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[7.20] Morning Round-Up: OCBC Enables P2P Funds Transfer Using QR Code

Here’s what you should know today:

1. OCBC enables P2P funds transfer using QR Code in Singapore

By integrating QR code with the infrastructure in PayNow, a feature for funds transfer on OCBC Pay Anyone app, it is not necessary anymore to know the bank account numbers when making funds transfer.

PayNow-registered customers can now create and send personalised QR codes to other OCBC Pay Anyone users via social networking apps or email when requesting payment. Payer can also instantly scan a QR code displayed on the payee’s phone to complete payment.

The daily transfer limit for payers is S$1,000. Customers need to use Apple iPhone devices running on iOS8 and above or Samsung devices running on Android 4.4 Kit Kat, with the fingerprint recognition feature.

Read the full story here.

2. Recommended Reading: Amazon’s private labels stole the show on Prime Day

On the annual self-created shopping holiday Prime Day last week, Amazon’s range of private label brands dominate the numbers of deals offered in the portal.

OCBC QR Code

In electronics category, notably the best-selling category on Prime Day, Amazon’s collective portfolios accounted for 26% of all eligible deals. Amazon’s devices were also among the most aggressively discounted.

Deals in fashion category is also seen dominated by products from Amazon’s private labels.

Read the full story here. 

3. Recommended Reading: Ad spending on mobile video will surpassed desktop in 2018

The sheer volume of mobile video consumption will push mobile video ad spending past non-mobile next year, where the spending is expected to grow 49% to nearly $18 billion.

Meanwhile fixed online video ad spending is expected to decline 1.5% to $15 billion.

People around the world is predicted to watch 25% more video on phones and tablets next year. In 2018, people on average will spend 36 minutes watching online video on their phones and tablets compared with 18.5 minutes on non-mobile devices.

Read the full story here.

 

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[7.13] Ecommerce News You Should Know: ShopBack Expands to Thailand

Here’s what you should know today:

1. Singapore-based ShopBack expands to Thailand

Cashback startup Shopback has announced its official expansion to Thailand – making it the sixth markets in Southeast Asia.

There are currently over 100 merchants in its Thai platform to date, including big names like Expedia, Booking.com, Sephora, Pomelo, Lazada, Grab, and Uber. Consumers can expect to receive maximum 30% of rebate when using ShopBack.

Besides Thailand, ShopBack also present in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan. The company currently has 3 million users and has paid over $10 million in cashback to its customers.

Read the full story here. 

2. Amazon Prime Day breaks record, sales grew by more than 60% 

Amazon announced that its third annual Prime Day was its biggest day ever, with sales grew by more than 60% from the same period last year and surpassed its 2016 Black Friday and Cyber Monday results.

However, the results maybe skewed as last year’s event was shorter as it was only last for 24 hours (compared to this year’s 30 hours) and involved fewer countries. However, the results is still notably impressive given that July tends to be a sluggish time for retailers.

Amazon has successfully using Prime Day to drive both sign-ups for its annual Prime membership and promote its products.

Read the full story here. 

3. JD.com can soon replace Baidu’s place among China’s internet giants

JD.com has experienced a very good year so far as the recorded strong revenue growth and signed a major partnership deal Farfetch, a global luxury fashion site. For these reasons, the analysts are predicting JD.com will soon overtake Baidu in term of market capitalisation.

JD.com is also gaining ground in market share. While Alibaba’s Tmall controls nearly half (48.5%) of China’s B2C ecommerce market, JD.com now controls 33.8% market share, according to figures from iResearch China.

Their recent partnership with Farfetch will also gives JD.com a significant boost over Alibaba as it will reinforced JD.com’s reputation for authentic and high-quality goods, an issue that continues to plague Alibaba.

Read the full story here. 

 

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[7.12] Morning Round-Up: Zanroo Poised to be the First Thai Tech Unicorn

Here’s what you should know today:

1. Alibaba experiments on cash-free store Tao Cafe

Alibaba has recently demonstrated an experimental cashless cafe, using AI and data technologies built-in the Alipay e-payment service.

