acquisition of a controlling stake in Lazada will allow access to 560 million consumers in one of the most promising markets for e-commerce,” said Chung Tsai, Alibaba executive vice chairman, in the earnings conference call. Alibaba in the March quarter showed its highest growth rate in a year, despite an economic slowdown in China. “In these challenging times for the global economy, Alibaba is bucking the trend,” said Tsai. He said Chinese households today have aggregate net cash reserves of more than $4.6 trillion. “This accumulated wealth and liquidity is the result of real double-digit wage growth over the past decade,” he said. Kerry Rice, an analyst at Needham, says Alibaba has a lot of room for growth ahead. “We expect the company’s core business to continue to be the engine of growth, and despite its scale and dominant market share, we believe it still has significant room for growth,” Rice wrote in a research report. Rice rates Alibaba stock a buy, with a price target of 95. Alibaba stock was up a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 79.50. Alibaba stock is up nearly 30% since touching a seven-month low in early February. Alibaba’s stock has had a rocky trip since its blockbuster IPO raised $24 billion, the most ever. Shares priced at 68 and hit a peak of 120 in November 2014. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney has an outperform rating and price target of 105 on Alibaba stock, up from a previous target of 89. Based on its strength in mobile, “we believe this means Alibaba can sustain premium growth rates in its key retail segment for the foreseeable future,” Mahaney wrote in a research note.

Instant Gratification A Hit For Amazon.com With Prime Now

With the lofty goal of delivering vast swaths of his mighty e-commerce firm’s sprawling inventory within one hour, Amazon.com ( AMZN ) CEO Jeff Bezos has struck cybergold — shoppers have flocked to the latest iteration of his Amazon Prime loyalty program, Prime Now. Amazon executives have described rapid delivery as both difficult and expensive — and have acknowledged that customers love it. And Amazon loves its customers, so much that Bezos repeatedly has said the company will forego profits to please them. Cowen & Co. Tuesday released results of its survey of 1,200 Amazon Prime customers that it says shows one in four already have adopted Prime Now. It’s basically free. With order via a mobile app, Prime Now will deliver a large number of Amazon-bought goods within two hours in areas of the nation where the service is available. Customers can use the app for one-hour delivery as well, but there’s a $7.99 charge for that. Prime Now is one Amazon salvo in a multiyear campaign to snatch more of the household budget. Amazon.com stock was up more than 3.5%, near 573, in afternoon trading on the stock market today . The company carries an IBD Composite Rating of 78, where 99 is the highest. Cowen analyst John Blackledge, in the research report, says that Bezos’ approach with Prime Now complements Amazon’s same-day and two-day services, and adds more value to its grocery operations Pantry and Fresh. Wal-Mart Vs. Amazon Heating Up Wal-Mart ( WMT ) — by far the largest brick-and-mortar retailer — makes bank on its grocery business, which accounts for about half of its top line, according to ChannelAdvisor ( ECOM ) Executive Chairman Scot Wingo. But Amazon is encroaching on Wal-Mart’s business. “We view Prime Now as one of the pathways Amazon is using to gain share in the $1 trillion grocery market,” Blackledge wrote. “Our early survey work suggests the strategy is working.” The survey indicated that 70% of those responding bought goods via Prime Now multiple times a month — and about a third of shoppers bought groceries from a local store that elected to list its items on Prime Now. The service is available in 24 markets that account for nearly half of the U.S. gross domestic product, says Blackledge. Food delivery is available in seven markets. Prime Now’s success is also a blow to eBay ( EBAY ), which continues to struggle to maintain relevancy for shoppers. Plagued by problems such as a significant data breach and SEO challenges following a change in Alphabet ( GOOGL ) subsidiary Google’s search engine algorithm, eBay has been unable to match Amazon’s double-digital growth rate. Disagreeing with recent investor sentiment — eBay stock has had a choppy beginning to 2016 — Wells Fargo analyst Matt Nemer says that eBay has potential, albeit as a hedge against a potentially slowing global economy. And for its part, eBay has been making significant bets on restructuring the way it lists items. But as Amazon continues to innovate its way to riches, some say that its position as the dominant e-tailer is impenetrable . That hasn’t stopped rivals, however. Privately held Jet.com is making a stab, also offering two-day shipping, and Alibaba ( BABA )-backed ShopRunner is also taking aim at Amazon. ShopRunner executives have told IBD that the company plans to take on Amazon in categories where the Seattle-based company doesn’t have a strong foothold, such as fashion.

