Become a Power Seller on Multi-Channel Marketplaces

eBay unveiled its shopbot technology almost two months ago (Oct 18 to be exact). Of course, it is a beta version and naturally embedded in Facebook's Messenger app. As eBay admitted , it has plenty of features and functions still in development. The Beta version also serves the purpose of collecting user feedback, and "train" the shopbot to better interpret human intention thus offer better shopping experience. When at launch, the "bot" can only accept dialogues about six product categories: electronics, fashion, health & beauty, home & garden, toys & hobbies, and sporting goods. Though eBay claims that the shopbot is backed by artificial intelligence, it is clear the machine-learning algorithms are built on a decision-tree type of structure through which the bot guides a shopper to narrow down his choices until confirming what he wants. This linear conversational pattern doesn't sound fun or engaging and it may even kill the fun when peopl

Believe it, Starbucks will soon launch its chatbot. Calling it "My Starbucks Barrista," this chat-based application allows customers to place orders using text messages, or when hands are full, voice command. This virtual barrista will come to iOS device first in beta version from early 2017. I was disappointed that Starbucks did not give its chatbot a more human-like name, like "Jane" for male customers or "Zack" for female customers. Then I realized that this chatbot will go global someday. Starbucks perhaps tries to be cultural neutral instead of creating a bunch of names to be culturally acceptable. Speaking of localization, Starbucks now has a partnership with China's WeChat. WeChat users can now gift Starbucks coffee to friends, or pay for latte using WeChat Pay at store. I look forward to receiving a "red packet" someday with Starbucks coffee as an option--pure money is so boring. Of course, Starbucks has boring statistics to off

In its most recent earnings report, Amazon.com for the first time shared the performance of its Exclusives store, a site where brands can test new products and buyers hoping for exclusive deals can find their likes. Amazon said that since launch early last year, the site has generated $50 million sales from about 120 brands that offer about 10,000 products in total. Amazon is apparently encouraged by this experiment, and plans to expand this store format. "We do expect the broadening of the product categories and geographical expansion," according to Peter Sauerborn, director of business development at Amazon who is in charge of this effort. It would be good news for retailers and small merchants that have truly unique merchandizes to sell. As the e-commerce market stands right now, the marketplace model opens up a great revenue opportunity for small and medium-sized retailers, but because a web store is so easy to set up, the marketplace model also invites what I c

2015's most notable e-commerce story is Jet.com. Two days ago, New York Times ran a decent story about the startup's strategy. The company made headlines for 1) growing fast--it now has about 900 employees; 2) crossing the one-million-customers milestone in early November, five months after its launch, and 3) receiving a fresh funding of $350 million right before this year's Black Friday shopping extravaganza. During the last month, I had an opportunity to be a Jet.com shopper, a nd at the same time, helped a client launch his store on jet.com. Seeing the both sides of the coin, I found the following: As a jet.com shopper, I was extremely happy. For my first order, I not only got a welcome credit of $20, but also experienced its fast delivery service.  The shopping experience on Jet.com was smooth and when I received my order, it was nicely handled and wrapped (it was a piece of children's furniture). Jet.com is good at affiliated marketing. Shopping on a

Now that Black Friday through Cyber Monday are behind us, the tally has begun. As usual, e-commerce sales and growth data are all over the place, depending on what sources you trust. This year, many e-commerce metric publishers included the Thanksgiving day online sales as well. The Cyber Five sales, first coined by ChannelAdvisor, and reported by a variety of market trackers in part or in whole, have the following interesting insights: - ChannelAdvisor reported that the five-day online transaction value, as measured by same store sales (SSS), was up 20.9% year over year. Google Shopping and Amazon are big winners with SSS sales up 24.3% and 24.2%, respectively. within the five days, Cyber Monday still led with more than a third of total sales, followed by Black Friday, and then surprisingly the Thanksgiving day. - Adobe, on the other hand, leverages its online traffic data and data analytical model to predict  that Cyber Monday sales would top $3 billion this year, no doubt a new