E-Commerce

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One of the first and most prominent e-commerce players, iconic eBay has left a huge footprint on the way we buy and sell.

The Internet has created a new economic ecosystem, the e-commerce marketplace, and it has become the virtual main street of the world. Providing a quick and convenient way of exchanging goods and services both regionally and globally, e-commerce has boomed. Today, e-commerce has grown into a huge industry that generates over $132B in revenues worldwide, with its consumer-driven (B2C) online transactions impacting industries from travel services to consumer electronics, from books and media distribution to sports & fitness. With more than 70% of Americans using the Internet on a daily basis for private and/or business use and the rest of the world also beginning to catch on, e-commerce's global growth curve is not likely to taper off anytime soon.

In the last decade, many startup e-commerce companies have rapidly stolen market share from traditional retailers and service providers, pressuring these established traditional players to deploy their own commerce websites or to alter company strategy in retaliation. This effect is most pronounced in travel services and consumer electronics. According to comScore, online leisure travel bookings reached about $51B in 2005, or 44% of all online sales, which were around $122B in the same year. Roughly 30% of all travel bookings currently occur online. Consumer electronics, which includes the purchase of digital cameras, mobile phones, and home PC's, accounted for nearly $26B of worldwide e-commerce sales occurring in 2006, according to the NPD Group. As traditional brick and mortar firms continue to lose market share to e-commerce players, they will likely see continued declines in their revenues, operating margins, and profits. It is important to note that most e-commerce players are at a competitive advantage to retailers. They have lower operating expenses and better inventory management due to operating in a virtual commerce environment. For example, Amazon.com (AMZN) has revenue per employee of nearly $850k while its retail counterpart, Best Buy (BBY), generates revenue per employee of only $270k. Clearly, e-commerce vendors will have the most to gain if they successfully disrupt retail customer acquisition, disintermediate distributors/resellers, and under-price retail establishments. As a consequence of e-commerce vendor gains, financial transaction processors and parcel shipping companies are among ancillary vendors who will gain.

2005-2006: E-commerce continues to seize market share from traditional retailers in the US.

[edit] E-commerce Drivers

There are several key drivers the growth of e-commerce

[edit] The economy, consumer spending, and retail spending

At a macro level, overall economic activity and total retail spending in general are key drivers to the growth of e-commerce. At a micro level, for instance, rising oil prices and gasoline costs could benefit e-commerce players, e.g., it is more expensive driving to the offline retail store than shopping online.

[edit] Online Taxation

Several proposals have been made at the U.S. state and local level that would impose additional taxes on the sale of goods and services through the Internet. These proposals, if adopted, could substantially impair the growth of e-commerce. The U.S. federal government's moratorium on states and other local authorities imposing access or discriminatory taxes on the Internet is scheduled to expire in November 2007. The taxation situation is a dynamic one, and one which is carefully being watched by many stakeholders.

[edit] Differentiation vs. Click-and-Mortars

Many e-commerce websites have established their leadership positions through low prices, high customer satisfaction, and convenient interfaces--but that position is becoming less and less unique. The largest retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy are pressing harder to gain market share online. The inroads the click-and-mortar retailers have been making is evident in recent comScore data, which shows the unique user traffic at the aforementioned sites increasing at greater year-over-year rates vs. pure e-commerce players. Those pure play e-tailers that develop and deploy the most unique web technologies to enhance consumer experiences and keep prices competitive will be in the best position to ward off the click-and-mortar convoy.

[edit] Internet Penetration and Emerging Markets

Global Internet penetration rates have an enormous impact on e-commerce growth rates. Currently, more than 90% of the world does not have access to the internet, and hence, e-commerce. Reduced Internet surfing charges, Internet technology development covering expanded bandwidth, and increased speeds & reliability could make e-commerce available to a large pool of emerging market consumers. In India, only about 39 million (or 3.9%) of a total 1 billion person population currently have access to the internet. In China, the internet penetration rate is still under 10%. The companies that are able to gain significant traction first in emerging markets will be at great advantage to competitors.

