Exciting Commerce // Unlimited

Etsy Raises Another $20 Million and Picks New COO

2010-09-01T02:10:23+02:00

Etsy has raised $20 million from a new financing round with Index Ventures. Also, Burda and Accel Partners have again participated in the round. According to insiders familiar to the deal, the financing is intended for paying out early business angels (via):

"The interesting thing about this transaction is that it was not founder liquidity driven. The founders did not sell in the transaction. It was not VC liquidity driven. Some of the existing VC firms actually bought in the transaction. It was angel liquidity driven.
Etsy did two angel rounds early in its existence. Our firm participated in the second round. But both rounds were largely composed of individuals, including a bar owner and a restaurant owner who provided the first outside capital.

We are seeing that angels can get liquidity via these secondary transactions. They don't need to wait for the sale of the company or possibly the IPO. That is a very good thing, for the angel/seed sector, and for the overall venture capital market.
I hope these secondary purchases work out well for the funds that are making them. Because if they do, we will see even more of them. And that may be a way out of the liquidity issues plaguing the venture capital business these days."

Etsy counts amongst the top 3 hottest e-commerce startups in the US besides Groupon and Gilt. They have raised $52 million of venture capital funding in several financing rounds since their launch in 2005.

The valuation of the company has tripled since their last big capital round in January 2008 and now lies at $300 million. Since the end of last year, Etsy has been operating profitably and is now naming not only revenues from their user merchants but also their own revenue numbers:

"Kalin projects revenues this year to be between $30 million and $50 million and expects the company to continue to be profitable.
The company has 125 employees. He expects the total gross value of goods traded on the site to double this year to $400 million, and hopes to hit $1 billion next year."

At the same time, Etsy is trying to get their management problem under control. After the departure of CEO Maria Thomas at the end of last year, former Google manager Adam Freed now takes over the post of COO.

Related posts:

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Viddler, Vimeo, Vzaar: Video Providers Surging to the iPad

2010-08-21T13:48:27+02:00

Online video provider Vimeo is constantly being used by online retailers (even though it doesn’t seem to be the wish of the makers). Interest in Vimeo may now even increase due to its recent availability on Flash incompatible end devices:

"Since we rolled out the HTML5 player in January people have been clamoring for an embeddable version, especially for iPhones and iPads. Today we're taking a big leap forward for compatibility and updating our embed code. We call it the Universal Player.
The Universal Player is as easy to use as the old embed code, just a lot more compatible. Instead of being a direct link to a Flash player the new Universal Player can automatically detect what kind of device is viewing the video and choose the optimum player based on the device's capabilities.
For example, it will serve mobile video to iPhones and Androids and HD to iPads and Desktops. On other mobile devices it can use the native player of the device or an optimized mobile Flash player with bigger controls. It also allows us to introduce new players as technology changes, potentially allowing us to do things like serve HTML5 to IE9 and WebM video to Firefox."

“How-to” videos such as these will be able to be seen on iPads and iPhones if the Vimeo user embeds the following code into their website or updates their embedded code individually by hand:

"This new embed code is available for any video, new or old. Yes, however we've built something to help. We've written a small Javascript snippet that you can add to your site to that will automatically upgrade old embed code."

This same functionality has been available with a code update to business customers of Viddler for a couple of months now to allow video delivery to the iPad and iPhone. Vzaar has already offered an "iPhone Compatibility" feature for a while now.

Originally posted in German by Stephan Meixner, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Groupon Takes Over Darberry.ru, the Next Otto Holding

2010-08-18T23:35:03+02:00

Groupon expands further internationally by acquisitions and has followed up their Citydeal takeover now with majority investments in the Russian Darberry and Japanese Qpod. So reported the Wall Street Journal.

Otto’s eVenture Capital Partners, who hold stakes in both Citydeal and Darberry, have proven for the second time that they’ve got the right Groupon instincts in this international acquisition game.

Related post:

Groupon Takes Over Germany’s CityDeal

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Magento Update: Where is Magento Today?

2010-08-11T20:59:29+02:00

Where is Magento now two years after launching? Roman Zenner, co-author of a new Magento handbook for developers (German language), has written a critique on his English language blog:

"One thing is for sure: Magento has reached reality. Right now, agencies and developers around the world put this software to the test, building different-sized projects on the basis of the application."

Zenner adds that there are not yet nearly enough developers to cover the current demand (“Summer 2010: The State of Magento”):

"Now that the name Magento seems to be in everyone’s head, there is an increasing demand for professionals able to implement individual functionalities.
This sounds like a technology goldrush, and in some respects it actually is. The problem is, however, that there are not enough developers who could satisfy this demand."

