Trade Names: Shockoe Commerce has assortment of growing e-commerce businesses

Patrick Galleher likes acquiring businesses that generate high repeat orders through the Internet.
Shockoe Commerce Group LLC’s companies manufacture and sell consumer products associated with yoga, lifestyle, fitness, and food and beverage.

The Richmond-based company has 14 e-commerce businesses.

“I always wanted to play in the health and wellness and sporting good space,” said Galleher, CEO of Shockoe Commerce and managing partner of the private-equity firm Boxwood Capital Partners, which owns Shockoe Commerce.

His research showed growth in the popularity of lacrosse and yoga over the next 10 to 15 years.
“We started looking for both types of businesses and found several yoga companies to acquire,” he said.

Shockoe Commerce was created in 2010 as a holding company for the growing eBeverage Wholesale business that it owned and its yoga business.

In 2008, eBeverage had been founded to acquire Coffee Wholesale USA, and later began Snack Warehouse and Office Saver.

On the yoga side of the business, the company acquired two leading wholesalers in 2010: Yoga Accessories of Toronto and Yoga Direct of Hartford, Conn.

The company added the e-commerce fitness company Red Rock Products in 2012, changing the name to Shockoe Fitness LLC. “The majority of Red Rock was yoga-oriented, so it fit really well,” he said.
Shockoe Commerce sells its products wholesale to retailers and other e-commerce sites. It also sells directly to retail customers online.

About 90 percent of its customers are in the United States. Most of the remaining 10 percent are in Canada and the United Kingdom.

“About 30 to 35 percent of yoga studios across the country use our mats,” Galleher said.
Shockoe Commerce has seen explosive growth in recent years.

Sales rose to $16 million in 2012 from $3.2 million in 2009, resulting in a three-year revenue growth of 400 percent. Since 2009, the company has created 13 jobs.

“We expect considerable growth through the next five years and are expanding our office, creating new positions and hiring several new employees to help us grow our brand,” Galleher said.

The rapid revenue growth landed the company on Inc. magazine’s 2013 list of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately owned companies in America. Shockoe Commerce was ranked 1,062; it had been ranked No. 423 last year.

The products for the various companies are made in Asia, Mexico and the U.S. The company operates a call center at its Richmond headquarters near Shockoe Slip to handle inquiries from its Internet sites.
Dana Walters, co-director of Project Yoga Richmond, a nonprofit organization that provides yoga education, outreach and networking, orders yoga products from Yoga Accessories and Yoga Direct.
“We’re thrilled with the quality of everything we’ve ordered,” she said.

Jill Loftis of Uttara Yoga Studio in Roanoke has been happy with the products she buys from Yoga Accessories.

“I tried a few different vendors when I first opened and nobody delivered as quickly,” she said. “They have great consistency.”

source:- http://www.timesdispatch.com/business/local/metro-business/trade-names-shockoe-commerce-has-assortment-of-growing-e-commerce/article_f20d5114-7238-541a-8e29-f2f44a8a08e6.html

China set to overtake US in e-commerce

China is poised to surpass the United States to become the world's largest e-commerce market this year, according to consultancy Bain & Co.

With forecast 32 percent average annual growth, online shopping expenditures in China are set to reach 3.3 trillion yuan ($539 billion) by 2015, the consultancy said in a report.

The study was based on a survey of more than 1,300 shoppers in China across a range of cities, ages, educational backgrounds and income levels.

"While beating the US is a major milestone for e-commerce in China, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between retailers' brick-and-mortar, Web and mobile strategies," said Serge Hoffmann, a partner in Bain's retail practice in China and co-author of the report.

The study found that more than 70 percent of Chinese shoppers research products and compare prices online and offline, and across different e-stores, with half of them citing price as the top reason for online shopping.

The research suggested that two-thirds of buyers rely on smartphones to browse for or buy products, a proportion higher than the US.

The figure climbed to 75 percent for upper-income consumers, who have a monthly household income of more than 50,000 yuan.

"China's rising middle class has high expectations of consumer products and also a need for product verification.

"With the rise of e-commerce and social media, online marketing channels and Internet forums offer a platform for consumers to gather the intelligence they need to make informed purchasing decisions," said Robert Theleen, chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

The potential is huge for business-to-customer sites to woo shoppers from customer-to-customer sites, said Hoffmann.
For instance, the compound annual growth rate for B2C platforms was 160 percent from 2009 to 2012, and the sector is expected to continue growing by 53 percent annually through 2015.

In comparison, Taobao.com, China's leading C2C platform, grew by a compound annual rate of about 65 percent throughout the period.