Called the Tao Cafe, this experimental cashier-less and cashless coffee shop is another feature for Alibaba to outline its technology capability bridging the world of offline and online shopping, as said by Chris Tung, Chief Marketing Officer of Alibaba Group.

Users can use Taobao app to scan QR code in front of the shop where a camera armed with face-recognition to detect their identity. The link to their Taobao account also enables them to shop supported by voice-recognition technology. These technologies of Alibaba have effectively got rid of both queuing and cash in the context of this store.

“This is one example where Alibaba can provide its technology to improve users’ experience to retail shop,” Mr Tung said.

Read the full story here.

2. Amazon pace to break sales record on Prime Day

Amazon’s Prime Day this year is set to be the biggest shopping event in its history by sales.

The company claimed third-party sellers sold over 50% more items on the site by noon local time than in the same time last year. Although not disclosing the figures, analysts estimated last year’s event brought well in over $500 million.

The company also said the customers ordered three times as many Echo-family speakers than during Prime Day 2016, which at the time broke sales records for the device. Research firm eMarketer has forecast the number of the US consumers actively using voice-controlled devices will more than double this year to 35.6 million.

Read the full story here.

3. Zanroo poised to be the first Thai tech unicorn

Thai marketing technology startup, Zanroo, expects to be the first Thai unicorn startup by 2019 when it will have a presence in 40 global markets and obtain $30 million in revenue or close to 1 billion baht. Today, the company is active in 15 markets and its clientele includes more than 300 brands in various industries.

The company specialises in “insight discovery” provides its services spanning across social listening, social engagement and consultancy which enables real-time performance and data tracking complete with analyses and trends to help brands maximise the benefits of actionable insights in their marketing moves, crisis prevention and management, etc.

Zanroo recently raised $7.4 million in its Series A financing round from private funds, institutional investors, notable business owners and individuals to finance inroads into martech across Asia, the US and Europe.

Read the full story here. 

 

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[6.30] Morning Round-Up: Amazon Launches Prime Day in China to Lure Shoppers

Here’s what you should know today.

1. Amazon introduces Prime Day to Chinese shoppers

Originally begun three years ago to celebrate Amazon’s 20th anniversary, Prime Day, which is on July 11 this year, is an annual one-day shopping event that offers Prime members special deals on purchases.

While Chinese customers could have accessed Prime Day in the past, this will be the first time that they can participate in the festival by directly ordering from Amazon’s Chinese language site.

Amazon is offering consumers a discounted annual rate of $28 if they sign up by November 2017. Chinese subscribers will get free shipping from Amazon stores both domestically and anywhere else in the world.

For Amazon, it’s a big step towards localizing their offerings in China and strengthening its market presence in a region dominated by domestic giants Alibaba and JD.com. In 2015, it even launched a flagship store on Alibaba’s Tmall in order to remain relevant and reach out to more Chinese consumers.

Read the rest of the story here.

 

2. Alibaba has an Echo-style smart speaker in the works

Alibaba could reveal a voice-activated “smart speaker” to compete with Amazon Echo and Google Home as early as next week.

The device could allow Chinese consumers to buy goods from Alibaba’s shopping sites using a voice-activated virtual assistant, just as Americans can use the Alexa virtual assistant on the Echo to order things on Amazon.

What makes Alibaba competitive—and potentially controversial—is the sheer amount and breadth of data it is capable of gathering.

The product, which understands voice commands in Chinese, is targeted solely at domestic consumers who are already familiar with Alibaba’s online services.

The new device is the latest step in Alibaba’s efforts to deepen its understanding of the behaviors of hundreds of millions of Chinese who already use its online services.

Read the rest of the story here.

 

3. Walmart seeks new products amid battle with Amazon

The 500 businesses selected to take part in Walmart’s fourth annual “Open Call” Wednesday have already been offered spots on the company’s online portals, as it battles Amazon for billions of dollars in revenue.

“It’s a high-stakes game,” Scott Hilton, Walmart’s executive chief revenue officer for ecommerce, said as the meeting opened.

