The Webretailer News Digest May 9, 2022
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eBay Q1 reports show positive signs
This week eBay announced their Q1 results for 2022 last week and all figures point to a strong quarter. At $2.5 billion, revenue3 was down 6%, but this figure was higher than expected from both the company and investors on Wall Street.
eBay CEO Jamie Iannone stated, “Despite the current macro headwinds, we remain confident in the long-term strategy we laid out during our Investor Day in March. We are building an eBay for the future with an eye toward delivering long-term, sustainable growth.”
Along with the financial highlights, the company also laid out several key movements made during the quarter. The company launched its new digital wallet feature so customers and sellers can keep their money on the platform and use it for other purchases or seller fees. They also partnered with Klarna to expand their payment offerings to include installments and invoices within Germany.
Other highlights of note from the report include their new trading card Authenticity Guarantee service for cards selling for more than $750. The company also announced they’re taking a larger share of the luxury goods market because of their authentication services for high-end watches and handbags.
Overall, it’s positive news for the online reselling platform.
Etsy posts solid Q1 performance
Source: Pixabay
Etsy handled a lot of uncertainty in the eCommerce world in the previous quarter. But the company came out strong according to their Q1 announcement from last week. Their consolidated revenue was up 5.2% compared to Q1 last year at $579.3 million.
CEO Josh Silverman stated in their press release, “Despite continued uncertainty and macroeconomic headwinds, Etsy continues to rise to the occasion to deliver solid results that show us maintaining most of the gains reported during the extremely strong year-ago period.”
The company also attracted around 7 million new buyers on the platform. This number represents an even faster rate of acquisition when compared to numbers before the pandemic. Like many eCommerce sellers, the platform is focusing on long-term growth amid short-term issues related to the economy.
To reflect their “Right to Win” long-term strategy, the company introduced multiple improvements to the platform over the past three months. It’ll be interesting to see what their developers come up with over the course of the year.
Source: Unsplash
Dimension attributes mandates from Amazon are now official
Amazon announced a mandate for dimension attributes on 255 product types stored in their warehouses. The company intends to make things easier for users to find items when searching on the platform.
However, the news is causing some concern from some sellers as they received very little notice about the announcement and little time to comply. The policy went into effect on April 26th and sellers only have a 30-day grace period to align their products with the new dimension attributes.
With so many products affected, we won’t list them all here. But you can visit Amazon Seller Central to see the product categories affected by the mandate.
USPS Connect expands to help eCommerce sellers
The USPS is continuing to grow its USPS Connect program to help eCommerce sellers.
Launched in 2021, USPS Connect is an eCommerce service developed to simplify and modernize shipping and pricing for online businesses. The program adds benefits for eCommerce customers and gives sellers software to help them quickly create labels and calculate pricing and offers free package pickup, no minimum volumes, and no fuel or delivery surcharges.
To build on the initial release, the postal service announced an expansion of the USPS Connect delivery network this week. The rollout is part of their Delivery for America plan and will offer the same shipping benefits the company used to only offer to high-volume shippers.
Shopify acquires Deliverr but posts low Q1 earnings
While some other eCommerce companies posted positive gains in the post-pandemic world, Shopify was on the other end of the spectrum. The company posted over a billion dollars in losses in the past quarter, with growing expenses plaguing the company.
To combat these issues, the company has rolled out several perks that will make things easier for users to deliver items. They completed the launch of Shopify Markets to make cross-border selling easier and built upon improvements within the Shopify Fulfillment Network.
To further help with fulfillment, the company acquired fulfillment technology provider Deliverr. It’s a network management software that offers real-time fulfillment optimization within multiple channels. The acquisition will more than double the company’s fulfillment team.
Publicis Groupe acquires Profitero
Global advertising powerhouse Publicis Groupe — based in Paris — announced its acquisition of eCommerce analytics platform Profitero last week. The acquisition is part of a plan to offer more eCommerce products to their client base. Although the terms of the acquisition were not made public, the deal value is estimated at $200 million.
Profitero is a Boston-based company whose platform analyzes product pages and search results on over 700 retail sites in 50 countries. The analytics help eCommerce sellers calculate conversion rates, traffic, and category share.
Publicis aims to combine Profitero’s technology with other products, including consumer data from Epsilon, retail media planning from the recent acquisition CitrusAd, and platform expertise from Publicis Sapient.
Overall, this should give them an ad product catalog that sets them apart from other agencies and makes them a huge player in the eCommerce world.
Annual Global Payment and Fraud Report offers valuable insights to eCommerce merchants
Produced by Verifi, Cybersource, and the Merchant Risk Council, the latest edition of the Global Payments and Fraud Report is now available. With the report, eCommerce merchants can gain valuable insights into how their peers are reacting to an evolving global market with new fraud threats appearing every day.
Fortunately, the report is mainly positive regarding fraud and prevention. But it’s interesting to note the changes in the eCommerce market as we’ve come out of the pandemic.
The report offers key metrics to show where merchants can focus their fraud prevention efforts. The report listed identity theft, first-party misuse, card testing, and phishing as the top threats to eCommerce sellers.
Regarding the report, Merchant Risk Council CEO Julie Fergerson stated, “This is the first year we’ve combined the payments and fraud insights into a single report, so it now provides an even clearer picture of the significant changes in global eCommerce over the last year.”
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