"When looking at the situation in Germany for example, agencies are desperately trying to hire new developers to build Magento-based stores.
Especially with regard to Enterprise-level clients, the projects of whom require quite some effort, there are just not enough resources."

In a comment to the post, Kara Heinrichs, who is heading training and certification at Magento, describes the current priorities in this area which aim to grow and empower the user community.

Related posts:

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Jeff Bezos On Amazon’s Fashion Strategy

2010-08-09T01:42:27+02:00

Amazon wants to raise the bar on the online fashion world just as Zappos has done (acquired by Amazon in 2009).

Responding to talk show host Charlie Rose’s question on what Amazon is currently working on, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos responded:

"If you want a preview of where we're headed with apparel go look at the denim category, go look at women's jeans on Amazon. That'll give you a little insight into our future."

"I tell you something that is not right out apparent, but it's getting a huge amount of focus within the company - and it is apparel. We are having a lot of sales growth in apparel.(...)

Historically clothing has always been a number one mail order category even pre-internet. And we make it really easy for people to try stuff on - by making it easy to return.
We try to get people not make feel guilty about it. Try three pair of jeans and return two of them. It's okay, don't worry about it. It's okay with us."

Amazon has been testing their denim shop since November. In June they informed their shop partners about the up and coming requirements. In the aforementioned jeans category for example, it is obvious how much Amazon is working with quick views (interactive AJAX pop up windows), with which users can buy or bookmark products without needing to click through to the product details page.

The first part of the interview revolves around the Kindle and Amazon’s eBook strategy. A row of various forward looking topics are covered in the second half. Although Amazon’s Facebook integration was not explicitly covered, the role of social media in the purchase decision was mentioned. And Jeff Bezos reveals himself to be a great fan of word-of-mouth propaganda.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Fashion and Style: The New Polyvore CEO in Interview

2010-08-07T02:24:38+02:00

Price competition is not always the be-all and end-all, and this goes especially for fashion. As a consequence, the online market for fashion can be roughly divided into two large segments. Beyond the bargain hunters there is more than enough room for novel sales models.

One of the leading companies in this segment is Polyvore, who has been one of the most important social shopping players in the US since late 2007.

The new CEO, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, gave a keynote address at the DLD Women conference in June in Munich, Germany. Afterwards a detailed interview followed:

"With clothing it's always been an emotional and subjective buy. And I think for women a form of entertainment also.

All three of those things have not been done well online today. Though I think there is a series of companies including Polyvore that are trying to change that."

In the interview, the new (sales) pitch from Polyvore became readily apparent: Polyvore is turning to brands and want to score points with them on three key areas: “Discovery, Distribution and Data”. In other words, everything which is still relatively challenging in online retail. The long-term consequences are clear: Why would brands still need traditional retailers, if they can access their customers directly via companies such as Polyvore.

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy was formerly with Google and has helped them several years with building companies and business areas. Most recently she was Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel Partners. At the end of the interview she describes what makes a good entrepreneur in her eyes: Someone with energy and enthusiasm who can continually win people over to their cause.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Shoes of Prey: Can It Be Fun to Design Shoes?

2010-08-03T08:29:40+02:00

Named “Best New Online Retailer” and “Most Innovative Online Retailer”, the online shoe retailer Shoes of Prey has done very well at the Online Retail Industry Awards in Australia.

Not far off the mark, because Shoes of Prey has executed the mass customization concept quite excellently. And besides the freely configurable models, they have recently begun offering customizable “ready-made” models for the impatient:

"We understand that sometimes less choice is more. So while on the one hand we're putting more materials into the range, we've also created a ready-to-wear collection of shoes that you can order right off the rack."

To fully appreciate the enthusiasm, readers should compare against retailers such as Selve (“The Shoe Individualizer”) who operate much closer to reality but do not offer the same playful and intuitive design and selection process as Shoes of Prey. Much of the tactics here could very well be used by other mass customization businesses.

See also Zazzle Shoes who have made a science out of the composition process.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Swoopo Continues to Downsize: Layoffs and Withdrawal from South Korea

2010-08-01T15:41:28+02:00

Following the recent shutdown of Dealstreet, penny auction pioneer Swoopo continues to downsize:

First one CEO left, then a second. Now the long time CFO is also heading out in the direction of 1-2-3.tv (German press release). But even before that, evidently a whole lot of other managers have needed to bow out. Furthermore, Swoopo is not active in South Korea anymore.

Swoopo CEO Frank Han has been primarily occupied with revamping Swoopo’s business model and defending it against waves of competitors. Apparently without success.

