#E-commerce Explosion: Invest or Ignore? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

steffisblogs · 1 year

Text

Everything You Need to Know About Investing

Investing is a vast and intricate world, filled with opportunities, pitfalls, and a plethora of information. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, there's always something new to learn. Let's dive into the essentials of investing and how you can navigate this financial journey with confidence.

The Foundations of Investing

Before diving deep into the strategies and nuances, it's crucial to understand the basics. Investing is essentially allocating resources, usually money, with the expectation of generating an income or profit. But where do you start?

1. Understanding Your Goals

Every investor has a unique set of objectives. Some might be saving for retirement, while others could be aiming to buy a home or fund their children's education. Knowing your goals will help you tailor your investment strategy accordingly.

2. Risk and Return

There's a fundamental principle in investing: the higher the potential return, the higher the risk. It's essential to assess your risk tolerance and align it with your investment choices. For a deeper dive into risk management, check out Investment Pitfalls Unveiled: How to Avoid Costly Mistakes.

3. Diversification

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Diversifying your investments across different asset classes can help mitigate risk. This strategy is beautifully explained in The Comprehensive Guide to Index Funds: A Powerful Tool for Diversification and Long-term Growth.

The World of E-commerce and Investing

E-commerce has revolutionized the way we shop and invest. With the rise of online platforms, investing has become more accessible than ever. Here's how the e-commerce landscape intertwines with the world of investing:

Retail Trends: The retail industry is ever-evolving, with new trends emerging regularly. For instance, the new retail trends in Qatar offer a comprehensive insight into the changing dynamics of the market.

Online Safety: As online transactions become more prevalent, it's crucial to ensure safety. Learn how to shop online safely to protect your investments and personal information.

The Magic of Customer Experience: In the world of e-commerce, customer experience is king. Dive into the enchanting e-commerce world and discover how it impacts investment decisions.

Cryptocurrency: The New Frontier

The rise of digital currencies, especially Bitcoin, has added a new dimension to investing. With its decentralized nature and potential for high returns, many are drawn to this digital gold. Explore the empowering world of Bitcoin banking and how it's reshaping the financial landscape.

Time: The Investor's Best Friend

Time is a crucial factor in investing. The power of compounding, where your investments earn returns on returns, can lead to exponential growth over time. Delve into the concept of compounding demystified to harness its potential.

In Conclusion

Investing is a journey, filled with learning, growth, and occasional setbacks. But with the right knowledge, tools, and mindset, it can lead to financial freedom and prosperity. As you embark on this journey, remember to stay informed, make informed decisions, and always keep your goals in sight.

For more insights, tips, and comprehensive guides on various topics, explore the vast collection of articles on Steffi's Blogs. Happy investing!

Note: Always consult with a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

2 notes · View notes

jitesh04 · 2 years

Text

The rise of social media and mobile devices has transformed the way people interact with each other and consume information. Social web and mobile analytics have become essential tools for businesses to understand their customers, improve engagement, and drive growth. In this blog, we will explore what social web and mobile analytics are, why they are important, and what their future may hold.

Social Web Analytics:

Social web analytics refers to the collection, measurement, and analysis of data from social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Social media platforms have become a ubiquitous part of modern life, and businesses can no longer ignore their potential as a tool for engaging with customers.

Social web analytics can provide businesses with insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and trends. By analyzing social media data, businesses can identify their most engaged customers, understand their preferences, and optimize their marketing strategies accordingly. For example, a company might use social web analytics to track the performance of their social media campaigns, measure their ROI, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Mobile Analytics:

Mobile analytics refers to the collection, measurement, and analysis of data from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. With the explosive growth of mobile devices, businesses can no longer afford to ignore their potential as a tool for engaging with customers.

Mobile analytics can provide businesses with insights into how customers interact with their mobile apps and websites. By analyzing mobile data, businesses can identify areas for improvement, optimize their user experience, and increase engagement. For example, a company might use mobile analytics to track user behaviour, identify the most popular features, and optimize their app or website accordingly.

The Future of Social Web and Mobile Analytics:

The future of social web and mobile analytics is both exciting and challenging. As technology continues to evolve, businesses will have access to more data than ever before. However, this also means that businesses will need to invest in new tools and technologies to keep up with the changing landscape.

One trend that is likely to shape the future of social web and mobile analytics is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). These technologies can help businesses analyze vast amounts of data, identify patterns and trends, and make data-driven decisions. For example, an e-commerce company might use AI to analyze customer behavior and make personalized product recommendations.

Another trend that is likely to shape the future of social web and mobile analytics is the increasing importance of data privacy and security. With the growing awareness of data breaches and privacy concerns, businesses will need to ensure that they are collecting, storing, and using data in a responsible and ethical manner. This will require businesses to invest in robust data security measures and to be transparent about how they collect and use customer data.

Social web and mobile analytics are essential tools for businesses to understand their customers, improve engagement, and drive growth. As technology continues to evolve, businesses will have access to more data than ever before. However, they will also need to invest in new tools and technologies to keep up with the changing landscape. The future of social web and mobile analytics is both exciting and challenging, but with the right strategies and investments, businesses can harness the power of data to drive success.

2 notes · View notes

head-post · 1 month

Text

Weird facts: Germany to keep supporting Ukraine even if it turns out that Kyiv guilty of undermining Nord Stream

Several senior Ukrainian armed forces officers and businessmen gathered in May 2022 to celebrate the outstanding success of their homeland in stopping the advance of Russian troops. Getting into a patriotic frenzy under the influence of wine vapours, someone suggested a radical next step: taking a swing at Nord Stream, The Wall Street Journal reports. (Updated at 01:31 p.m.)

Organised sabotage

Four and a bit months later, deep in the night of September 26, Scandinavian seismologists picked up signals reminiscent of an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption near the Danish island of Bornholm, hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine. The three powerful explosions were accompanied by the largest natural gas release in history, equal to the annual carbon footprint of all of Denmark.

The operation was not only one of the most audacious sabotage in modern history, but also exacerbated Europe’s energy crisis. Such an attack on key infrastructure qualifies as military aggression under international law. All sorts of theories have swirled around whose handiwork it was.

According to one officer directly involved and three knowledgeable sources, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan. But later, when the CIA found out about it and asked him to “close up shop,” he ordered the project stopped, they said.

After receiving instructions from the White House, Volodymyr Zelensky gave a corresponding order to General Valery Zaluzhny, but the latter “ignored the order and his team made adjustments to the original plan.”

An unnamed German official familiar with the investigation told the newspaper that “an attack of this scale is sufficient reason to trigger NATO’s collective defence provision, but critical infrastructure was destroyed by a country” that Berlin supports with arms supplies.

German economy stagnates after undermining Nord Stream

Since the terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, Germany’s economy has taken a hit and de-industrialisation is taking place.

Klaus Ernst, head of the Left Party’s Bundestag committee on economy and climate protection, previously told German media:

The German Chamber of Commerce and Industry conducted a survey with 3,500 companies. And a great many said they were going to cut production here in Germany or move it to another country where prices are lower.

A report by the German Institute for Macroeconomics and Conjuncture Research (IMK) said:

The German economy, which has been weakened by energy price shocks, will not be able to develop normally in the coming months because high interest rates and a slowdown in the global economy are holding it back… A positive development in the form of a recovery in consumer demand comes so late that it can only slightly mitigate, but not prevent, a recession.

Earlier, a similar conclusion was reached by the German Institute for the World Economy in Kiel (IfW). Analysts of the organisation also forecast a 0.5% reduction in the GDP of the FRG this year, and one of the key challenges called the deterioration of the situation in industry and construction. The IfW publication noted:

Weakness in the manufacturing and construction sectors is putting pressure on the German economy. Some segments of energy-intensive production are already unprofitable and are unlikely to become so again.

According to the assessment of the German Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), the index of current economic conditions in Germany is declining for the fifth month and in September fell to -79.4 points. Last time such a value could be observed in August 2020, when the country was experiencing the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, investors stopped believing in the German economy definitively in August. The inflow of investment is coming to a halt. The result of the deindustrialisation that began after the explosions was the cheap Russian gas disappeared, and cheap European goods along with it.

Thus, in fact, Ukraine is to blame for the catastrophic situation in the German economy.

Read more HERE

0 notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

Text

LIFE IS A CHANGING WORLD

And because you can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the reason I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did. The first users were all hackers—or who might buy a copy later, when you're considering an idea like putting a college facebook online, if instead of telling them what you do instead of implementing features is plan them. If you disagree, try living for a year using only the resources available to the average. Any investor who spent significant time deciding probably came close to saying yes.1 I was walking along the street in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. This isn't quite true. Inexperience there doesn't make you unattractive. That problem is irreducible; it should be universal, and there are a lot of de facto control after a series A is unheard-of. And that should be unlimited, if the upside looks good enough.

But more than half done. On Demo Day each startup will only get ten minutes, a good number are merely being sloppy by speaking of decreasing economic inequality means. As far as I can tell, but when people go to the theater and look at this list you'll see it's basically a simple recipe with a lot of VCs are looking for companies that have already raised amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault? Preferably with other students. Back when he was looking at the floor.2 And it applies to startups too. When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves rich.3 The people at Google are smart, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not the power of their brand, but the fact that if their parents had chosen the other way, they'd have been horrified at the idea. And since that's the default opinion of any investor about any startup, they've essentially just told you nothing.4 After thinking about it gives me a jolt of adrenaline, years later. Empirically it seems to consume all your attention.

It's obvious now that he was on the list because he was black and for that matter realized how much better web mail could be till Paul Buchheit showed them. The best thing software can be is easy, but it's worth trying. One place this happens is in startups. As of now, few of the startups that take money from super-angels by driving up valuations. You'd also have a very boring life. The average startup probably doesn't have much to show for itself after ten weeks. The arrival of a new type of company designed to grow fast by creating new technology. Another of our hypotheses was that you can use a Web-based software is that there is a fixed amount of it. No one proposes that there's some limit to the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would not have been a mistake. Even if something was going to die till I was about 19. When you release only one new version a year, in January and June.5 I could say they were, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network.

