China’s cross-border ecommerce business doesn’t get a lot of attention. It seems peripheral to China ecommerce. There are a lot of logistics, taxes and customs requirements. There are tons of regulations. And it’s just not sexy. But it is also non-political. It doesn’t have any of the national security concerns of telecommunication (i.e., Huawei and […]
There was a fascinating announcement from Alibaba. From CX Tech: “E-Commerce Giant Taobao Steps Into China’s Online Education Market” “Taobao, an e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba, is seeking to penetrate China’s already crowded online tutoring market with a massive plan aimed at connecting more than 1,000 online education service providers with 100 million new students […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses the competition between Grab, GoJek, and Lazada in the Southeast Asian services market. He identifies the most important factors for success in this market, including consumer engagement, merchant engagement, and platform business models. For example, Grab has been successful in capturing a large share of the consumer mind by offering a wide range of services, including ride-hailing, food delivery, and payments.
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses whether Shopee, backed by Tencent, can beat Lazada, backed by Alibaba, in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market. He considers factors such as market share, investment, and strategy. For example, Shopee has a larger market share in Indonesia, while Lazada has a larger market share in Thailand.
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses how big Ant Financial, the financial arm of Alibaba, could become. He considers factors such as its current size, its growth rate, and its plans for expansion. For example, Ant Financial is already the world’s largest mobile payments company, and it is growing at a rapid pace.
Here’s a simple framework for how digital can evolve over time. Some of this thinking is from Competing in the Age of AI. Some is my thinking. Some is others’ assorted thinking. Phase 1: Physical Goods and Services Become Digital. In Part 2, I argued that the industrial age had a lot to do with […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses how Meituan can compete with Alibaba in the Chinese services marketplace. He considers factors such as geographic expansion, focus on transportation or hospitality services, and ancillary opportunities such as financial services or cloud services. For example, Meituan could expand into new markets, such as Southeast Asia, or it could focus on its core strengths, such as food delivery and ride-hailing.
Ctrip has forecast its revenues will drop 45-50% in first quarter. From KrAsia: Coronavirus spurs somber outlook for online travel companies Chinese major online travel agency Trip.com announced on its recently released Q4 earnings report that revenues would decrease by about 45% to 50% year-on-year (YoY) as a result of the coronavirus. Trip.com has already […]
Didi and Uber are two of the largest ride-hailing platforms in the world. However, they are facing increasing competition from other companies. In order to maintain their market share, these companies need to make it difficult for drivers to switch to other platforms. One way to do this is to create high driver switching costs.
Much of our discussion about digital platforms (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.) has been about their business models. And all their strengths, which are formidable. But I haven’t talked much about the experiences of the user groups on these platforms. What does this mean for merchants and brands selling on Alibaba? For restaurants on Meituan? For content […]