Given a choice, 82.9 percent of shoppers would prefer an e-store with a brick-and-mortar presence over pure play sites like Jingdong Mall, which only runs digital stores.

"This indicates a significant growth opportunity for omni-channel merchants," said Hoffmann.
He identified two reasons for shoppers' preferences. One is the "touch and feel" of a physical shop. In general, Chinese consumers lack confidence in merchants because they are worried about being sold fake or low-quality products, especially online
.
A majority of these shoppers also cited offline after-sales service and a general comfort level with physical merchants.

The survey found that websites successfully feed store sales. More than 60 percent of shoppers said that a retailer's e-store will increase their spending at the same retailer's brick-and-mortar stores.

Building a dedicated digital team and investing in a world-class website are critical to grab a foothold in the e-commerce territory. Hoffmann cited Uniqlo Co Ltd, the Japanese apparel brand, as an example of how to streamline entry into China's digital retail market.

Uniqlo outsourced development of websites for both its e-stores (the official Uniqlo site) and another on Tmall.com.

Hoffmann said that outsourcing accelerated Uniqlo's online launch by tapping into Tmall's knowledge, reducing IT costs and allowing the company to utilize its partner's established logistics and distribution systems.

Hoffmann suggested that 20 percent of the online products should be "special" ones, with the same price in stores that are not available to pure plays.

About 30 percent of online merchants offer the same price as stores but with different coding, which limits price comparisons.

source:- http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-08/28/content_16927926.htm

China’s internet titans Preparing for battle

TWITTER is blocked in China. And yet, the Chinese are probably the most active tweeters in the world. They share their banalities (and, on occasion, profundities) using Weibo, a microblogging service run by Sina, a Chinese internet firm. Although the majority of Weibo’s more than 500m user accounts are inactive, many millions use the service every day.

Weibo’s popularity has caught the eye of Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce firm. On April 29th it announced that it would take an 18% stake in Sina Weibo for $586m in a deal that gives it the option to raise that stake to 30%. The agreement values Sina Weibo at nearly $3.3 billion. But why would Alibaba, expected to go public soon, shell out that sort of cash?

Alibaba may be a titan of e-commerce that handled more transactions last year than Amazon and eBay combined. But in social media it is still an also-ran—which could become a serious competitive disadvantage. More than elsewhere, shopping is a social phenomenon in China. It is not just young women who want to discuss styles and shoes with their girlfriends. Men often shop in groups for clothes and watches. And punters of all ages post and scrutinise numerous consumer reviews online before buying.

In tying up, the two firms hope to combine e-commerce and social media to "bring unique and valuable services to Weibo users," in the words of Jack Ma, Alibaba's chairman (pictured). The deal is supposed to help Sina squeeze more money out of Weibo (which, like Twitter, generates more buzz than profits) and to speed up Alibaba's efforts at expanding its e-commerce platforms onto mobile phones (an exploding market, but one that Alibaba does not yet control in the way it dominates web-based e-commerce in China). The firms have not revealed much about how exactly they will do all this, but it is a safe bet to say that they intend to combine and mine the enormous quantities of consumer data they have collected. In other words, the Weibo joint venture will be one of the world's most interesting test cases for big data.

That may seem reason enough to justify the deal, but another motivation is just as important: taking on Tencent, another big Chinese internet firm. It made its mark with simple messaging and gaming, but its greatest innovation may be Weixin, known in English as WeChat. This clever service, which is spreading like wildfire in China, is a fusion of features offered by Twitter, Facebook and other social-media services. The firm hopes to also make it a success abroad.

Tencent has recently declared its intention to make its biggest bet on e-commerce yet. With its highly profitable gaming business, an online payment system to rival Alibaba's Alipay and a social-media blockbuster in We Chat, Tencent looks to be the only internet company in China that poses a real threat to Alibaba. By taking a stake in Sina Weibo, Alibaba is arming itself for the coming clash of titans.

source:- http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/04/china-s-internet-titans?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595

Ecommerce Quickly does it

FOR many shop owners, e-commerce remains a riddle. Each step, from creating an online shopfront that lures in customers to taking payment for goods, can flummox retailers selling their wares online. In many cases, intimate knowledge of such technical wizardry as Perl, PHP and MySQL databases is needed.

Enter Tictail, a ten-month-old Swedish start-up, which aims to radically simplify the process for businesses to go online. It takes no more than a few minutes before a new virtual store is ready to accept orders. Owners only need to follow a few simple steps, link their shop to a PayPal account, and set a price for their items.