[edit] Who Stands to Gain?

[edit] Online Travel Services

Expedia (EXPE) and hotels.com are among many successful online travel service providers who stand to gain the most from recent growth trends. These players focus on travel-related transactions for airline seats, hotel rooms, car rentals, cruises, tours, and a host of other services. Travelzoo is a smaller player that has taken a novel approach to selling travel packages.

[edit] Online Retail

Overstock.com (OSTK) and Amazon.com (AMZN), two of the more successful online retailers, should continue to do well because of their consumer electronics focus.

[edit] Consumer Electronics

Sony (SNE) and Philips Electronics are among the leading consumer electronics manufacturers benefiting from an increase in e-commerce consumer electronics sales. For these companies, internet presence increases the visibility, easy availability and volume sales of their consumer electronics products.

[edit] Financial Transaction Services

EBay/PayPal and Authorize.net are examples of two leading financial transaction processors that get a cut every time you make a online purchase using their processing platform. More than 175 thousand merchants use Authorize.net (ANET) to help consumers accept credit cards and electronic check payments online. As more merchants move online, these types of companies could see their fortunes accelerate.

[edit] Travel Industry

Travel service companies, such as airlines, hotels, cruise ships, and rental car companies, also benefit from e-commerce intermediaries selling their products more quickly and easily than was previously possible and to a wider consumer base.

[edit] Shipping

FedEx (FDX) and United Parcel Service (UPS), two of the major shipping company players, are responsible for shipping the majority of products that are purchased online by consumers. As consumers continue to buy more online, these companies will see demand for their shipping services rise.

[edit] E-commerce Software

Many companies interested in selling products and services through the Internet choose to contract the construction and operation of their e-commerce platforms to third-party vendors. Some of these companies, such as GSI Commerce (GSIC) and Digital River (DRIV) offer comprehensive, integrated packages that include software, web-hosting, order fulfillment and distribution and online marketing. Other firms offer more limited services such as Ariba (ARBA) and Akamai Technologies (AKAM). These two companies are e-commerce software vendors that make money selling software for e-commerce applications. All of these e-commerce service providers stand to gain as e-commerce traffic accelerates.

Traditional retailers like Gap are scrambling to keep up with the e-commerce trend, offering online catalog shopping in addition to traditional stores.

[edit] Web Analytics

One interesting niche of e-commerce services is the area of "web-analytics". These tools provide the management of online shops and all kind of e-commerce platforms a great inside of what happens on their websites. In particular they allow them to run real-time experiments with their advertising and marketing, to allow them to rapidly optimise their sales pipeline. Not only can they tell when sales improve, but they can also see which adverts brought those sales, and the routes the customers took through the e-commerce site to get there.

Two major players are Omniture (OMTR) and Visual Sciences (VSCN) (former WebSideStory). One question for the future is how such niche players will compete with business analytic/intelligence solutions like SAS. They will also need to keep an eye on Google (GOOG), who have their own Google Analytics software, which they provide for free to customers of their advertising products.

[edit] Who Stands to Lose?

[edit] Traditional Retail

Circuit City Stores (CC) and Best Buy (BBY) are prime examples of traditional retailers that have been losing market share to e-commerce startups over the last decade. These firms are now working aggressively to create an online presence for themselves in an attempt to halt earlier losses. Specialty retailers like Zale (ZLC) have also faced increased competition from internet company sites.

[edit] Traditional Travel Agencies

American Express Company (AXP) is an example of a major travel agency that has seen demand for their travel-related services decrease as more consumers and businesses rely on online travel portals.

[edit] Direct Retail Marketing

CDW (CDWC) and Systemax (SYX) are direct marketers of consumer electronics. Both will see business decline if the revenue distribution of consumer electronics sales continues to shift to online vendors. As more businesses buy from online intermediaries, the direct marketers' services are increasingly being bypassed.