With its novel bidding model, Swoopo (formerly Telebid) was once the talk of the town and triggered a true penny auction boom. It has however always been more of interest to investors rather than the users themselves.

MadBid received $6 million recently from Skype founders (see press release). BigDeal started in December in the US with $4.5 million. Before that, Swoopo had raised $10 million from August Capital.

The Swoopo model is very well suited for pulling in users but does not do well to keep them in the long run. Therefore the view from Exciting Commerce is that in the long run, an auction model with falling prices has better potential than a model with rising prices. This is on the other hand not so attractive to investors, who are generally concerned with lack of traction in comparison to the Swoopo model. Will be interesting to see who here breaks the Catch 22.

Editor's Note: Interesting commentary to be found in German on the German language blog post. Roughly translated here.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Samwer Report: Kinnevik Holds 12% of Rocket Internet

2010-07-28T20:24:44+02:00

Since February, the Swedish investment house Kinnevik has been holding 12% of Rocket Internet (Zalando, 7Trends, FP Commerce, etc). The option exists to raise this share to 25%. This is according to the 6 month report (PDF):

"In February Kinnevik completed the acquisition of shares and warrants in the online group European Internet Holding ("EIH") (previously Rocket Internet) for EUR 35 m.
The investment gives Kinnevik the right to acquire 25% of the company if all warants are exercised. Kinnevik has also directly invested EUR 5 m in two of EIH's portfolio companies.

Quelle: Kinnevik Investor Presentation Q2 2010

EIH has a portfolio of e-commerce companies and other consumer-oriented online businesses, including an ownership in e-commerce company Zalando.
Kinnevik works closely with EIH and actively supports it in becoming the leading European online company."

Extrapolating from the 12% acquisition, the valuation of Rocket Internet at that time was 292 million euro.

Kinnevik, with a 2 million euro stake, was one of the shareholders of the Groupon aquired Citydeal. The remaining 3 million euro of direct investment went towards tariff comparison company R2 International, which Kinnek currently holds 20% of.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

The Markets Benevolent to Online Supermarket Ocado

2010-07-24T19:45:57+02:00

Lessons learned from the much anticipated IPO of British online supermarket Ocado: If you impose exceedingly optimistic expectations on the market these days, you will still have an excellent chance to hit an above average valuation. With the side-effect however, that the share price will then tank (“Ocado slumps on stock market debut”):

"Shares in the loss-making retailer closed last night at 167p, down from a listing price on the so-called "grey market" of 180p. Shares had traded as low as 155p.
On Tuesday afternoon Ocado, which sell Waitrose groceries over the internet, was forced to cut its IPO price by 20pc: to 180-200p from a previous range of 200-275p.

The fall gave Ocado the dubious accolade of having the poorest first day's performance of any London IPO since shares in Brookwell fell by 8pc in June 2008, according to Bloomberg data.
Tim Steiner, Ocado's chief executive, said that people are "missing things" about Ocado as they are "looking into the rear view mirror and looking at our historical performance – past cash flows, not future cash flows". "

At Wednesday’s IPO, Ocado valued at 937 million pounds. The original plan was 1.2 billion. Through the IPO, Ocado raised 200 million pounds of fresh capital which can be now used for further investments.

Ocado generated revenues of 427 million pounds in 2009.

Further details on the topic to be found at Google News.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Global Group Buying: Oliver Jung Building Network of Groupon Clones

2010-07-21T08:44:20+02:00

E-commerce investor duo Klaus Hommels and Oliver Jung are building in parallel to their private sales club network (“BrandsAlliance”) also a global network of Groupon clones with the support of the Swiss based Global Group Buying AG (PDF):

"Group Buying Global AG, promoted by Dr. Klaus Hommels & Oliver Jung owns & manages group buying portals across four continents."

According to press releases, Global Group Buying has till now invested in the Indian DealsAndYou (a sister of the private shopping club FashionAndYou) as well as the Russian Beaucoup.ru.

Oliver Jung is furthermore shareholder in Germany’s DailyDeal, Brazil’s ClickOn (sister of BrandsClub), Turkish Grupfoni (sister of Markafoni) as well as the Groupon clone Spreets in Australia.

Oliver Jung’s Global Shopping Club Empire

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Soap.com and the Online Supermarkets of the Future

2010-07-20T22:27:49+02:00

Next generation online supermarkets are currently taking form in the US, in the style of Amazon, Zappos and the like.

After Alice.com, (see The Business Model from Alice.com), Soap.com also launched last week. With 5 years of experience with Diapers.com and a healthy cash buffer, Soap.com wants to change the way people think about the retailing of sundry items.