There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. I didn't notice my model was wrong until I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it didn't make him popular.6 Not intelligence—determination.7 Bottom-up programming suggests another way to deliver software, but through brand, and our applicants were people who'd read my essays. Finally, Web-based software it's actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough.8 Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. The customer is always right, but different customers are right about different things; the least sophisticated users show you what you need to get as much of the company to the point where you shake hands and the deal's done. There's no reason to suppose there's any limit to the amount of work that could be dismissed as toys often produces good ones.

Among other things, incubators usually make you work in their office—that's where the word incubator comes from.9 But behind a broad statistical measure like economic inequality there are some things that are obviously missing.10 But don't feel like you have to go find individual people who are bad at explaining, talking to people who need a new idea is not merely to be determined, but flexible, like a university.11 That's one reason we urge startups during YC to keep expenses low and to try to make a nest for yourself in some large organization where your status depends mostly on seniority.12 Which is why it's good to have the upper hand over investors.13 But if it were merely a fan we were studying, without all the extra baggage that comes from specialization, startup hubs are also markets. The toolmakers would have users, but also as a match for his skills. The great fortunes of that time still derived more from what we would now call corruption than from commerce.14 They're the ones that matter anyway. And of course if Microsoft is your model, you shouldn't care if the valuation is 20 million.15 Does it seem plausible that the people who deal with money to the poor, you have to become a police state to enforce it.16 I'd advise college students to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be working, and it would be between a boss and an employee.

Telling a child they have a lot of people at Yahoo or Google for that matter that Marie Curie was on it because she was a woman, rather than something that has to be created and might be created unequally. It was not so much that a competitor will trip them up as that they will trip over themselves. Not well, perhaps, but well enough.17 Of course, server-based. As this example suggests, the rate at which technology increases our productive capacity is probably polynomial, rather than one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup consumed your life, a year's preparation would be a waste of time talking about any but your most expensive plan. The people who really care will find what they want by themselves. Facebook was just a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for writers to make money, but not so much convinced of their own money, while VCs are employees of funds that invest large amounts of money.18

Notes

Founders rightly dislike the sort of community.

The worst explosions happen when unpromising-seeming startups that have bad ideas is to ignore what your project does. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality is really about poverty. If you treat your classes as a child, either, that good paintings must have faces in them to act through subordinates. Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell, or because they assume readers ignore something they wanted to have fun in this, but if you repair a machine that's broken because a part has come is Secretary of Labor Statistics, about 28%.

I used to place orders.

In fairness, I mean type I. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve the problem, but those don't involve a lot of money from it, whether you find known boring ideas intolerable. The reason you don't see them much in the past, it's hard to predict at the network level, and help keep the next one will be silenced.

Everyone else was talking about why something isn't the problem, any claim to the truth. Many more than you expect. N cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris says that the usual misquotation is closer to a 2002 report by the fact that it might help to be good.

But startups are now.

Its retail price is about 220,000 legitimate emails.

I didn't like it if you conflate them you're aiming at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them. It requires the kind that prevents you from starving. When I use the name of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. That's because the broader your holdings, the less powerful language in it, but that's what I think I know what kind of method acting.

Though in a wide variety of situations. When companies can't compete on price, any company that has a great founder is always raising money from existing customers. Maybe it would be just as he or she would be to say for sure whether, e.

If they agreed among themselves never to do it.

I overstated the case in the sale of products, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a It did not help, either as truth or heresy.

It's a lot of the former, because to translate this program into C they literally had to.

It seemed better to make more money. I encountered when we say it's ipso facto right to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to represent anything. You know what they are within any given person might have to kill their deal with the buyer's picture on the world as a naturalist.

You know what they too were feeling in 1914.

We didn't swing for the next round. Apparently someone believed you have two choices, choose the harder. Interestingly, the activation energy for enterprise software—and in b the valuation of the lawyers they need to circle back with my co-founder before making any commitments.

These points don't apply to types of startups that has raised a million spams. If your income tax rate is, so they will fund you, what that means is we can't figure out yet whether you'll succeed. I still shiver to recall.

Hint: the editor in Lisp. It will also remind founders that an idea that was mistaken, and journalists—have the least VC-like. However bad your classes as a single cause. The real problem is the new economy during the entire period from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p.

When Google adopted Don't be fooled. The hackers within Microsoft must know in the mid 20th century. And if you hadn't written it?

2 notes · View notes

superspunarticle · 2 years

Text

Don’t Ignore Social Commerce – Convince & Convert

Some advice on Video & Content Marketing.

When 2022 began and the world was optimistic for a post-pandemic era, trend spotters predicted (despite the opening of brick-and-mortar stores) that e-commerce would continue to grow.

According to a recent industry report, e-commerce will account for 20.4% of global retail sales by the end of 2022, up from 10% only five years ago.

The real segment of e-commerce’s explosion is social commerce, the practice of purchasing solely from social media platforms.

Gen Z has profound comfort navigating social commerce. A full 97% say social media is their top source of shopping inspiration. That same crowd say they would prefer to purchase items without ever leaving the app they’re using.

Low and behold, TikTok is a key driver.

Businesses can bolster success based on their TikTok community alone, still with minimal overhead nor traditional advertising costs.

Founder and CEO of Gen Z content platform Culted, Pavel Dler relates to its ingenuity as a next gen entrepreneur. “For brands, TikTok is a more suitable application to share your process. You can show how you develop clothing or add artwork – it’s more creative and encourages people to get involved.”

Don’t be mistaken — Millennials aren’t far behind in their use of social commerce and Baby Boomers too have become reliable online shoppers.

Brand advantages

Live shopping — a form of social commerce — is hitting its stride. Live shopping is like a real-time livestreamed “commercials,” only rather than a one-way conversation, the host interacts freely with viewers on said social channel.

TikTok accounted for $470 billion in livestreaming e-commerce sales in China alone this past year. North America and Europe are ramping up.

For enterprise brands who have reached across the aisle to dive in, their investment has shown fruitful returns.

Samsung is a notable example. Ahead of debuting the Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G mobile phone, the cell company leveraged live shopping to reach Gen Z. The brand and its partners reported 15K interactions and a 127% conversion rate to goal… impressive.

The team over at ICUC created a reference guide where we dispel some myths, breakdown channel opportunities, and discuss safety measures. Hope you enjoy it!

EXPLORE OUR LIVE SHOPPING GUIDE

This post “Don’t Ignore Social Commerce – Convince & Convert” was 1st provided on this site.

I hope you found the post above useful and/or of interest. Similar content can be found on our blog: superspunarticle.com/blog Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what subjects we should write about for you in the future.

