e-commerce – Weissman Center for International Business Student Blog at Baruch

From Bollywood to Hollywood - Amazon.in — From Bollywood to Hollywood – Amazon.in

Amazon is taking its popular services to India with the launch of Amazon.in last week. The American Fortune 500 company has already expanded to nine other countries where shoppers can browse through millions of products from musical instruments to furniture. According to the BBC, Amazon.in will only offer books, movies and TV shows from third party sellers until strict Indian regulations on e-commerce are relaxed. At present, Indian laws prevent foreign companies from selling products online directly to shoppers. The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, reported in February that Amazon’s Global Vice President Paul Misener met with the Indian Commerce Minister to encourage foreign competition in the country’s growing online market. It isn’t immediately clear whether the government will take action to improve Amazon’s situation.

In the meantime, Amazon Marketplace will be a much-needed middleman between third party sellers and shoppers. Through the “Fulfillment by Amazon” system, Amazon stores sellers’ goods in its own warehouses and packages them for delivery. “Our vision is to become a trusted and meaningful sales channel for retailers of all sizes across India, enabling them to succeed and efficiently grow their business online,” said Amit Agarwal, Vice President and Country Manager for Amazon India.

The company first explored Indian markets last February when it launched Junglee.com, a virtual storefront where customers could compare prices and share reviews but not buy products. Now that Amazon Marketplace has launched in India, the company has its eyes set on bringing Indian internet users the complete Amazon experience of being able to buy just about anything. It may take time for the government to relax its e-commerce laws, but Amazon.in should have plenty of books and movies to keep consumers happy until then.

For more on the launch of Amazon.in, check out the company’s official press release.

What do you think about Amazon’s expansion to India? Voice your thoughts in the comments section below.

Open-air shopping mall in Guangzhou – via Ray from Flickr

What would happen if Amazon took a 30% stake in Twitter? Last month, Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce firm, announced that it would take an 18% stake in Sina Weibo, a microblogging service, with the option of owning up to 30% of the company. The $586m deal could be the precursor to one of the biggest experiments in data mining and marketing.

Alibaba is China’s e-commerce juggernaut, handling more transactions than Amazon and eBay combined according to The Economist. The firm offers consumer-to-consumer and business-to-business trading platforms in addition to online shopping malls. Weibo, another titan in its own right, is China’s most popular social media outlet. The service offers its 503 million users the ability to make short status updates and tag other posts. Much like Twitter, Weibo has a large celebrity user base that attracts millions of followers each day.

But it’s a different kind of user that catches the eye of Jack Ma, Alibaba’s chairman. Millions of Chinese consumers use Weibo to discuss the latest fashions and trends, post reviews and previews, and offer advice to fellow shoppers. Ma hopes to combine the wealth of consumer information that Sina has mined since Weibo’s inception and integrate it with Alibaba’s already impressive amount of user data. Reuters reports that both firms expect to see advertising revenue increase by nearly $400 million.

Charles Chao, Sina’s chairman, is enthusiastic about the synergy that Alibaba and Weibo will have together:

“Weibo and Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms are natural partners. Together we provide a unique proposition not only to existing online merchants, but also to individuals or businesses, who wish to offer products and services on social networking platform to take advantage of the traffic shift toward social and mobile internet.”

For more information on Chinese financial news and social media, check out the following links:

The New York Times’ Dealbook

Chinese financial news from Bloomberg

An infographic on Chinese consumers

You might also be interested in the following courses offered at Baruch:

IBS 3000 Innovation, Technology and the Global Enterprise

IBS 4200 Foreign Markets, Cultures, and Institutions

CIS 3444 e-Business Technologies

CIS 3750 Social Media in Organizations