Follow me on twitter: @michaelslevy

Well, work and twitter finally got the best of me: it turns out I'm now tweeting instead of blogging... Follow me at @michaelslevy to keep up with the latest social commerce, e-commerce trends and news, curated by your truly :)

Breaking: Woot to be acquired by Amazon

"Holy crap! Woot has signed an agreement with Amazon - yes, the Amazon - to become an independent subsidiary of the ecommerce colossus. Woot HQ will remain in Carrollton, Texas, and will operate as autonomously as other Amazon companies like Zappos and Audible.

Visit the blog for our usual snarky commentary and tell us what you think.
- Woot"

PIXmania targets EUR1.5b revenues in 2014

PIXmania's turnover is up 15% to 897 million euros, and its net profit is up 40% ... The group intends to diversify even more, engage in online travel and expand its network of stores.

Also, the group's e-commerce outsourcing services, e-merchant, reached EUR35m revenues in the last fiscal year.

Original article in French

Google translation

GSI Commerce Q1 2010 results

From Internet Retailer:

GSI Commerce first quarter sales rise nearly 39%

E-commerce technology provider GSI Commerce reported today sales of $272.6 million for its fiscal first quarter ended April 3, up 38.7% compared to $196.5 million for the same period a year earlier.

For the first quarter, GSI reported:

Income from operations of $17.4 million, up 87.1% from $9.3 million.
Net loss of $8.1 million, compared to a net loss of $12.1 million.

"The year got off to a strong start for GSI with better than expected top and bottom line results in the first quarter,” says Michael G. Rubin, chairman and CEO of GSI. “The key drivers to the upside were strong comparable-store e-commerce trends and continued momentum in marketing services.”

GSI offered the following guidance for fiscal year 2010:

- Revenue of $1.3 billion, which would represent 30% growth from 2009 revenue of $1.0 billion
- Income from operations of $15.6 million
- Net income of $135.0 million.

Study says Social Commerce pays off

Via the excellent Exciting Commerce blog:

"Unfortunately there are still too few scientific studies on networking effects in e-commerce. Understandable though, due to limited opportunities to make direct comparisons.

All the more exciting that a new study has been released (PDF) from France and the US with the title “Deriving Value from Social Commerce Networks”, whose results have been recently published in the Journal of Marketing Research. The study examines what happens when merchants begin to network with each other."

Download the study here.

Read the whole article at Exciting Commerce here.

iPad Commerce Watch: episode 2

Following in GAP's footsteps, here comes Italy-based online fashion retailer YOOX, with its own iPad app...

It was developed by Yoox's in-house team, and it enables iPad owners to browse, shop and pay in 6 languages and for delivery in 67 countries...

Google incorporates ratings and reviews from e-retailers in search results

Via Internet Retailer:

Ratings and reviews vendor Bazaarvoice is tying in with Google, enabling its 800 customers to display ratings and reviews from their websites in Google search results.

This enables Google to bring search even closer to the act of purchase for the users...

And it will probably increase the conversion rate of retailers using Bazaarvoice, as shoppers coming from a product-specific review in Google's search results will be even more qualified.

(This new Bazaarvoice feature is free and optional.)

Read the full article here.

Amazon's amazing growth compared to US retail and e-commerce

A cool chart courtesy of Silicon Alley Insider says it all:

GAP e-commerce goes iPad: touchCommerce !

GAP launched an iPad e-commerce app. It's gorgeous, mixing content and shopping, and making great use of the tablet's touchscreen gestures. Here's the video demo:

International E-Commerce Web retailers are reaping overseas sales without actively pursuing them

So says An Internet Retailer survey...

New Zappos TV ad, highlighting their unparalleled customer service

This is the first TV spot in a new campaign for Zappos, the online footwear and apparel retailer. This spot was created by Mullen in Boston, MA.

Here it is:

E-commerce innovations: extreme retailing

Are you ready for "Extreme Retailing" ?
E-commerce has evolved more in the last 12 months than in the last 12 years, with a combination of entertainment, game mechanics, and innovative shopping models.

According to Megan Conniff from the US National Retail Federation's big blog, here are 3 ongoing trends:

1. Deals and discounts (retailmenot.com)
2. Urgency retailing (woot.com)
3. Private shopping clubs (venteprivee.com and its hundreds of copycats worldwide)

And here are 5 upcoming trends:

1. Local discovery & promotion (groupon.com)
2. Mobile empowerment
3. Community and crowdsourcing (myfab.com)
4. Mass customization
5. Game Mechanics/entertainment commerce (swoopo.com)

I so agree with Megan (and with Jochen and Jason from Exciting Commerce, a recommended read by the way...)!