youtube

0 notes

orbemnews · 4 years

Link

China Overtakes U.S. as Top Destination for Foreign Investment: Live Updates Here’s what you need to know: Michael S. Barr, center, was a trusted deputy of former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and is the leading contender to be comptroller of the currency.Credit…Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post, via Getty Images Michael S. Barr, a law professor and former official in the Obama administration, is President Biden’s leading choice to become comptroller of the currency, a highly influential post that regulates banks. As an assistant Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, Mr. Barr helped shape the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform law, a sweeping regulatory act that subjects financial firms to stricter government oversight, a résumé bullet point that appears to certify him as a reformer. Progressives, however, are less enamored, Emily Flitter writes in The New York Times. Some have pointed to Mr. Barr’s efforts to ease some of Dodd-Frank’s restrictions, such as the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from using customer money to make their own bets on the markets, as evidence that he might be more friendly to business. His recent ties to the financial community, including advising a trade group that tries to influence legislators on behalf of fintech companies, have also come under scrutiny. Several progressive groups have expressed support for a different candidate: Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor who has studied the inequitable treatment that Black and poor people often receive from banks. One supporter of Ms. Baradaran even threatened to go on a hunger strike should Mr. Barr win the nomination. The explosion in cryptocurrency and online banking has raised the stakes of the regulatory role. Fintech firms are lobbying for banking charters, and the wider circulation of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin will draw more regulatory review. The tit-for-tat trade restrictions between China and the United States under the Trump administration, coupled with the coronavirus pandemic, have given China a surprising edge. China has for the first time surpassed the United States as the top place for foreign direct investment, an important measure of a country’s economic health. Foreign investment in the United States fell by almost half, or 49 percent, in 2020 to $134 billion, according to figures released on Sunday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The decline in the United States mostly centers on overall trade, financial services and mergers and acquisitions, the study indicated. China, where the coronavirus outbreak was first detected, notched a slight 4 percent rise to $163 billion, led by investments in the country’s growing high-tech sector and in mergers and acquisitions. China, the world’s most populous nation, ordered strict lockdowns and masking requirements, rules that appear to have helped contain the spread of the virus within its borders. Foreign direct investment plunged for most countries as they struggled to contain the virus. Investment in Europe was wiped out, and globally, the flow of foreign investment altogether fell by 42 percent. Developed nations such as the United States are typically attractive destinations for such investments because of their skilled work force, open markets and consistently enforced regulations. For years, China’s manufacturing prowess and its rising consumer base have attracted foreign companies such as Apple, but its stringent guidelines around foreign ownership of its companies and its sometimes unclear enforcement rules made such investments tricky. But the surging clout of consumers has been hard for multinational corporations to ignore. As foreign investors set up shop, Chinese citizens bought and created enormous wealth. The country is stutter-stepping its way from becoming an economy driven by manufactured exports to one driven by its own consumers. The United Nations group expects foreign direct investment across the globe to remain weak for 2021. Credit…Till Lauer Late-year tax changes approved by Congress are now forcing the I.R.S. to push back the start of tax filing season, reports The New York Times’s Ann Carrns. Even so, the I.R.S. said, most taxpayers due a refund for the 2020 tax year will get it within three weeks if they file electronically and have the money deposited directly into their bank account. The average refund in recent years has been more than $2,500. Many families use refunds to pay bills or use it as a kind of forced savings plan. Typically, the Internal Revenue Service begins accepting and processing individual income tax returns in late January. But the agency has pushed back the start of filing to Feb. 12 for returns for the tax year 2020. The I.R.S. Free File program is ready to use now, if you are comfortable preparing your own tax return. Free File, a partnership between the I.R.S. and tax software companies, is available to people with adjusted gross income of $72,000 or less. The program offers free online preparation and filing of federal returns, but some providers charge fees for state returns. You can complete your return now, and it will be transmitted to the I.R.S. starting Feb. 12. This is shaping up to be another challenging tax season for the Internal Revenue Service, which has struggled in recent years with reduced budgets that have forced it to make do with fewer workers and outdated computer systems. During the pandemic, it has also had the extra work of distributing stimulus checks. Debenhams, a longtime chain of department stores in Britain, began holding closing-down sales last month.Credit…Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The British online fast-fashion retailer Boohoo said Monday it would buy the Debenhams brand name and website for 55 million pounds, or $75 million, a few weeks after the 242-year-old department store chain began to wind down its operations after going into administration in April. The deal is the latest reflection of the seismic reordering underway in the global retail hierarchy caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Strong businesses with agile supply chains and e-commerce operations are growing stronger, while weaker — often older — rivals with large brick-and-mortar footprints and more traditional models have started to fall away. Asos, another online fast-fashion retailer, confirmed Monday that it was in exclusive talks with administrators for Philip Green’s retail group Arcadia to buy its fashion brands portfolio, which includes Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT. Arcadia filed for bankruptcy protection late last year. A closing-down sale at 124 Debenhams stores began in December, as the administrators continued to seek offers for all or parts of the business. Now Boohoo, known for its $5 bikinis and tie-ins with reality TV stars, will buy Debenhams’ intellectual property rights in a cash deal — though none of its stores or stock will be included. The company took the same approach when acquiring several other British brands teetering on bankruptcy, including Oasis and Karen Millen. It said that Debenhams was expected to relaunch on Boohoo’s web platform in early 2022. “Our acquisition of the Debenhams brand is strategically significant as it represents a huge step which accelerates our ambition to be a leader, not just in fashion e-commerce, but in new categories including beauty, sport and home ware,” said Boohoo’s executive chairman, Mahmud Kamani. “Our ambition is to create the U.K.’s largest marketplace.” Neither Asos nor Boohoo are looking to acquire stores, so Debenhams’ remaining 118 department stores and more than 400 store sites occupied by Arcadia brands are likely to close for good, putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk. Boohoo, co-founded by Mr. Kamani in Manchester in 2006, came under public scrutiny last year after investigations into working conditions at garment factories in Leicester found many workers were being paid less than the minimum wage. S&P 500 futures fluctuated but suggested Wall Street’s main index would open slightly higher on Monday, after an upbeat mood in Asian markets faltered in European trading when new data showed a drop in business confidence. Most European indexes were lower. The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.2 percent, led by losses in financial and energy companies. The CAC 40 in France dropped 0.5 percent, whole the DAX in Germany and FTSE 100 in Britain declined 0.3 percent. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 2.4 percent to its highest level in two and a half years. Gains were driven by a 11 percent jump in Tencent shares after a company it backed announced an I.P.O. In Europe, concerns are growing about the pace of the vaccination rollout. Drugmakers have said the European Union will face a significant delay to delivery in the first few months of the year and officials responded they would take legal action to get their contracts fulfilled. In Germany, Europe’s largest economy, the latest surveys recorded a big decline in expectations for the economy. The Ifo business climate survey fell to its lowest in six months. “With the current lockdown measures in place until mid-February and no significant easing in the offing immediately afterwards, the short-term outlook for the German economy is anything but rosy,” Carsten Brzeski, an economist at Dutch bank ING, wrote in a note. In Britain, there has been a shake-up in the retail industry, with newer online brands sweeping up the old guard: Shares in Boohoo, the fast-fashion online retailer, jumped as much as 5.7 percent after it said it would buy the brand of Debenhams, a two-century-old chain of department stores that fell into insolvency last year. The stores are likely to be shut down. Shares in ASOS, another online retailer, climbed as much as 6.4 percent after it confirmed it was in talks to buy some of Arcadia’s most popular brands, including Topshop, following the collapse of the downtown fixture. In other financial markets, the U.S. dollar and gold prices were little changed. Oil futures rose, with West Texas Intermediate prices up 0.8 percent to $52.66 a barrel. Source link #China #destination #foreign #Investment #Live #Overtakes #Top #Updates

0 notes

dippedanddripped · 5 years

Link

Ralph Lauren once said, "I don't design clothes, I design dreams," according to GQ magazine. But at retail, clothes have become the stuff of nightmares.

"According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 1977 U.S. Households spent 6.2% on apparel and in 2017 that declined to 3.1% spending on apparel in U.S. Households," Shawn Grain Carter, professor of fashion business management at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told Retail Dive in an email. "That is a 50% drop over four decades."

And it's taking a toll.

Oct 23 - Register Now So far this year, 10 of the 16 major retail bankruptcies were filed by companies that mostly or exclusively sell apparel and/or footwear: Forever 21, Avenue, A'gaci, Barneys New York, Charming Charlie, Diesel USA, Payless ShoeSource, FullBeauty Brands, Charlotte Russe and Gymboree. Another, Shopko, was a discount department store with an assortment that included clothes.

Things are not likely to end there. In its latest analysis of CreditRiskMonitor data, Retail Dive found 28 retailers that could go bankrupt in the next year — and half sell apparel. In the worse-off list, which includes businesses with a 9.99% to 50% chance of filing for bankruptcy (a FRISK score of 1) — three are specialty apparel retailers: Christopher & Banks, Destination Maternity and J. Crew. A fourth, Ascena, is a conglomerate running five apparel brands after recently dumping two. It's reportedly contemplating also dropping its plus-size brands. Executives there recently assured analysts that bankruptcy is not a consideration, however.

In addition to those retailers, department stores J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus also make the list. A seventh, Bluestem, is also a conglomerate with a portfolio of e-commerce brands somewhat less dominated by apparel.

Seven more apparel retailers have a 4% to 9.99% chance of filing for bankruptcy (a FRISK score of 2). They include RTW Retailwinds (a portfolio of brands formerly known as New York & Co), Tailored Brands (which runs Men's Wearhouse and JoS. A. Bank), Express, Francesca's and J. Jill, plus department stores Hudson's Bay Co. and Stein Mart.

"It is unsurprising that apparel stores are one of the most distressed parts of retail. This sector is saturated with supply and is arguably over-stored."

Neil Saunders

Managing Director, GlobalData Retail

The situation is at once stark and logical, considering the state of the market. Globally, the top dozen apparel retailers, on average, saw earnings downgrades of nearly 40% since 2016, according to a note from Morgan Stanley Friday, where analysts said the "online channel shift is clearly unhelpful, but it doesn't fully explain the malaise." For two decades, falling apparel prices were offset by growing volumes, but those "now seem to have peaked and prices are likely to keep falling, so clothing markets would appear to be going into structural decline."

Apparel retail, which has to keep up with the fickleness of consumer taste, has long been a tough business, according to GlobalData Retail Managing Director Neil Saunders. But that's just the beginning.

"It is unsurprising that apparel stores are one of the most distressed parts of retail. This sector is saturated with supply and is arguably over-stored," he told Retail Dive in an email. "Online has been unhelpful too as it has eroded margins somewhat and has also contributed to the issues of over-supply. On the periphery there are a number of emerging trends which are adding pressure, including the rise of rental and resale – both of which are mostly focused on clothing. Put all of this together and it's a recipe for a difficult sector."

In other words: Apparel retail is under siege on multiple fronts.

New consumer priorities Financial roadbumps stymying consumers outside of top-tier incomes are forcing some to prioritize, and that's pushing apparel far down on many lists. Average spending on women and girls' apparel has especially declined for lower-income earners, with the "only bright spot" in footwear, where share in apparel expenditure has risen across income levels, according to a Deloitte report last year. More recently, rising consumer debt, including record levels of student loans shouldered by younger consumers, is chipping away at discretionary spending.

But apparel spending declines are broad-based as priorities shift, according to Carter and others. "Apparel has lost market share to higher spending on experiences," she said, including a diverse set of activities like fitness, self-care like spas and manicures, sports (both participation and entertainment), other entertainment including streaming services of all types, restaurants, travel and electronics.

Mark Cohen

Retail Studies Professor, Columbia University Business School

Mark Cohen, Columbia University Business School retail studies professor, likewise believes that "consumer electronics and the services that go with them with regard to ever more consuming technology continues to eat up the consumer's available disposable income," but notes other forces at play.

"The Boomers characteristically consume less apparel as they get older and their offspring are burdened with crushing student loan debt, generally rising prices in the consumer space and a very glaring lack of new and interesting apparel and accessory products to draw their attention," he told Retail Dive in an email. "Some appear to be gob smacked with the opportunity to 'rent' things rather than buy them — though this trend may very well turn out to be short lived just like the ubiquitous Gilt Flash Sale."

For younger shoppers, as they choose which apparel brands do get their attention, sustainability and other cultural issues are often at the forefront, according to Carter. Forever 21, for one, in contrast to at least nominal efforts by rival H&M, ignored that, to its peril, Carter said.

No fashion heroes The "glaring lack" of newness noticed by Cohen could be a reflection of a new fashion reality — that consumers themselves are dictating what to wear, gleaning clues from social media and seeking advice from influencers there who include their own friends.

"The tastemakers of fashion used to be the designer, fashion editor, fashion buyer and celebrity," said FIT's Carter. "Today, however, social media influencers, peers, and stylists have replaced the role of fashion sages for consumers to purchase apparel, footwear, and accessories. Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms dictate how one should dress for Gen Z and Millennials. Besides, they don't shop in a mall or socialize in retail stores as did previous generations of youth."

"To be a merchant right now in apparel, that's a hard job. To work at The RealReal is so much easier than turning around J. Crew."

