We report this week in detail from the Shop.org Summit in Las Vegas, which besides the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition is one of the most important industry meetings in the USA.
A perceptible change in thinking is detectable with the big retailers. The trend is moving from stand-alone players to a sort of team play construction:
- For one, marketplace fever is on the rampage: Leading retailers from Buy.com to Walmart are increasingly bringing their competitors onto their own websites.
- Secondly, besides Amazon and eBay, Sears now represents the first traditional retailer who has started commercializing its website with cost-per-click advertising (via).
Ina Steiner of Auctionbytes has, as usual, well documented the current developments of the US e-commerce market in a concise manner.
Price transparency and high marketing costs are increasingly forcing American retailers to think about supplementary revenue streams. But are the brands really so strong online that they can continue to be user magnets - and thereby count in the long run amongst the online winners?
A question to be asked for all of these current efforts: Is the driving force behind this open strategy the courage of desperation or is there really some long term strategy behind it?
Because what the retail biggies still lack are original business models with the staying power to challenge online competitors in the long run.
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
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