The idea of automating the set-up of an online store came to Carl Waldekranz, the firm’s 26-year-old founder, when he was involved in marketing Spotify, the popular music-streaming start-up. He likens Tictail to the clean, intuitive interface used by Tumblr, a blogging platform popular with teens. Retailers, Mr Waldekranz argues, are more concerned with the products they sell than learning about technical trifles such as search engine optimisation (SEO).

His hunch seems to be correct. During its short life, Tictail has already attracted 10,000 users (and 75% of them have recommended the service to friends). So far, Sweden is its biggest base and America number two. Seed funding of €1.2m, secured in late 2012, is allowing the firm to try to boost growth in Western Europe.

All this is admirable, but not in itself extraordinary. Other products and websites also let users set up simple online shops. Etsy, a community-driven marketplace, for instance, is popular among makers of twee knick-knacks such as crocheted tea cosies. Where Tictail differentiates itself, is its continuing support for shop owners.

Tictail has a “feed”—a stream of messages—that acts as an automated adviser. Among other things, it coaxes and cajoles shop owners to tweet about their latest lines. And it reminds them to follow up with customers to ensure their packages arrived in good order—important in any customer-facing industry, but often overlooked in the rush to keep a young business afloat.

The service also aims to build loyalty and repeat custom through social-media features. Customers can “subscribe” to a store, meaning they will get messages informing them of any new products put on sale. Later this year, owners will also be able to add extensions, such as the ability to hand out discount codes to their store—which will be a way for Tictail to make money: it will charge a fee for the use of such extensions.

Like every ambitious entrepreneur, Mr Waldekranz has big plans for his product: he wants Tictail not only to become the world’s most used, but its most loved e-commerce platform, with millions of users worldwide. Whether he will get there remains to be seen, but lowering the barrier to entry for online retailing will certainly push many bricks-and-mortar businesses to move into the virtual world.

source:- http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/04/e-commerce?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595

H&M launches e-commerce site in U.S., but is that good news?

H&M, the Swedish fast-fashion retailer, opened its e-commerce site to the U.S. today, making its women’s wear, as well as men’s, children’s and home wears available online here for the first time. It is the latest step in the world’s second largest retailer’s very public campaign to boost sales – which has included a string of high-end collaborations, a show at Paris Fashion Week and an eco-friendly line.
An e-commerce site has been long-awaited by fashion bloggers and serious fans who have been buzzing about this day for nearly three years.

For long-time customers and fashionable shoppers looking for good deals, the online smorgasbord of cheap, trendy clothing will likely elicit jubilation. The long lines and general insanity at brick and mortar H&M’s in big markets have long been one of the store’s pitfalls — as can be witnessed at the Georgetown location on any given Saturday.

So the thought of being able to purchase that $5.95 burn-out print top with a few mouse clicks without the onset of severe claustrophobia is tempting. But is it worth it?

H&M will be unveiling a few enticing online-only offers to grab shoppers. First, there will be garments available online only, as well as additional sizes. Pieces from the upcoming Paris Fashion Week show will be available for pre-order online starting August 22. And the Home section, which is not available anywhere in the U.S., is a pretty good selling point.

The downside — H&M garments are notoriously tricky — sizing can vary, materials can be iffy and quality is generally a guessing game. Ordering a blouse without having seen or touched the fabric in the store can be a different ball game than ordering one from J. Crew or Banana Republic, which have built reputations around consistency.

Perhaps to counteract that uncertanty, H&M has set a flat shipping rate of $5.95 for any purchase. Items can be returned if they are unworn with labels still attached within 30 days and with the original packing slip. The $5.95 extra is relatively cheap, but for a $10 skirt, it may be more cost effective to brave a bought of claustrophobia.

source:- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/08/01/hm-launches-e-commerce-site-in-u-s-but-is-that-good-news/

Pinterest Tests the Ad Waters With New Promoted Pins

Pinterest's latest monetization effort is good news for retailers. "There is definite potential for promoted pins to be successful," said Chelsey Binkley, social engagement coordinator at Engauge. "For retail and fashion brands that already use the platform to drive discovery to their products and e-commerce sites, this will make for a great extension of their Pinterest efforts."

Pinterest on Thursday announced that it would begin experimenting with promoting certain pins from a select group of businesses.

The announcement came via a blog post from CEO Ben Silbermann, who hastened to assure the site's users that this move would not be a descent into ad madness.

"I know some of you may be thinking, 'Oh great ... here come the banner ads,'" he wrote, "but we're determined to not let that happen."

  

To that end, Silbermann promised that the ads will be "tasteful," with "no flashy banners or pop-up ads."