"Quidsi is the fastest growing e-commerce company in the country and parent of Diapers.com (baby care) and Soap.com (health, beauty and household essentials).

The company's mission is to make life easier by creating a new type of e-commerce experience, delivering items free and fast (within 1-2 days) while also providing extraordinary customer service.

Quidsi is redefining e-commerce by combining the focus and customer connection of a specialty store with the scale, efficiency, choice, value, and reliability of a national retailer."

Techcrunch has in addition to the launch announcement also a few videos on the topic. See eConsultancy for a current interview with the founders.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Supermarkets: Is Ocado Worth More Than 1 Billion British Pounds?

2010-07-20T07:16:10+02:00

How much is an online supermarket like the British Ocado worth, when they can raise revenues of 427 million pounds (2009) but can barely turn a profit?

In the run up to a planned IPO, last week’s proclaimed valuation of over a billion pounds met with a healthy amount of scepticism:

"Its proposed valuation range, with a midpoint of 1.18 billion pounds including the proposed fundraising, was greeted with scepticism by analysts and investors alike.

Shore Capital analyst Clive Black said the maximum value he would ascribe to Ocado was 534 million pounds, while Arden Partners' Nick Bubb also urged the firm to lower its sights.
"They are asking far too high a price," a fund manager from a major investment house told Reuters on condition of anonymity."

One of the most damaging reviews came from Moneyweek. Some other analysts are seeing a fair valuation at 560 million pounds. Ocado is naturally convinced otherwise. Other reports indicate that a market value of 800 million pounds could be in the making.

This debate is particularly interesting because the valuation of e-commerce firms working in low margin segments is already fairly well documented. Recently, Buy.com went to Rakuten for $250 million.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Garmz: On The Fashion Front with Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing

2010-07-17T14:40:29+02:00

Garmz, the fashion startup from Vienna, seeks to attract young and undiscovered fashion designers with their complete outsourcing service. The company wants to offload all operative tasks from the designer. Designers can create their masterpieces and Garmz will take over the production and sales for them – at least for the ones which rank well within the community. The pitch: “You design fashion, we do the rest”.

Designers upload their designs to Garmz and other Garmz users can then give feedback, discuss and vote on their favorite designs. The designs which are supported by the community and have the possibility of mass production are then prototyped with the designer.

The prototype is then promoted by Garmz on the “Upcoming” area of the webshop, where users can make binding orders for the product. According to the amount of confirmed orders, Garmz manufactures the items and markets them under the designer’s own label via the Garmz webshop.

Designers will have maximum control over their creations and will also be able to control their profit margins using a pricing tool from the website.

The fashion world lives from borrowing ideas and mutual copying. But how many designers will be able to survive when their ideas can be copied even before production, because they are all publicly viewable? Garmz is depending on the speed-to-market advantage of their production, which is not 100% convincing.

If Garmz is successful and makes a name for itself in the fashion world, this could become a real problem. A possible solution would be different levels of viewing rights within the Garmz community.

That is still a case for the future. Garmz is in beta and doesn’t have all basic features online yet. At the moment, designers can upload design drafts. At the end of July, the first community features are planned to go online. The end of summer should see the first products being sold from the Garmz webshop.

Garmz has closed a seed financing round and according to own statements is now finally covered for the rest of this year. According to TechCrunch EU, the seed round was in the lower six figure range. The founders want to take up further talks with VCs later this fall.

Joao Belo has released a detailed review of this startup and comes to the following conclusion:

"As it stands, garmz’s value proposition isn’t clear, isn’t game-changing or disruptive and so it’s difficult to believe they will become the fast-growing profitable business that can deliver on VC’s IRR expectations.

garmz’s team, however, will certainly execute on their strategy and have a couple of surprises up their sleeves that might make me think otherwise – let’s see!"

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Daily Grommet and the Feminine Take on Live Shopping

2010-07-12T01:26:19+02:00

At the first Live Shopping Days conference in the summer of 2008, Exciting Commerce’s Jochen Krisch was able to see a good half a dozen live shopping business concepts which went beyond the all too oft seen focus on competitive pricing.

The locally focussed ideas roundly symbolized the Groupon concept, which launched in the fall of 2008. Groupon went on to trigger a third wave of live shopping frenzy after the “one deal per day Woot!” concept and private sales clubs such as Vente-Privée.

The feminine take on live shopping has been well implemented by the Daily Grommet (‘fresh finds, true stories’) which has been online since October 2008.

Last April, the female founders received their first large financing round of $3.4 million, in part due to their vision of revolutionizing retail with their sales model:

"I went on to explain my vision to disrupt how consumer products (that form 65% of our economy) get discovered and distributed.
The investor later said it gave him chills and that it was the best moment of the meeting. His sharing that personal response made me all the more confident to frame the vision as big as I see it."