Will Amazon.com Surpass Wal-Mart This Year? Maybe Sort Of

Third-party sellers drive big sales for e-commerce leader  Amazon.com ( AMZN ), so much that if you take a look and add them up, Amazon is getting very close to catching up with longtime retail king Wal-Mart. At least, so says  ChannelAdvisor ( ECOM ) Executive Chairman Scot Wingo, after looking at the numbers in a blog post this week  that he called a deep dive into Amazon’s financials. Looking at third-party sales and what he says is the 10% commission that Amazon takes and includes as revenue in its quarterly financials,  Amazon’s the total transactional value — the amount of goods the company moves — might surpass  Wal-Mart ( WMT ) as soon as this year, Wingo says. ChannelAdvisor works with third-party sellers on Amazon and other platforms, and provides a range of related strategic services and technologies. One caveat is that Wingo excludes groceries, a small business for Amazon at this point but a big one for Wal-Mart. Excluding groceries, Wingo calculates that Amazon’s total transactional value — Amazon revenue plus third-party sellers — was close to $225 billion in 2015. Amazon reported 2015 revenue of $107 billion, but of course that does not include the great majority — 90%, says Wingo — of third-party revenue. Wingo estimates third-party sellers added $131.8 billion to Amazon’s total transactional volume last year, for the total of $225 billion. Wal-Mart hauled in $242 billion when you exclude groceries, which accounted for half of the company’s total revenue of $485 billion in fiscal 2015, Wingo said. He used data for Wal-Mart’s fiscal 2105 ended Jan. 31, 2015, but the company’s final fiscal 2016 revenue is  expected to be roughly the same, with analysts expecting $483 billion. Amazon, on the other hand, has been boosting its annual revenue at a 20% clip. “Amazon has twice the economic impact people think,” Wingo told IBD via email, when we asked about his blog post. Since 2009, Wal-Mart has had a third-party sellers program open to “select” retailers. The company does not break out its revenue for its third-party sellers, and Wingo contends it is not significant. Add it up, and by these metrics, Amazon is heading to surpass Wal-Mart this calendar year. Said Wingo, “unless something slows down at Amazon, it will put considerable pressure on other offline and online retailers.” Amazon did not return several requests for comment. Amazon Pressure On E-Tail Only Getting Worse Yet, Wal-Mart has been “vocal” about its plans to aggressively build-out its e-commerce platforms. In December, Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Toporek told IBD that the firm has been building “dozens” of online fulfillment centers, and has made a big bet on its digital sales platform through its now 2,500-strong workforce in Silicon Valley. Half the company’s online sales are on mobile devices, he said. Nonetheless as Amazon expands, Wingo says other sellers will suffer. In his blog post, he said “we also expect that as Amazon ‘absorbs’ the next $100 (billion) in (market) share, a lot of retailers will lose share as a consequence — some will cease to exist entirely.” It’s going to take Amazon a lot less time to reach its next $100 billion in revenue than it will take Wal-Mart, Wingo wrote. Wingo says in the blog post that Amazon added $20 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in Q4 above Q4 2014, and that those additions alone were near the total Q4 GMV for  eBay ( EBAY ). An eBay spokeswoman has told IBD that third-party sellers are often in danger of being shoved out by Amazon as a result of Amazon deciding to start offering a seller’s product itself. Some observers have said Amazon can learn what is popular by data it gathers from its third-party sales. Wingo, though, says third-party sales are becoming more profitable for Amazon, thanks to the company’s infrastructure expansion and improvements, and that third-party sales are rising much more quickly on Amazon than are Amazon’s sales of its own goods. Amazon’s surging growth has propelled the company to a position in e-tail that in some ways makes it appear  impenetrable  — though the firm’s Q4 earnings  did not meet  lofty expectations . Image provided by Shutterstock .