I wrote about Alibaba’s 5 growth strategies under “Domestic Consumption”. But CEO Daniel Zhang has also outlined 5 growth strategies for Alibaba Cloud. And their cloud business is what everyone has been speculating about. It’s the most exciting growth opportunity but it also has the greatest uncertainty. I’ve argued Alibaba is 100% in the platform […]
I’ve mentioned externalizing capabilities as a strategic move many times. I thought I would detail that out. It’s common strategy in digital business models. And it has been very effective at Alibaba and Amazon in particular. Several years ago, I summarized the evolution of Alibaba’s platform business models in 7 graphics. The Rise of Alibaba […]
I have one B2C “super chart”. It’s a bit ridiculous but stick with me. I think it is actually a good prediction of the future of B2C. The basic idea is that ecommerce is combining with entertainment. We see that in Taobao Live and TikTok already. And this is also being combined with social media […]
Amazon can learn a lot from Alibaba and Pinduoduo in terms of how to improve its consumer experience. Alibaba has integrated its ecommerce products with entertainment, payment, credit, and wealth management products, while Pinduoduo has focused on social commerce and group buying. Amazon could benefit from adopting some of these strategies in order to stay ahead of the competition.
In Part 1 and Part 2, I gave some background on sports apparel in China and detailed my visit to the first Tmall – Intersport store in Beijing. It was pretty great. With lots of new digital initiatives. Note: the above picture is what happens when you change the gender setting on the magic mirror. […]
Several years ago, I got a message (via LinkedIn) from Robin Trebbe, who was at that time the Managing Director for China / Asia Pacific for Intersport International. They had a new project with Alibaba that was trying to digitize the sports apparel business. I jumped at the chance to do a visit. Note: I […]
Will “new retail” change sports apparel? It turns out it’s a really interesting question. Sports apparel retail is people buying running shoes, Nike gear, yoga pants, sweatshirts and so on. At first glance it looks like pretty standard apparel retail. Requiring lots of stores, good inventory management and effective marketing. So that certainly presents lots […]
“New retail”, coined by Alibaba, was probably the least creative business term ever. But it was a big idea. You combine online and physical retail into a seamless, data-driven consumer experience. It is giving rise to new business models, from transformed supermarkets and cashier-less convenience stores to automated package pickup centers and re-imaged department stores. […]
Singles’ Day is not just about e-commerce. It is also about user-facing innovation, such as live-streaming, metaverse, and NFTs. It is also about merchant-facing innovation, such as R&D and financing. And it is also about physical assets, such as supply-side scale and building a barrier to entry.
I’ve been trying to get a handle on the growth and development of cloud in China. But the four companies that account for about 80% of infrastructure spending (Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Huawei) don’t really publish many cloud details in their financials and filings. Fortunately, Kingsoft Cloud has gone public as a stand-alone China cloud […]