Lee Peterson

EVP, Thought Leadership & Marketing, WD Partners

That grassroots approach to fashion is making it difficult for merchandisers, at least those building seasonal lines from scratch, according to Lee Peterson, executive vice president of thought leadership and marketing at WD Partners. Resale businesses like ThredUp and The RealReal are better positioned than traditional retailers because of the way consumers mix and match styles, brands and price points, he said in an interview.

"You can't merchandise the way the customers buy now. I feel sorry for anyone working for Ascena and those guys putting together a line," he said. "To be a merchant right now in apparel, that's a hard job. To work at The RealReal is so much easier than turning around J. Crew. And to be a buyer there is easier, too, because you're treasure hunting for all your treasure-hunting customers."

Another reality pressuring sales is that nobody needs as many clothes as they once did, say Carter and Peterson. Peterson noted that, even as an executive, he was wearing a flannel shirt and Vans on a Thursday.

"No 'career wear' or business wardrobe is necessary anymore since the beginning of the 1990s era of 'Friday Casual' morphed into everyday 'Business Casual' at the majority of companies, schools, service industries and banks in America," Carter said. "One need only trace the rise of wearing sneakers to one's office, college, opera house, theater, church or temple to see that consumers see no value in 'dressing for work' vs. dressing for leisure. Even Goldman Sachs has suspended the Tie and Suit rule once and for all!"

Too much supply So, consumers can't spend as much on apparel as they once did, would rather buy other things and don't need as many clothes. Yet there's a glut of apparel for sale, and, increasingly, for rent.

"Thirty years ago the apparel and related accessories business were booming. The department stores couldn't wait to jettison lesser margin businesses like housewares, home and electronics so as to devote more selling space to soft lines," Columbia's Cohen said. "But apparel and accessories like most individual consumer segments are cyclical in the way they perform. What was the ever rising tide is no longer."

It doesn't help that the traditional mall, which functioned well for suburban Americans for decades, is now a fairly inconvenient way to shop in an era when most households need two wage-earners, both pressed for time, and when so many things can be bought online. That's leading retailers as diverse as Gap and GNC to leave those locations to set up shop in strip malls and invest in e-commerce instead.

"Now the remaining department stores have too many physical stores in the face of the explosion of commerce and too much square footage devoted to off-trend apparel and accessories," said Cohen, who has decades of experience at retailers like Sears and Target. "Some of us balked at this short-sighted thinking of the past but we lost the argument and now the chickens have come home to roost. There obviously was a ridiculous over-investment in apparel and accessory specialty retail, largely based upon an increasingly large number of now superfluous malls."

Macy's is exhibit one, as a retailer that has scrambled in recent years to unwind its massive brick-and-mortar expansion of more than a decade ago, but it's not just a department store problem. Forever 21 also over-built its fleet, too often in sub-standard centers, and now plans to close 178 stores in the U.S. alone.

A giant retreat While it's easy to see how e-commerce undercuts store traffic and sales, the apparel over-supply extends online. In fact, Walmart's recent loss of appetite for running its newly acquired pure-players could have something to do with the fact that they are apparel businesses. In a stunning retreat, the retail giant sold its ModCloth apparel brand and is reportedly shrinking the Bonobos menswear operation, not long after buying them.

"Against this backdrop, Walmart will be cautious about getting too deeply into apparel. At heart, Walmart isn't a fashion focused player; their primary business model is a volume play based on everyday products sold at low prices," Saunders said. "As such, the company has determined that ModCloth, and possibly Bonobos, are not a good long-term fit. This is especially so given the challenge of bringing these divisions into strong profitable territory."

Walmart in recent years grabbed those businesses, along with outdoor apparel retailer Moosejaw, to glean knowledge and is likely now ready to graduate, according to Saunders.

"Having extracted what they needed, Walmart is changing tack and is focusing more on their core e-commerce business via Walmart.com," he said. "Walmart sees its future in fashion as improving its own offer via stores and online, doing selective things in specialist areas like plus size, and partnering with other brands via its marketplace. That makes sense as it allows Walmart.com to widen its fashion appeal without Walmart taking on too much of the risk. It's a nimbler and likely more profitable model."

More nimble and more profitable: suitable, if difficult, goals for the entire apparel industry at the moment.

#The 'retail apocalypse' is an apparel apocalypse #retailers #fashion blog

0 notes

flipfundingstuff · 4 years

Text

It Will Take More Than a Virus to Stop Globalization

“It’s a small world after all” is not just the refrain from the classic Disney ride but also a guiding principle of the way the world works today. The computer or smartphone you’re reading this article on was assembled in China, then shipped to California, before it made its way to your local store. If that phone’s an iPhone, Apple posts a 33-page list of suppliers from more than 10 countries, including China, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Brazil.

That’s globalization at work. The term refers to a wide variety of political, social, and economic forces, but it boils down to a growing interconnectedness and mobility between people and goods across borders.

In many ways, the election of Donald Trump—and his “America First” rhetoric—to the office of the American presidency served as a referendum against societal upheaval and change from the ‘00s—but none more so than globalization.

Globalization Was an Unstoppable Force—Until COVID-19

With globalization, every firm can specialize in exactly what they’re best at, optimizing each dime and dollar with the power of a distributed labor force in under-regulated and underpaid countries. Why pay American workers $15 an hour when you could pay workers in China, Mexico, or India $5?

Manufacturing is only part of the story. Globalization allows companies to maximize their profits at every stage in their supply chain, whether that’s accessing top talent from other nations remotely, shifting production to a market with cheaper labor, or designating their headquarters in a country with favorable tax codes. (There’s a reason why every major corporation has offices in Ireland.)

Modern business practices have accelerated a centuries-old trend of international trade as old as the Silk Road. This digitally-driven era of globalization, beginning after World War II, created tremendous economic growth and prosperity—but only for some. Changing business practices leave the average American, particularly small business owners, in the dust.

Then came COVID-19.

The ramifications of a disease with no cure and no vaccine—one that spreads rapidly from person-to-person, sometimes with no noticeable symptoms—ground the economy to a halt. Countries closed their borders, and everyone stayed home, causing what Harvard Business Review called “the largest and fastest decline in international flows in modern history.”

The Global Economic Impact of COVID-19

The World Trade Organization forecasts a 13–32% drop in trade, a 30–40% drop in foreign direct investment (FDI), and a 44–80% drop in international airline passengers this year. “The unavoidable declines in trade and output will have painful consequences for households and businesses, on top of the human suffering caused by the disease itself,” said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo in a press release.

Foreign direct investment also fell 38% during the Great Recession in 2008—both may be more of a symptom of the economic fallout from the virus, rather than undoing globalization completely. A drop in trade or FDI alone doesn’t mean markets suddenly disconnect.

Let’s return to Apple, often lauded as one of the best supply chains in the world. The WTO predicts that trade will more dramatically impact more complex supply chains like those in the electronics and automotive sectors.

Does this mean an end to globalization? Hardly.

Globalization Isn’t Dying, But It Is Changing

Globalization as we know it will never be the same. It’s a catch-all term that often is used as a shortcut for the status quo of American dominance in economic policy, international law, and trade. The pandemic has drawn attention to geopolitical trends already in progress: China’s rise, the return to nation-states over models of regionalism, and the explosion of populism and isolationism.

“Hypernationalist leaders across the globe seem determined to ignore the awareness of interdependence that was—in the last century—drummed into our minds at a nearly unbearable cost,” says Madeleine Albright in Time. “Instead of highlighting the need for global teamwork, the doctrine of ‘every nation for itself’ has taken hold on matters involving oil prices, trade, refugees, climate change, the regulation of communications technology, and more.“

Interconnectedness plays a crucial role in economic recovery. More connected countries have stronger potential for faster economic growth and stronger healthcare systems. “Keeping markets open and predictable, as well as fostering a more generally favorable business environment, will be critical to spur the renewed investment we will need. And if countries work together, we will see a much faster recovery than if each country acts alone,” Roberto Azevedo added in the WTO press release.

Humans Remain Connected Through Technology

If the pandemic has proven one thing, it’s that technology can support connection even if there is physical separation, through the increase in remote work, e-commerce, and video conferencing. Zoom, the app even your grandmother can use, grew 78% year-over-year in Q1 of 2020 and expects $1.7 billion in revenue for the following fiscal year, powering birthday parties, happy hours, workouts, and corporate meetings.

More than technological connection, the pandemic gave people around the world a sense of shared responsibility. Millions stayed home, donated, shopped local, homeschooled, sewed masks, fed hospital workers, and marched for equality.

We Have a Choice to Cooperate or Isolate

International cooperation and connectedness transcend any one crisis. Globalization is more than economic dependency—it’s a sense that we’re all in this together.

“At any given moment, the world is either moving forward to cooperation, trade, and peace, or regressing toward protectionism, isolation, and conflict,” writes David Frum in The Atlantic. “We have experienced cooperation and know its benefits. We have experienced isolationism and have suffered its miseries. The circumstance may change. The choice does not. Let’s choose wisely.”

Because if we want it to remain a small world after all, we’ll need to trust and rely on one another. That’s globalization at work.

The post It Will Take More Than a Virus to Stop Globalization appeared first on Lendio.

from Blog – Lendio https://ift.tt/2NTZL95 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blog – Lendio

0 notes

xpaylife · 5 years

Text

Innovation India - Fintech Companies are boarding Rural masses

The explosion of online bill payments is on an avalanche these days. Gone are the days when payments were made through hard cash, with bargaining mouths and unsatisfied transactions. Payments have integrated with the ever-growing innovative technology where laptops and mobiles have become the new wallets. Indian masses are rapidly adapting to changing technology and view android smartphones to be a necessity. This makes a fluid market ground for the companies creating new online bill payment apps every day.

How did Artificial Intelligence help in problem-solving?