Bonus: here's a video of Joshua Goldman's presentation at the Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference, explaining swoopo.com's killer commerce model:

Mobile e-commerce: mobile site or mobile app?

Here's Elastic Path's answer in video:

Venteprivée.com 2009 revenues and 2010 projections

According to Journal du Net, here are the latest figures from online private shopping club leader Vente Privée :

2009 figures:

- revenue: €680m, +33% vs. 2008

- 2009 profit: 6-7%

- 9.7m members, +12.5k per day

- 15% of sales only are made outside of France

- sales action : 2,500 sales in 2009 with 1,200 brands

2010 projections:

- €850m revenue,

- 25% growth,

- 2.5m new members,

- 3,300 sales,

- 250 new hires.

Wow.

Amazon.com '09: sales +28% to $24.51 billion, profit +40% to $902 million

And here are the slides from Amazon's Q4 '09 earnings webcast:

View more presentations from Michael S. Levy.

US e-commerce Holiday sales reach $27 billion

First off, Happy New Year everyone!

According to comScore, online Holiday sales (from Nov 1st to Dec 24th) reached $27 billion, a YoY growth of 5%.

Here's the comScore data breakdown:

GSI Commerce does coop e-mail marketing for its clients

From Internet Retailer

"In a bid to help its individual retailer clients compete with large cross-category online marketplaces for a prime piece of the holiday shopping pie, GSI Commerce Inc. rounded up more than 30 of the retailers on its e-commerce platform for a co-operative e-mail marketing program.

Discounts and deals in GSI’s “World’s Greatest Friends & Family program," which started Sunday December 13 and ran through December 14, were promoted by each retailer to its customers via e-mail. The e-mails directed recipients to a special landing page on the retailer’s site that showed offers from all of the participating retailers. The offers also were posted at www.greatestgifts.com."

Le Web Paris '09 social commerce / e-commerce highlights

Here's my personal selection of e-commerce / social commerce moments from this year's LeWeb conference worth checking out, pulled-up straight from the Ustream feed of the event!

1. From the Main Stage: Always insightful business, company culture and customer service anecdotes and advice from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos

2. From the Start up Competition:

- Storific, a set of tools enabling online retailers and their employees to manage their customer communications and promotions on twitter and Facebook in one centralized/shared dashboard (jump to 22:41 for their demo)

- Shutl, a cool service from the UK, turning competing courrier and express delivery providers into a real-time web service for online retailers, enabling online shoppers of retailers using the service to have their on-line purchases delivered within 90 minutes of checking out or selecting a 1 hour delivery window at a time of their convenience – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! (jump to 33:42 for their demo)

- Not e-commerce but still I had to plug them, they're awesome: Tigerlily, a CMS-like Facebook app to manage your Facebook Pages, so cool (jump to 28:53 for their demo)

3. Here's a way too short roundtable, with low-interest questions and answers, on "How has the real-time web changed your e-commerce business?", with Zappos (USA), Vente Privée (FR), Otto (DE). Too bad, the topic was well worth exploring fo real.

4. And here's a little bonus, Gary V's intervention, about "crushing it" and giving a crap about your customers, before the conference's closing remarks. Always hard-hitting and hilarious. Enjoy!

eBay with the coolness: interactive USA map of all Black Friday transactions !

Cool e-commerce & social commerce info this week

Argh. Can't bring myself to post all this info I found this week...
So here's my very own weekly review of things worth noting:

Thanksgiving / Black Friday: US online retail picking up?
According to Mint.com
According to Forrester
According to ComScore

eBay targeting $500m GMS by mobile users this year!
That's a lot. And they're launching a new app called 'Deals Today'.

Woot! launches deals.woot! and it's awesome
A wooters-powered deal finding community website

Milo.com: a very well designed product finder driving traffic to local stores
Complete with price comparison, real-time inventory in stores near you, and consumer reviews straight from the stores' websites. It's Milo.com.

Noteworthy social media tactics by major retailers
Toys'R Us's cool Facebook-only Black Friday catalog and mystery deals campaign

IKEA's genius Facebook campaign:


That's it for this week!

xoxo

Michael.