The ads will also be transparent, and viewers will always be informed when they are viewing paid promotions, he promised.

The ads will be relevant as well -- that is, they will be marketing products the viewer actually is interested in -- and will be improved upon feedback, too.

Pinterest is now rolling out just a few promotions in search results and category feeds, he said -- but no company is paying for any placement yet.

"We want to see how things go and, more than anything, hear what you think," Silbermann concluded.

A Pinterest spokesperson was not immediately available to provide further details.

Good News for Retailers

Even with its slow approach and restrictions for advertisers, the announcement is good news for retailers.

"There is definite potential for promoted pins to be successful, especially for businesses looking to showcase their wares," Chelsey Binkley, social engagement coordinator at Engauge, told the E-Commerce Times.

"For retail and fashion brands that already use the platform to drive discovery to their products and e-commerce sites, this will make for a great extension of their Pinterest efforts," Binkley added.

Certainly demand will be strong on the part of retailers, who have been paying attention to Pinterest users' propensity to shop, Christopher Penn, vice president of marketing technology at SHIFT Communications, told the E-Commerce Times.

"According to research firm Edison Research, 27 percent of Pinterest users have made a purchase based on a pin they've seen," Penn said. "If Pinterest can work sponsored pins into relevant pinboards in an appropriate way that doesn't alienate users, they're going to be quite successful at their advertising program."

'The Risk of Significant Backlash'

Not everyone foresees smooth sailing for Pinterest's monetization plans, however.

The site has no advertising to speak of at the moment, "so it's going to be a bit of a shock to users when they first start seeing promoted pins," noted Keith Trivitt, director of marketing and communications at MediaWhiz, for example.

Another challenge "is the risk that advertising poses to Pinterest's carefully cultivated network and image as a user-friendly platform," Trivitt pointed out.

"While advertising has many benefits to both brands and consumers, any time you place ads on a site or social network that has largely built up its user base around the fact that it is ad-free, you run the risk of significant backlash," he explained.

All that said, however, Pinterest's slow approach should go far to address these concerns, he continued.

"By starting with promoted pins in search results, rather than dropping ads or advertiser messaging directly into a user's feed, Pinterest in working to ensure that its community comes to trust its advertising efforts as a means of building and monetizing Pinterest," Trivitt said.

'Aspirational Purchases'

It also helps that Twitter and Facebook plowed the road ahead for Pinterest, said Chia-Lin Simmons, vice president of marketing and content at Harman International.

"Twitter and Facebook opened the way to native advertising and promoted content in their service, and Pinterest is following suit, so I think there will be little backlash from consumers," Simmons told the E-Commerce Times.

In fact, in many ways, there is more risk to Twitter and Facebook with native advertising, she suggested.

"Consumers use Pinterest to capture interest, and often from an e-commerce perspective, they are using Pinterest boards to bookmark 'aspirational' purchases," she explained.

Consider a consumer who is using Pinterest to post what she would like one day in her would-be living room, Simmons suggested. Having promotional pins from Crate and Barrel or Design Within Reach would not necessarily be an affront. 

- See more at: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Pinterest-Tests-the-Ad-Waters-With-New-Promoted-Pins-79013.html#sthash.DWBW8SZg.dpuf

Engine News: Amazon Product Ads Increases Minimum Bids in 60 Categories

Dear Advertiser,
On August 27, 2013, Amazon Product Ads will be increasing the minimum bids in 60 bidding categories. We will not be changing the minimum bids in the remaining 114 categories.
In the 60 impacted bidding categories, we will automatically set your category-level bids to the new minimums. We will do this for your category-level bids that are at or above the current minimums and below the new minimums. We will not change your category-level bids that are above the new minimums or SKU-level bids that you have set using your product feed. You should review and update all SKU-level bids in the impacted categories before August 27, 2013.
If you do not want us to set your category-level bids to the new minimums, you can opt out of this change in Seller Central (Product Ads log in required). Just look for the “Minimum Bid Increases on August 27, 2013” notice at the top of any page.
Ads for products in the impacted categories will not be eligible for impressions as of August 27, 2013, if you opted out of automatic bid adjustment and your category-level or SKU-level bids are below the new minimums.
Please review the Setting Bids help page or contact our Seller Support team(Product Ads log in required) if you have any questions about adjustments to the minimum bids.
Thank you,
Amazon Product Ads“
Merchants, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to check in to the Amazon Seller login ASAP. It’s crucial that you monitor your budget when bid increases come around.

http://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2013/08/engine-news-amazon-product-ads-increases-minimum-bids-in-60-categories/