The new trends are including Artificial Intelligence into every innovation as this will become the future of mobile bill payments. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, a large database of the users can be collected, analyzed that helps the companies to solve some of the problems users are facing and creating solutions for them. for eg, Gas Bill payment was becoming hectic with the multiple trials of calling the agency, only to be promptly ignored many times. This was a problem that needed a better solution. Companies started integrating UPI bill payments in the application that was only meant for e-commerce shopping.

Customers are looking for security.

India saw an incline in the usage of online bill payment when Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared war against black money and initiated demonetization. The frequent cash crunches only pushed the people into embracing the online platform for financial transactions.

But the question of security still remains, with increasing cyber frauds and direct hacking of the bank accounts through the mobile apps that have only installed a new fear in the public. Hence a new application XPay.Life has come up with a timeless solution. It is built on the block chain technology which is the most secure technology right now. Easy Postpaid Mobile payment can be now done with the highest security and no fear of losing money during the online transfer!

Entertainment and bill payment

As the TV media took over, the times were mostly rewarded for entertainment. Television gave the best of the news, serials, dramas, reality shows for the masses. The interrupted connection only made the customers more agile to accept the online bill payment methods which not only provided them with the time to spend with family but also an easy, quick way to pay the DTH bills. The mobile applications were built so rigorously to make life simpler and more meaningful. The DTH recharge app is gaining popularity in the entertainment world.

Landline in the world of smartphones

Smartphones are having a lions share in the market but landlines aren’t completely extinct. It has been a loyal fender to all of the public needs. Corporate offices still need landline connections for internal communication. The Government Offices rely on the small loyal landline itself. We still have our previous generation who are bewildered to use shiny applications on sleek smartphones. Online landline bill payment can also be easily done through the applications now.

Electricity

With IoT taking over the market, all devices are connected to each other and integrated to be controlled over the cloud. “Alexa, Switch On the light” is the trend now. All the devices are voice-controlled, the temperatures in the refrigerator are controlled from a smartphone from a faraway vacation. But for all these to run, electricity is the most important thing. There will be no light, no devices, no life. Hence most people are searching for the Best electricity bill payment application on the cellphones.

The market size is growing rapidly for fintech companies to invest in the building of applications and websites. But XPay.Life is also tapping the rural masses who are still hesitant about using the application. To get them to transit to the world of smartphones, applications, IoT, cloud. There is a basic step to be taken. The bill payment kiosks and bill payment through PoS machines are creating a revolution in the way India is to be digitized. Rural masses will be expected to board the digital platform swiftly with these kinds of innovations.

More information visit: www.xpay.life

Source: https://www.apsense.com/article/innovation-india-fintech-companies-are-boarding-rural-masses.html

#bill payment #TNEB electricity bill payment online #Tata Docomo postpaid Bill Payment #big tv online recharge #tata docomo broadband postpaid bill payment #secure landline bill payment #bwssb online payment without login #Online Gas Bill Payments Kiosk

0 notes

hotspreadpage · 6 years

Text

Mary Meeker’s Report 2018: the internet trends to watch out for

All the latest trends are part of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report every year and we couldn’t ignore the changes digital in media usage, mobile consumption, voice search and all the innovations that change our lives.

Here’s an overview of the stats that caught our attention.

Increasing digital media usage

There has been a growth of 4% in the digital media usage, reaching 5.9 hours per day. Mobile digital media usage as reached 3.3 hours, while the desktop usage has slightly decreased in 2.1 hours per day. Despite the growth of mobile media consumption, we still see a stable use of other devices, while desktop usage is still present.

This stat can be useful for brands and publishers who try to understand their audience and how the rising mobile consumption can affect their next campaigns.

How innovation drives product improvements

Innovation takes place in many forms and trends and the most interesting stats have to do with the rise of messaging, voice search and video.

According to Mary Meeker’s Report, messaging is expanding and we’ve already noticed the increased number of monthly active users among all the popular platforms. Messaging platforms become more useful every day for users and brands are already exploring the best ways to include them in their digital strategies.

Mobile adoption keeps increasing for video usage and there is no prediction that this growth will end soon. As mobile consumption increases, more users are watching video content through their phones. This makes more companies evaluate their existing marketing strategies and how their publishing habits can adjust to this trend.

Voice services have seen an impressive growth with Amazon Echo reaching an impressive adoption rate. Except for the usage, there has also been an improvement in the service and the skills, which justifies the rise in sales. As voice technology matures, more consumers are ready to try it out. Its improved accuracy makes it more appealing and the growth from one year to another proves this trend that becomes mainstream.

Product discovery and search

Search has become an important part of the process of discovering a new product. Amazon seems to be the first option when it comes to product discovery, but search engines seem to come second at a percentage of 36%. This serves as a great reminder of the power of SEO for e-commerce businesses and how search can lead to consideration and sales.

Amazon may be the primary choice for product finding, but we cannot ignore how SEO can play a critical role in affecting consumers’ decisions for their next purchases.

An interesting journey is presented in the slide below, showing how the process of product finding takes place through search. An organic search can help a user move into a paid search to find the right product. This can move to Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads and the journey is complete with a shopping action.

This is a great visual representation which reminds us of the role SEO and PPC can hold in a digital strategy that seeks for increased sales.

Social media contributing to product discovery

Another interesting observation has to do with the role of social media in product discovery. Facebook, Instagram and also Pinterest can play a key role in the stage of awareness and consideration. Brands can involve social media in their funnel to help move users in their next stages that lead to a sale.

What’s important to understand is that a conversion cannot be achieved without the crucial previous stages, starting from the awareness and, moving to consideration before the actual purchase. Thus, every channel, including social media, can play a key role in a multi-channel world.

The rise of Internet advertising spend

There has been a growth of 21% in the Internet advertising spend in the US with a growing allocation of the budget going to mobile ads.

As mobile usage increases, advertisers adjust their strategies to reach their audience. We are expecting an even bigger budget on mobile advertising within the next years, although it’s still important to create ads for different devices.

The rise of e-commerce related advertising revenue

A closer focus at the advertising spend shows a growth of the advertising revenue for Google, Amazon and Facebook. This growth is related to the rise of e-commerce and how it is combined with ads to increase the sales.

Google saw a 3x increase of engagement with its focus on mobile product listings, while Amazon noted a 42% YoY increase in its advertising revenue.

Although the advertising spend is split between the big players in the industry there is still an indication that more advertisers are willing to invest in e-commerce growth to maintain a viable business.

The rise of data-driven personalization in search

One of the most important changes in search the last few years has to do with the increase of personalization. The more data search engines access, the higher the chances of successful personalization. The key to success, in this case, is the effective combination of data and UX to provide the best search results.

People seek relevant and fast answers to all their questions, while proximity is also an important matter for them. Thus, there has been a query growth of 900% from 2015 to 2017 to the results that include ‘near me’ as more users search for local results. This also means that local marketing and local businesses can benefit from this trend, which highlights another big trend in marketing. There’s no need anymore to create generalized content as personalization and local marketing can lead to more successful results.

What’s next?

As innovation brings more exciting opportunities, marketers and advertisers are facing the challenge of keeping up with the trends. The stats above indicate:

A growing mobile usage

The rise of voice services

The domination of video content

The stable trend of messaging

The use of search for product discovery

The explosive growth of personalized search queries.

All these observations can be really helpful, especially when your team is ready to look ahead to plan the strategy and the upcoming campaigns. Any of these trends can bring a business closer to its customers, provided that it embraces its potential in the most relevant way.

Mary Meeker’s Report 2018: the internet trends to watch out for syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com

0 notes

kellykperez · 6 years

Text

Mary Meeker’s Report 2018: the internet trends to watch out for

Here’s an overview of the stats that caught our attention.

Increasing digital media usage

This stat can be useful for brands and publishers who try to understand their audience and how the rising mobile consumption can affect their next campaigns.

How innovation drives product improvements

Innovation takes place in many forms and trends and the most interesting stats have to do with the rise of messaging, voice search and video.

Product discovery and search

Amazon may be the primary choice for product finding, but we cannot ignore how SEO can play a critical role in affecting consumers’ decisions for their next purchases.

This is a great visual representation which reminds us of the role SEO and PPC can hold in a digital strategy that seeks for increased sales.

Social media contributing to product discovery

The rise of Internet advertising spend

There has been a growth of 21% in the Internet advertising spend in the US with a growing allocation of the budget going to mobile ads.

The rise of e-commerce related advertising revenue

Google saw a 3x increase of engagement with its focus on mobile product listings, while Amazon noted a 42% YoY increase in its advertising revenue.

The rise of data-driven personalization in search

What’s next?

As innovation brings more exciting opportunities, marketers and advertisers are facing the challenge of keeping up with the trends. The stats above indicate:

A growing mobile usage

The rise of voice services

The domination of video content

The stable trend of messaging

The use of search for product discovery

The explosive growth of personalized search queries.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/06/01/mary-meekers-report-2018-the-internet-trends-to-watch-out-for/ from Rising Phoenix SEO http://risingphoenixseo.blogspot.com/2018/06/mary-meekers-report-2018-internet.html

0 notes

alanajacksontx · 6 years

Text

Mary Meeker’s Report 2018: the internet trends to watch out for

Here’s an overview of the stats that caught our attention.

Increasing digital media usage

This stat can be useful for brands and publishers who try to understand their audience and how the rising mobile consumption can affect their next campaigns.

How innovation drives product improvements

Innovation takes place in many forms and trends and the most interesting stats have to do with the rise of messaging, voice search and video.

Product discovery and search

Amazon may be the primary choice for product finding, but we cannot ignore how SEO can play a critical role in affecting consumers’ decisions for their next purchases.

This is a great visual representation which reminds us of the role SEO and PPC can hold in a digital strategy that seeks for increased sales.

Social media contributing to product discovery

The rise of Internet advertising spend

There has been a growth of 21% in the Internet advertising spend in the US with a growing allocation of the budget going to mobile ads.

The rise of e-commerce related advertising revenue

Google saw a 3x increase of engagement with its focus on mobile product listings, while Amazon noted a 42% YoY increase in its advertising revenue.

