I often get asked how JD competes with Alibaba (in ecommerce). Who is going to win? My answer is below. But first a little theory on the sources of competitive strength. My Checklist for Competitive Advantages I put competitive advantages in five buckets, with a total of 15 sub-types. That’s my checklist. But keep in […]
I’ve been thinking about Luckin Coffee, which was a big story a few years ago in China. It was a digital upstart taking on giant Starbucks. It was Jack Ma’s “new retail” applied to retail coffee. It was a digital innovator. Blah, blah, blah. It was mostly a lot of hype. And the company crashed […]
I had a good interview with Arthur du Passage and Edouard de Mezerac of Artefact, a data consulting and digital marketing company. And I thought they had a really good vantage point for how AI / ML is being used on the ground in China. I’ve summarized my 3 take-aways from our discussion. An Introduction […]
My standard question is: What is the quality of the business? I go through lots of checklists for this. It generally takes me 40 pages of written notes to get through a basic assessment of company quality. But the simple version is: What is the market size and its growth? Is there a long-term secular […]
We are a couple of years into the epic (pun intended) fight between Apple and Epic Games over the App Store. This is really the biggest tech fight we have seen in tech in a decade. For example: Apple doubles down in fight with Fortnite creator Epic Games, seeks damages for breach of contract (CNBC) […]
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 […]
China / Asia is usually the most dynamic frontier for retail – and especially when it integrates with ecommerce. This is the result of a really big market and never-ending hyper-competition. It means there is always frantic innovating just to stay in the game. It’s a space I generally avoid because of the degree of […]
I’ve talked a lot about why KOLs and influencers are so important in a connected world. Live streaming and short video are currently the big focus of influencers, but this is a much larger phenomenon. So why is Baidu is selling iQiyi, China’s #2 video streaming platform? Consumers Are Networks It begins with this simple […]
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 […]
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. […]