2010 was the live shopping year par excellence. The migration from pure product presentation to attention-grabbing (and attention-holding) deals is developing into a significant driver for e-commerce.
Groupon underlines the potential, Vente-Privée and the private shopping club model is taking the world by storm and in particular, Amazon is trying hard not to miss the boat by acquiring Woot! (in June), BuyVIP (in September) and by taking a piece of Living Social.
Amazon’s acquisition strategy in the live shopping area may hint at signs of desperation (if you can’t acquire the market leader, then quickly grab the next best player as soon as you can). Nevertheless you still can’t help but to chalk up a few points for the Amazon strategy.
Because although eBay haughtily took an early shot at the live shopping game and has continued to flounder, Amazon in contrast seems to have recognized that a good dose of humility is required. These new business models (and particularly the associated thought processes behind them) are not so easy for an established player to adapt to or let alone make profitable.
Amazon is still noticeably suffering from their reputation of quickly trying to assimilate the companies they take over. It seems to be the reason why the first try at acquiring Zappos failed and why the founders of Threadless didn’t jump at the opportunity to take a place under the Amazon umbrella.
Lately however, Amazon has seemingly learnt from past experiences and it seems even Zappos boss Tony Hsieh has become an Amazon fan. This must have helped in the negotiations with Woot!, for which Amazon has held shares in since 2006, as well as in the case of Diapers, which Amazon took over in November. Amazon was not so successful with Vente-Privée nor Groupon.
Related posts:
- Live Shopping Now A Tech Megatrend in Silicon Valley
- Woot! 2004 - 2010: After 6 Years, Sold To Amazon
- Confirmed: Amazon Acquires Private Shopping Club BuyVIP
- Amazon Onboard with Groupon Clone Living Social for $175 Million
- Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh on the First Year With Amazon
- A Diaper Retailer as Technology Leader, Amazon takes over Diapers.com for $545 Million
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
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