The rise of data-driven personalization in search

What’s next?

As innovation brings more exciting opportunities, marketers and advertisers are facing the challenge of keeping up with the trends. The stats above indicate:

A growing mobile usage

The rise of voice services

The domination of video content

The stable trend of messaging

The use of search for product discovery

The explosive growth of personalized search queries.

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/06/01/mary-meekers-report-2018-the-internet-trends-to-watch-out-for/ from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/174462822540

0 notes

srasamua · 6 years

Text

Mary Meeker’s Report 2018: the internet trends to watch out for

Here’s an overview of the stats that caught our attention.

Increasing digital media usage

This stat can be useful for brands and publishers who try to understand their audience and how the rising mobile consumption can affect their next campaigns.

How innovation drives product improvements

Innovation takes place in many forms and trends and the most interesting stats have to do with the rise of messaging, voice search and video.

Product discovery and search

Amazon may be the primary choice for product finding, but we cannot ignore how SEO can play a critical role in affecting consumers’ decisions for their next purchases.

This is a great visual representation which reminds us of the role SEO and PPC can hold in a digital strategy that seeks for increased sales.

Social media contributing to product discovery

The rise of Internet advertising spend

There has been a growth of 21% in the Internet advertising spend in the US with a growing allocation of the budget going to mobile ads.

The rise of e-commerce related advertising revenue

Google saw a 3x increase of engagement with its focus on mobile product listings, while Amazon noted a 42% YoY increase in its advertising revenue.

The rise of data-driven personalization in search

What’s next?

As innovation brings more exciting opportunities, marketers and advertisers are facing the challenge of keeping up with the trends. The stats above indicate:

A growing mobile usage

The rise of voice services

The domination of video content

The stable trend of messaging

The use of search for product discovery

The explosive growth of personalized search queries.

from Digtal Marketing News https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/06/01/mary-meekers-report-2018-the-internet-trends-to-watch-out-for/

0 notes

euro3plast-fr · 7 years

Text

Top E-commerce Trends to inform your 2017 marketing strategy

These massive trends will change E-commerce marketing this year

We are now well into 2017. If you are to develop a winning e-commerce marketing strategy you'll need to start planning now. E-commerce continues to grow rapidly, but with the huge market acting as a magnet to brands large and small, competition will ramp up faster than the total growth of the market. This means customers will be harder to win, easier to lose and fussier on price and user experience.

To avoid falling behind the ever more fierce competition, you will need to both be aware of and benefit from the latest trends in e-commerce. These megatrends are global, have huge implications, and are not going to go away anytime soon. Ecommerce marketers will have to integrate them into their planning to be successful this year And if any of you think you can get away without creating a detailed plan - remember that 77% of marketing professionals think a planned approach focusing on analytics and continues optimisation is the most effect way of managing digital marketing, whilst only 14% thought a relatively unplanned, reactive approach was best.

So make sure to consider these enormously important trends when creating your marketing strategy for 2017.

Trend 1. eCommerce Growth Shifts to Asia

In the early days of e-commerce, it was the US that was the major driver of eCommerce growth. eCommerce has since become a global phenomenon, but the US has still been the most important market and key to driving growth. The chart below shows how consistent annual growth rates of around 10% have driven an explosion in US eCommerce sales over the past fifteen years.

Although growth rates still remain strong, the US market isn't all that far off saturation point, so we can expect sales starting to plateau or the growth rates to at least slow slightly. This contrasts with Asian markets, especially China, where eCommerce sales are expected to continue their huge growth. The chart below showing the predictions of eCommerce sales growth shows China driving the overall growth, accounting for a huge chunk of global eCommerce sales. China's growth is so rapid that total eCommerce sales there are expected to double between now and 2019, adding $1 trillion dollars worth of additional sales in just three years!

Key Takeaway:

The huge shift in e-commerce growth towards Asia has massive ramifications for e-commerce brands. To take advantage of the trends they'll need to go international with their e-commerce - something easier said than done. The beauty of e-commerce is you don't necessarily need any physical infrastructure to start selling to a new country. With shipping rates cheap, international delivery becoming common and websites making borders increasingly irrelevant, it's not as hard as it once was to break into new countries and markets. However, that should not invite complacency. Well translated websites, strategies in tune with local expectations and the use of no VAT charges to subsidise delivery costs are all of critical importance.

Strategy recommendation – Account for VAT differences in international pricing strategy

Because VAT is not charged on international sales, you effectively generate 20% more profit per purchase, (if UK based) or whatever % the sales tax in your country or state. This revenue can be used to subsidise the higher than usual cost of shipping for international customers.

Trend 2. Mobile users continue to increase- but still aren't converting. Or are they?

You don't need me to tell you about the shift to mobile over the past five years. Mobile devices now make up over half of all web traffic and continue to grow in importance. This won't come as a surprise to anyone marketer that hasn't been in a coma since 2010.

But it may surprise you that a very big chunk of customers still aren't happy with purchasing on a mobile device. Over half prefer purchasing on a PC, and many have privacy and security worries.

New research from the 2nd half of 2016 confirms this picture. 80 million website sessions and data related to €230 million worth of online revenue were analysed by Wolfgang digital. They found that although mobile (phone and tablet) accounted for 59% of all sessions by device on e-commerce sites, these mobile browsers made up just 38% of revenue. Desktop was still dominating for conversion even though mobile browsing is the norm for research. The distinction was even bigger when it comes to high-cost purchases such as holidays. For online travel businesses, desktop made up just 41% of web traffic, but dominated sales, accounting for 67% of revenue.

So what should e-commerce marketers make of the failure of mobile browser to convert? Simple: It's the omnichannel stupid. Mobile users are on the site to consider purchasing and make up their minds as to what products they want. As a result, they are extremely important and should never be ignored. The fact they then go to desktop to make the purchase does not mean you can neglect the mobile experience. Although Smartphones have the lowest conversion rate of any device, Wolfgang's correlation study found strong correlations between high percentages of mobile traffic and high overall website conversion rates. This seems like a contradiction in terms, but it is not. It's caused by people researching on Smartphones, making the key decisions related to the purchase, and then actually buying on a desktop later.

Key Takeaways:

Marketers need to stop thinking of 'mobile users' and 'desktop users' as different people. Because they're not. The average household has 7.4 internet connected devices. A 'mobile user' one minute is a 'desktop user' the next. The distinction is entirely artificial. A focus on brilliant mobile UX may help a few more mobile customers to convert without switching to desktop, but for higher value items the focus should be providing a seamless experience across devices so users can browse on mobile and convert on desktop.

Strategy recommendation – Nudge mobile browsers into converting via helpful reminders

Research clearly shows people make key decisions about purchasing on their Smartphones, only to then purchase on desktop later. Your email strategy should reflect this. Send an email featuring products the user spent time looking at on a mobile device, as it may well be opened when they are on desktop and ready to convert. Thus providing the perfect slight nudge that leads to purchase.

Trend 3. e-commerce competition heats up

2017 will be the year e-commerce competition gets racked up by another notch. New start-ups are entering the market and big established bricks and mortar brands are increasingly pushing to achieve significant chunks of the e-commerce market as consumers increasingly move online. As competition builds, we're witnessing an explosion in mar-tech tools designed to help e-commerce marketers, as Scott Brinker's 2016 Martech graphic clearly shows.

Whilst more tools are often helpful, growing competition will become a real headache for e-commerce marketers in 2017. As Mark Schaefer has pointed out, content shock presents a real problem for anyone using content marketing, which includes a huge number of e-commerce companies.

Key takeaways:

Most of the trends presented in this article are great news for e-commerce marketers, but growing competition and content shock is the exception. Competition for eyeballs will increasingly heat up, to the point where making a similar effort to 2016 will deliver far less gains in 2017. Good e-commerce marketers will need to produce exceptional content to manage to stand out in 2017. If they cannot do this, then focusing on tactics other than content marketing may be the best bet.

Strategy recommendation – 70:20:10 Model

If you are to be successful with content marketing for eCommerce in a world dominated by content shock, you'll need to employ a model which allows for innovative new types of content. Use the 70:20:10 model to structure your content marketing strategy so you spend 70% of time on content you know is effective, 20% on innovative new types of content and 10% of time on truly risk projects that could possible drive a major payoff.

Trend 4. Subscription-based business models are the future

SaaS businesses have pioneered the subscription-based business model for software and show how effective it can be for both businesses and consumers. The flexibility it affords consumers and the recurring revenue it allows businesses is a massive win-win for both parties. That's what has driven it's massive growth over the past ten years, which is predicted to continue at a healthy rate as we head towards 2020.

It's not just Software as a Service revenue that has exploded over recent years. Platform as a service is now one of the hottest trends in business. Just look at the incredible success of Platform as a Service businesses like Uber, Spotify and AirBnB.

But subscription-based business models don't have to be limited to software. Recent years have seen the creation of many incredibly successful e-commerce businesses providing a physical product on a subscription basis rather than for a single fee for purchase. Founded just five years ago in 2011, the dollar shave club, a prime example of a subscription-based e-commerce site, is now worth an incredible $615 Million dollars! That's right. From nothing to $615 million dollars in five years. Just selling razors.

Best practice tip - Focus efforts on retention when running a subscription based revenue model

With a subscription based revenue model it can be tempting to focus on getting more and more customers to convert and then watch the money roll in. But if you neglect them you will quickly find these customers cancelling and moving elsewhere. The key is a strong focus on retention efforts and constant investment in improving the product. When you look at revenue models, you'll find just a 2.5% change in churn rate can make a 30% difference in recurring revenue. It pays to keep your customers happy.

All kinds of industries are ripe for disruption by successful subscription based e-commerce sites. And looking at economy-wide trends, it's clear this trend is set to continue.

Millenials are increasingly keen to spread costs via subscriptions rather than making single big ticket purchase. Those in their twenties today have average incomes higher than those in their twenties did two decades ago, and have disposable incomes a third higher than the same age cohort did twenty years ago. But their wealth (the sum of their assets) is far lower than that of other demographics, and lower than their parent's wealth when they were in their twenties. Those between 20 and thirty are far less likely to own their own home or a car when compared to previous generations.