“You may not receive a deal, but you have a chance to spend 30 minutes with a Fortune 1 buyer,” Walmart spokesman Scott Markley said ahead of the daylong meeting intended to increase jobs at American companies. “They know more about the market for the product than you do.”

Read the rest of the story here.

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Amazon Uses Messaging App Line To Drive Member Signup For “Prime Day”

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Amazon partners with Line for prime day

Amazon is reaching out to a wider customer base through Line. Source: mobilecommercedaily

Amazon is tapping into mobile messaging app Line to drive sales for its ‘Prime Day’, reports Mobile Commerce Daily.

The ecommerce company is starting conversation with users to drive them to its native online store, ramping up subscriptions ahead of Prime Day, which goes live today (July 12). The company shared a tweet that promotes its new keyboard within Line app, made up of various emojis in the form of its iconic dog mascot.

Within the conversation thread, Amazon shares content such as giveaways, polls and playlists in order to drive consumers to the site.

Shuli Lowy, Director of Consumer Success for the Americas, TVTY, comments, “as a general rule of thumb, marketers see the highest conversion rates when they provide the shortest route possible to the intended conversion.”

Each additional page consumers need to go through to get to the ‘purchase page’ creates a 50% drop off rate. Mobile messaging apps provides that element of a shortcut.

Amazon Mobile Messaging Tactic 

Users of Line can search for Amazon under the ‘official accounts’ section to get exclusive brand content. Although the user cannot interact exclusively one-on-one with Amazon, followers of the account will be able to access content created specifically for Line by the brand.

There are multiple links within the messages for users to conveniently visit Amazon without leaving the app.

To boost Prime Day and promote signups, Amazon includes an image within the message thread to advertise discounts. Users that click on the image are brought onto Amazon’s special deals page. Shoppers can sign up for Prime and receive a 30 day free trial as well as purchase items from the site.

Users can sign up through Line and get 30 day free trial. Source: mobilecommercedaily

Users can sign up through Line and get 30 day free trial. Source: mobilecommercedaily

Amazon’s partnership with Line is a well rounded example of how to market consumers through mobile messaging by providing a dynamic mix of purchase pages, invitations to engage and enforcing natural brand participation. Line facilitates an ongoing conversation with consumers to stay top of mind.

If the partnership provides a large degree of conversion rates to the site, it could very well be the start of Line’s foray into the US as they open up the East to the West.

A version of this appeared in mobile commerce daily on July 11. Read the full version here.

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Amazon’s Prime Day Increases Web Traffic for All Ecommerce Sites

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Amazon's Prime Day

Source : tomsguide.com

Amazon’s inaugural Prime Day, the company’s global discount shopping event for members only, triggered an avalanche of e-retailing activity that benefited the entire ecommerce industry and created the fourth-busiest online shopping day of the year from a traffic perspective.

SimilarWeb’s news report ‘America’s Online Shopping Frenzy’ shows that Amazon’s web traffic jumped 44.9% on last year’s Prime Day from the previous day’s figure, but that was only the third-largest traffic increase recorded that day among the 25 e-retailers in the study. Wal-Mart, which ran a competing promotion during last year’s Prime Day event, recorded at 61.9% traffic boost that day and Macy’s was close behind with a 58.4% traffic spike.

The data also revealed that these top 25 online retailers in the US recorded 179 million visits between desktop and mobile devices during last year’s Prime Day, a huge increase from their daily averages. Here’s how that compares to what the traffic these web merchants received on the other major online shopping days:

Black Friday (Nov. 27): 274 million visits

Cyber Monday (Nov. 30): 261 million visits

Thanksgiving (Nov. 26): 243 million visits

Prime Day (July 15): 179 million visits

In Southeast Asia, marketplaces such as Lazada could be considered as online competitors of e-retailers but the report reveals that a surge of traffic on a marketplace for a special sale day such as Lazada’s Online Revolution, triggers an avalanche of ecommerce activity for the rest of the online industry.

Amazon is stepping up its promotion for its second Prime Day promotion this year July 12, other retailers have reason to hope for its success as well.

A version of this appeared in Internet Retailer on July 6. Read the full article here.

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