In comparison to Groupon, the launch of the Daily Grommet gave a rather tentative impression. However in due course they have found their own style and are growing - in particular from an ever increasing product base as well as their explanatory video presentations. The latter can best be described as a mix of Martha Stewart and QVC.

Although the new daily products are presented in the foreground, the sales method is not nearly as aggressive as it should be for a live shopping model (and for how aggressive their goals were).

Motivational elements such as counters, limited availability, etc are entirely missing. Instead, the founders are betting completely on the strength of the stories behind the products. Early in the year, the Daily Grommet labelled themselves as the “Birthplace of Citizen Commerce”.

In terms of revenue, the founders continue to have big ambitions:

“We are going to be a failure if we don’t become a $100M company in relatively short order.”

Noteworthy reads are the interviews from their early days. At that time (about a year ago), their plan was:

"By introducing 250 new products per year and selling just $100,000 worth of each product, each vertical could bring in $25 million per year in gross revenues, she projects.
The plan for Grommet’s growth, Pieri says, is to build on the success of the original site by creating “verticals,” business-speak for topic-specific offerings, such as “Grommet Gear,” “Grommet Food,” “Grommet Garden,” and the like (the company has 12 product categories in mind altogether, Pieri says."

Although the Daily Grommet still needs to drive their sales more, it is otherwise still an outstanding example of how live shopping can look like. Useful to see are the background reports, typical of the Daily Grommet videos.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Ocado: How Big Is The Online Grocery Market Really?

2010-07-11T11:11:28+02:00

The British online supermarket firm Ocado is currently preparing its IPO. Ocado, claiming to be the “largest dedicated online supermarket by turnover in the world” has published its prospectus (PDF) on 284 pages and offers a deep look into the market for groceries via online channels.

Ocada has around 240,000 active customers who generated gross revenues of 427 million pounds in 2009 (2008: 341 million pounds, 2007: 291 million pounds). The EBITDA results have been positive for two years, nevertherless, operatively Ocado has been still writing down losses.

Via IPO, Ocado wants to raise fresh capital and are working towards a valuation of 1.18 billion pounds.

The company was founded by ex-investment bankers in 2000 and launched operations in 2002. Deliveries are made via a central warehouse and several distribution stations. With this infrastructure, Ocado can reach 66% of all British households. Ocado ranks as the fourth largest British online supermarket, behind Tesco, Sainsbury and ASDA.

John Lewis, the parent of the British grocery store chain Waitrose, is via its pension fund one of the largest shareholders of Ocado. Waitrose itself operates WaitroseDeliver; the Ocado prospectus mentions some details of an existing non-competition agreement between the two companies.

For interested parties, the prospectus is very illuminating. The corporate video provides further impressions.

A good overview of the European online market for groceries can be found on the E-commerce Lounge site (in German, GE/EN)

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Rakuten On Their Expansion Plans with Buy.com and Priceminister

2010-07-08T21:17:23+02:00

Although the main attention is on the big US players, Asia’s e-commerce innovators are increasingly making their presence known internationally.

Alibaba announced their first takeover in the US a couple of weeks ago (see interview). And the former primarily local Japanese concern Rakuten has its sights set now on the world market and is making a strong international push.

Last May, Rakuten bought Buy.com in the US for $250 million. Following in June, they took over Priceminister in France for 200 million euro.

Last week, Rakuten publicized their global expansion plans:

Rakuten will use a federation model for their global business. Presented in the video are the companies and strategies of Rakuten, Priceminister, Buy.com and Baidu. Approaching the end of the video is a Q&A session for media representatives and analysts. Here the associated charts (pdf).

Not uninteresting are the plans from Buy.com which indicate a new and extended understanding of the social shopping concepts such as those propagated by Etsy. Buy.com would like to get to a next level of shopping experience with new communications tools:

"In the last 5 years we've made two acquisitions and a strategic investment around social shopping. We have two different pieces of social shopping currently and we'll be launching a new collaborative shopping tool, that will allow users and merchants on our site to be able to talk with other users, to chat real-time with their friends, with their customers and it will create, once again, a stronger in-store-experience online."

The German market doesn’t (yet) seem to be Rakuten’s focus. Buy.com is already represented here.

However it would likely turn out to be a real challenge to conquer the established European market using a French enterprise such as Priceminister.

At the moment, concentration is on the south and east European (growth) markets. But there are certainly a few German candidates which would indeed fit perfectly to the Rakuten strategy.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.