Key takeaway:

If possible, consider selling your products via a subscription model. Anything that is used consumed regularly could successfully be sold via a subscription model, and in many cases already is. Examples include Beer, 'Meatpacks', 'Vegpacks', Meal kits, beauty products and snack boxes.

The high disposable incomes of today's millennials means plenty of cash for subscriptions, but their low wealth means there is never much in the bank for big one-off purchases. There really has never been a better time to sell your product via a subscription model.

Trend 5. The Growth of Artifical Intelligence for Smart Prediction

This trend is much trickier to predict because it is genuinely new, rather than a continuation of trends which have been building for several years.

The increasing data available to marketers has massively increased their ability to target customers over the past few years, but increased ability doesn't instantly translate into increased effectiveness. Sometimes marketers can get too caught up in marketing speak and buzzwords and patting each other on the back, and fail to see what the consumer actually sees. What all this 'big data' and 'hyper-targeting' usually adds up to when I think about what I actually experience as a customer (rather than as a marketer) is getting served ads for products I've already bought. Generally, if I buy something online I'll get served re-marketing ads advertising the damn thing for a good few weeks afterwards. Cracking targeting - they got me stop on, I really did want that book of Nigella Lawson recipes. Thing is, I actually bought the thing, so it's actually the worst targeting in the world - I've never been less likely to buy it!

So this targeting is precise and informed by data. But it's still stupid. What it needs to be is smart. That's the missing piece of the puzzle. That's where Artifical Intelligence comes in.

Funding for artificial intelligence start-ups has increased massively in the past three years. Data for Q1 2016 also shows the number of deals hit a quarterly record, and looks set for a considerable increase on the 2016 figure.

My bet is the venture capitalists are onto something, and 2017 will be the year where AI tech really comes into its own. By combining genuine intelligence with the piles of data now available thanks to analytics and tracking software, ad targeting will be able to get a whole lot smarter. Moving beyond a simple 'customers that bought X also bought 'A, B and C' to a system which learns what makes each individual marketed to tick, and tailor messaging to exactly match what works on them.

Marketers, especially those in larger organisations, should be looking at how AI tech can help with their ad targeting and personalisation strategy. With IBM letting companies utilise it's famous Jeopardy-winning Watson AI system, and many other providers entering the market, 2017 will be the year digital ad-targeting gets smart.

Trend 6. Chatbots

Chatbots are in many ways the most important breakthrough marketing technology of 2016- and are set to really come into their own next year. That’s not to say their necessarily the most important marketing tech trend of all, but many of the important trends like big data, VR, AI and the internet of things have been known for a few years now. Chatbots have been around since before 2016 as well, but it’s only this year that they’ve exploded in popularity and come to the attention of marketers.

What is it? Chatbots

A bot is a piece of software that impersonates a user. In the past they have primarily been used for automating repetitive tasks, but they are now being developed for performing more complex functions. Chatbots imitates a person which you are able to communicate with. Chatbots are thus sometimes referred to as 'Messenger bots' as the conversation usually occurs with messaging apps.

The below chart from Google Trends shows the explosion in search interest in ‘chatbots’ in April of this year and a general trend towards their greater interest over the course of 2016.

The strict definition of at bot is any software that automates repetitive tasks over the internet, but that is so broad it includes all kinds of applications that won't concern marketers. The original bots were not tools for marketers, but rather things that got on their nerves. Think spamming Twitter accounts not run by humans, or bots browsing pages to inflate page views or ad impressions and thus scam advertisers.

The good news is the new wave of bots are built to help marketers, not annoy or mislead them. Bots can act like a human helper, but without the cost of hiring the human. This opens up a whole load of opportunities. For example, a bot on a travel site could ask you about your preferences, provide you with some personalised hotel options, compare prices and then book the one you liked best for you.

Don’t invest in building Chatbots just because they are the latest marketing gimmick. Put yourself in the shoes of the customer and conduct market research to establish what pain points customers have in terms of customer service or friction along the user journey. If a Chatbot could be helpful in alleviating some of that friction, then you know it is worth investing in.

Chatbots are currently an emerging technology and as such many can only perform a few rudimentary tasks. But their capability is growing quickly. In September 2016 Facebook added in-app purchase functionality to its messenger platform to allow bots to complete purchases for users entirely within the platform. Soon this kind of functionality will become the norm rather than new and experimental. eCommerce businesses will have to get used to utilising chatbots to smooth customer journeys, or else see their customers move elsewhere.

Trend 7. Shoppable Personalised Video

Shoppable video isn't brand new. It was launched by YouTube in late 2015 and has been gathering momentum throughout 2016. However, in its current form, it isn't actually all that impressive (Sorry YouTube, but it just isn't). Simple little cards that pop up to let you buy items in a video isn't exactly mind blowing tech. Video creators have been able to overlay links on videos for years. However, my bold prediction if 2017 is that this is going to change. Either YouTube or another provider will merge the technology that can create programmatically generated personalised video, and the tech needed for shoppable video. We've seen an explosion in the use of programmatically served video in the past few years, and by combining this trend with new tech like shoppable video and personalised video, we will see a massive change in how eCommerce marketers sell via video.

This merged offering will be far superior in terms of its usefulness to eCommerce marketers. By programmatically placing products in a video based on known customer preferences, and then making it shoppable, eCommerce advertisers will be able use it to convert customers like never before. I don't have a graph to back up this trend because it doesn't exist yet- but it's such an obvious next step in where video technology is going is only a matter of time before it is realised. And once it is, it'll be the hot new eCommerce ad format- don't say I didn't warn you!

Conclusion

eCommerce is a rapidly growing field which has to respond quickly to the latest trends. The low barriers to entry and the fact consumers can switch providers effortlessly means those that fall behind when it comes to customer experience and pricing strategy quickly loose out. Those in charge of developing eCommerce marketing strategy in 2017 should thus pay close attention to these 7 major trends.

Download business level resource – Ecommerce Trends Guide 2016-2017

Structured on the RACE framework, this guide explores the latest E-commerce marketing trends looking ahead to 2017. From the latest social media, content marketing and user experience trends, we explore what E-commerce marketers need to be thinking about throughout 2017.

Access the Retail E-commerce marketing trends 2016-2017

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/ecommerce-strategy/top-ecommerce-trends-inform-2017-marketing-strategy/

#Blog – Smart Insights

0 notes

econobitch · 8 years

Link

The age of the appacus: In fintech, China shows the way | The Economist CHINESE banks are not far removed from the age of the abacus. In the 1980s they used these ancient counting boards for much of their business. In the 1990s many bank employees had to pass a basic abacus test. Today the occasional click-clack, click-clack can still be heard in villages as tellers slide their abacus beads up and down the rack. But these days the abacus is mainly a symbol, more likely to be used in the branding of China’s online-finance companies than as a calculating tool. At least three internet lenders have paid homage to it in their names: Abacus Loans, Small Abacus and Modern Abacus. The prominence, so recently, of the abacus is testament to how backward Chinese banking was a short time ago. The rise of the online lenders shows how quickly change has come. Latest updates How Hong Kong picks its chief executives THE ECONOMIST EXPLAINS Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts would have serious implications for travellers GULLIVER Disney has drawn an outline for gay characters PROSPERO See all updates By just about any measure of size, China is the world’s leader in fintech (short for “financial technology”, and referring here to internet-based banking and investment). It is far and away the biggest market for digital payments, accounting for nearly half of the global total. It is dominant in online lending, occupying three-quarters of the global market. A ranking of the world’s most innovative fintech firms gave Chinese companies four of the top five slots last year. The largest Chinese fintech company, Ant Financial, has been valued at about $60bn, on a par with UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank. How did fintech get so big in China? The short answer is that it was the right thing at the right time in the right place. Even after Chinese banks tucked away their abacuses, they remained remarkably unsophisticated for a high-speed economy. People accumulated wealth but had few good outlets for investing. Entrepreneurs were full of ideas but struggled to get startup loans. Consumers were spending but needed wads of cash to do so. New technology offered a way to vault over these many contradictions. During the past decade China became the country with more internet users than any other—more than 700m. A potential revolution beckoned but plodding state-owned banks were slow to respond. The terrain was open for battalions of hungry companies. Some entrepreneurs had roots in e-commerce, others in online gaming, many were just first-timers. Today, the promise of fintech in China is great. It is shaking up a stodgy banking system and helping build a more efficient one, especially for consumers and small businesses. But limitations are also clear. Banks are fighting back. And regulators, tolerant so far, are wading in. For years China has looked to developed countries for ideas about how to manage its financial system. When it comes to fintech, the rest of the world will be studying China’s experience. The rise of fintech in China is most notable in three areas. The first, obvious in daily life, is mobile payments. China’s middle-class consumers, emerging as the internet took off, have always been inclined to shop online (see chart 1). This made them big, early adopters of digital payments. China also had a late-starter advantage. Developed economies long ago swapped cash for plastic (credit and debit cards). China was, until a decade ago, overwhelmingly cash-based. The shift to digital payments accelerated with the arrival of smartphones, bought by many Chinese who had never owned a personal computer. Today 95% of China’s internet users go online via mobile devices. Alipay, the payments arm of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, soon became the mobile wallet of choice. But it quickly faced a challenge, when Tencent, a gaming-to-messaging company, launched a payment function in its wildly popular WeChat phone app, tapping its 500m-strong user base. Baidu, China’s main search engine, followed with its own wallet. Smartpurses Competition has sparked a stream of innovations, especially in the way mobile apps can connect online to face-to-face retail transactions. QR codes, the matrix-like bar codes that generally failed to catch on in the West, have become ubiquitous in Chinese restaurants and shops. Users simply open WeChat or Alipay, scan a QR code and make a payment. And phones themselves can serve as payment cards: with another click, users display their own bar codes, which shopkeepers then scan. And it is as easy for people to send money to each other as it is to send a text message—a vast improvement over the bricks of cash that used to change hands. Many of the payment functions within WeChat or Alipay exist elsewhere in the world, but in disaggregated form: Stripe or PayPal for online shops processing payments; Apple Pay or Android Pay for those using their phones as wallets; Facebook Messenger or Venmo for friends transferring money. In China all these different functions have been combined onto single platforms. Adoption is widespread. For about 425m Chinese, or 65% of all mobile users, phones act as wallets, the world’s highest penetration rate, according to China’s ministry of industry and information technology. Mobile payments hit 38trn yuan ($5.5trn) last year, up from next to nothing five years earlier—and more than 50 times the size of the American market. Small is beautiful A second area where China has become the global leader is online lending. In most countries, banks overlook small borrowers. This problem is especially acute in China. State-owned banks dominate the financial system, with a preference for lending to state-owned companies. The absence of a mature system for assessing consumer credit-risk adds to banks’ reluctance to lend to individuals. Grey-market lenders such as pawn shops provide financing but at usurious interest rates. Fintech has started to fill this gap. E-commerce was again the launch-pad: online shopping platforms developed loan services, and are using their customers’ transactions and personal information to create credit scores. (How the government might eventually harvest data for social control is cause for concern, but for now lenders are merely trying to master the basics of credit ratings.) Shoppers on Alibaba and JD.com, China’s two biggest e-commerce portals, can conveniently borrow small amounts, typically less than 10,000 yuan. According to Ant Financial (Alibaba’s financial arm, spun out in 2014), 60% of borrowers in this category had never used a credit card. On their platforms, Ant and JD.com also lend to merchants, many of whom are the kinds of small businesses long ignored by banks. However, e-commerce lending is intrinsically cautious. Its targets are clients already well-known to the big shopping platforms. For the more radical side of China’s online lending, look instead at the explosion of peer-to-peer (P2P) credit. From just 214 P2P lenders in 2011, there were more than 3,000 by 2015 (see chart 2). Initially free from regulatory oversight, P2P soon morphed into China’s financial Wild West, brimming with frauds and dangerous funding models. More than a third of all P2P firms have already shut down. Yet P2P lenders still have a big role to play in China. Despite a string of headline-grabbing collapses, the industry has continued to grow. Outstanding P2P loans increased 28-fold from 30bn yuan at the start of 2014 to 850bn yuan today. The online lenders answer a basic need, like China’s grey-market lenders of old, but in modern garb and, thanks to all the competition, offering credit at lower interest rates. In other countries, P2P firms typically lend to clients online and obtain funding from institutional investors. The most successful lenders in China flip that approach on its head. Because of the lack of consumer credit ratings, they vet borrowers in person. Lufax, China’s biggest P2P firm, operates shops—more than 500 in 200 cities—for loan applicants. And for funding, Chinese P2P firms draw almost entirely on retail investors. More than 4m people invest on P2P platforms, up by a third over the past year. The platforms can then divide loans into small chunks, parcelling them out to investors to disperse risks. This points to the third area of China’s fintech prowess: investment. Until recently, Chinese savers faced two extreme options for managing their money: stash it in bank accounts, where interest rates were artificially low, but it was as safe as the Communist Party; or punt on the stockmarket, about as safe as playing baccarat in a casino in Macau. “In the middle there was nothing,” says Huang Hao, vice-president of Ant Financial. Fintech has opened that middle ground. In the West asset managers increasingly worry that they face a wave of disintermediation as investors migrate online. In China asset managers barely had a chance to serve as intermediaries in the first place; the market skipped into the digital stage. In large part this resulted from a generational divide that is the inverse of the global norm: the best-paid workers in China tend to be younger, the country’s first big generation of white-collar workers. They are much more likely to be willing to trust web-based platforms to manage their money. “In America people love technology, too, when they are 22. They just don’t have any money,” says Gregory Gibb, Lufax’s chief executive. The biggest breakthrough was the launch of an online fund by Alibaba in 2013. This fund, Yu’e Bao (or “leftover treasure”), was promoted as a way for people to earn interest on the cash in their e-commerce accounts. The appeal, though, turned out to be much broader. Invested through a money-market fund, Yu’e Bao offered returns in line with the interbank market, where interest rates float freely (see chart 3). This meant that savers could get rates that were more than three percentage points higher than those banks offered. And risk was minimal, because their cash was still ultimately in the hands of banks. Yu’e Bao attracted 185m customers within 18 months, giving it 600bn yuan of assets under management. As is so often the case in China, new entrants soon appeared. In 2014 Tencent launched Licaitong, an online fund platform linked to WeChat. Within a year, it had 100bn yuan under management. Lufax, meanwhile, outgrew its P2P roots to transform itself into a financial “supermarket”, offering personal loans, asset-backed securities, mutual funds, insurance and more. Robo-advisers (firms that use algorithms and surveys to let users build portfolios) also have China in their sights. Give me your pennies And it is not just about wealthy investors. In the West people generally need deep pockets before they can afford to buy into products such as money-market funds. In China all it takes is a smartphone and an initial buy-in of as little as 1 yuan. WeChat, with 800m active accounts, and Ant, with 400m, can afford to be generous. How to gauge the impact of fintech in China? Measured against the rest of the country’s colossal financial system, the various fintech pieces are puny. Apps and online lenders might have massive user bases, but they are mainly comprised of consumers and small businesses, not the hulking state-owned enterprises and government entities that form the backbone of the banking system. The outstanding balance of P2P credit is roughly 0.8% of total bank loans. Credit provided by the e-commerce firms adds up to even less. Earnings from mobile payments amount to barely 2% of bank revenues. Wei Hou, an analyst with Bernstein Research, reckons that the fintech firms will grab less than a twentieth of banks’ business by 2020. That is hardly to be sneezed at, since it comfortably equates to 1trn yuan in revenues. But it is not the kind of radical disruption that fintech’s more ardent evangelists often foretell. Nevertheless, just looking at the overall size of fintech is insufficient. In the market segments they have set their sights on, fintech firms have made a big mark. Digital payments account for nearly two-thirds of non-cash payments in China, far surpassing debit and credit cards. P2P loans make up about a fifth of all consumer credit. What’s more, fintech firms have provoked a competitive response. Take the customer experience at China’s biggest banks: it has improved markedly over the past few years. Once-cumbersome online-banking portals are much easier to use. Even more important, banks are also changing their business models. Prodded in part by the online investment funds, they have moved away from their plain-vanilla deposit-taking roots. Their focus has shifted to “wealth-management products” (WMPs), deposit-like investments which they sell to their clients, often via mobile apps. Returns are as high as anything on Alipay or Tencent. The banks’ apps are not as slick, but not far off, and they feel far safer, with their reassuringly physical thousands of branches. The outstanding value of WMPs has reached more than 26trn yuan, quadrupling in five years. WMPs have brought new risks into the financial system, in particular concerns over banks’ funding stability. But they have arguably done more to promote interest-rate liberalisation than any regulatory edict. And banks have come to appreciate their own strengths: branch networks; solid reputations; and risk controls. “You can’t say that banks or fintech firms are better positioned. Both need each other,” says Li Hongming, chairman of Huishang Bank, the main lender in Anhui, a big central province. Fintech upstarts have also learned that lesson. Look at Wheat Finance, one of the country’s earliest P2P lenders, established in 2009. Amy Huang, Wheat’s CEO, says her initial goal was to challenge banks on their home turf. But she soon realised that banks have insuperable advantages, with their stable, low-cost funding bases. Instead of battling them, Wheat is becoming their partner: 70% of its revenues come from selling digital services to banks. Regulatory attitudes are also shifting. China’s government initially gave fintech companies a free hand, a striking contrast to its heavy policing of traditional banks. The hunch was that fintech firms were small enough for any problems to be manageable, and might produce useful innovations. This wager paid off: the rise of mobile payments and online lending owe much to light regulation. But the era of benign neglect is over. In 2016, provoked in part by the P2P scandals, China introduced regulations to cover most fintech activities. Most of the rules are aimed at making fintech safer, not at curbing it. Firms can no longer pursue their most ambitious strategies. Individuals, for instance, can borrow no more than 200,000 yuan from any one P2P lender. Some of the regulations, though, also constrain what fintech firms can hope to achieve. The central bank is overseeing the creation of an online-payments clearance platform. It wants transparency: all digital payments will be visible to the central bank. But it could neutralise one of the main advantages of Ant and Tencent, forcing them to share transaction data with banks. It seemed, for a time, that China’s internet titans might go after banks’ crown jewels, when they obtained licences to run online banks. But the government has required that they act in partnership with existing banks for even the most basic functions such as deposits and withdrawals. Yet this is not the end of the road. Ant and Tencent still have hundreds of millions of users between them on apps that offer a wide range of financial services and products. They just need to persuade enough users to view them not simply as mobile wallets but as mobile brokers and lenders. As Lufax and JD.com hone their offerings, they, too, will grow more powerful. Regulations have placed speed bumps along their path. But the path is still there. The Chinese are coming China’s fintech champions are also trying to break into new territory abroad. WeChat’s mobile wallet is usable internationally, mostly in Asia for now. Ant has invested in mobile-finance companies in India, South Korea and Thailand. But replicating their successes in other markets will not be straightforward. Much of their repertoire was devised specifically to address deficiencies in China’s financial system. And anything that touches on core banking abroad will require local incorporation and adherence to local regulations—headwinds against global expansion. China’s bigger impact is likely to be indirect. Its fintech giants have shown what can be done. For emerging markets, the lesson is that with the right technology, it is possible to leapfrog to new forms of banking. For developed markets, China offers a vision of the grand consolidation—apps that combine payments, lending and investment—that the future should hold. And the biggest lesson of all: it is not upstarts versus incumbents but rather a question of how banks absorb the fintech innovations blossoming around them. China, an early adopter of the abacus, is, after a long period of dormancy, once again blazing a trail in finance.

#payments

0 notes