Exciting Commerce // Unlimited

Today on Freaky Friday: some statistics and a nice hagmanay!

The whole ecomPunk team wishes you a nice hogmanay (that’s Scot for new year’s eve)! We already posted a retrospect for 2011.

 Additional this little post reflects what happened on ecomPunk.com in 2011 from the statistical point of view. The blog was started by Alex and Rayan on 04.06.2011, end of June Kai joined and end of August Roman completed the team. Since the beginning around 25.000 words have been written on the site (pure content - excluding citations, link texts etc.)... Read the whole article on ecompunk.com!

Exciting Commerce joins forces with ecomPunk

From the start of 2012 onwards, Exciting Commerce and ecomPunk will join forces to bring you the most relevant news and background info regarding the European commerce scene.

With the former being one of the most renowned eCommerce blogs worldwide – having ecommerce specialist Jochen Krisch at the helm – and the latter dedicated to accompanying the commerce revolution in a new and unconventional way, you don’t have to read anything else to stay updated.

Short excerpts of selected posts published on excitingcommerce.com will be posted to ecompunk.com and vice versa, giving readers the best of both blog worlds.

This move is a logical sequel to the already successful cooperation with regard to this year’s K5 conference and will continue to lead to interesting projects in the future.

Teleportation: Why 3D Printers Should Have Scanners Built In

New business models aren’t born without some thinking outside the box. Anil Dash sketches out a space for exciting new business models using the example of 3D printing:

"Every 3D printer should seamlessly integrate a 3D scanner, even if it makes the device cost much more.

The reason is simple: If you set the expectation that every device can both input and output 3D objects, you provide the necessary fundamentals for network effects to take off amongst creators.

But no, these devices are not "3D fax machines". What you've actually made, when you have an internet-connected device that can both send and receive 3D-printed objects, is a teleporter."

Using this lateral thinking, Anil Dash shows that with a bit of daydreaming, it is possible to extend simple products into polished services and platforms. And in principle this creativity can be translated to many other types of products.

Practical tips on developing new business models can be found in such books as Business Model Generation, which itself ranked amongst the Top 5 of the Exciting Commerce books of the year for two years running.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Extras: Dwolla Instant, Kabbage, CatchOfTheDay, Anti-SEO, Top 10 Startups

Some exciting e-commerce news from the recent past:

Dwolla Instant
Dwolla, the payment startup we recently reported on, has introduced an interesting new feature called Dwolla Instant:

"Instant is a new Dwolla feature that launched today. Instead of waiting a few days for transactions to go through, Instant gives users cash on the fly.  It gives small cash loans to users the moment they request them, as many times as they need, for $3 per month.  It's an easy opt-in feature, so users can turn it on and off as they need it."

CatchOfTheDay
CatchOfTheDay looks back at their 2011 track record:

"Membership has grown from 550,000 members to 1.5 million! In fact, 70,000 of them joined in November alone!    Sales revenue has grown by 100% this financial year. 

Each day we receive around 200,000 unique visitors. On massive days we can have as many as 300,000 people logging on to our site. And it’s not just our unique visitors that shine: over 80% of our members visit us more than four times a week."

Kabbage
Kabbage, the company which offers merchants short term credit, has received $12 million from Western Technology Investment:

"Since last October, online merchants seeking funds to grow their businesses have been able to consider working capital advances from Kabbage in addition to traditional sources such as bank loans. This week Kabbage announced it has obtained $12 million in debt financing from Western Technology Investment (WTI), a private investment firm based in Silicon Valley, to help it expand.
Kabbage uses automated data sources to underwrite its business customers including marketplace and PayPal transaction history, customer traffic and reviews, seller ratings and even social networking data."

Anti-SEO
A new scam: Shop owners are being blackmailed with the threat of damaged search rankings on Google (German link). If you don’t pay a ransom, the scammer will link huge amounts of dubious sites to your website and thus trick the Google search algorithms to downgrade your pagerank. Google has admitted to not having a mechanism to specifically neutralize such attempts. Just another example why you shouldn’t put all your eggs in the Google basket.

Top 10 Startups of 2011
ReadWriteWeb has presented their Top 10 Startups of 2011, where e-commerce companies are heavily represented:

"This year's top 10 startups list is a combination of companies that launched in 2011, and others that gained considerable attention. We chose these startups based on how they've innovated in they've changed or disrupted their niches, and influenced trends this year and for the year to come. They are listed in no particular order."

Related posts:

• Extras: Fab.com, Plum District, Groupon, Zappos, Marka VIP
• Extras: Swag Of The Month, Hunch, Etsy, Kindle, Private Sales Clubs
• Extras: Ordr.in, API Management, Amazon, Taobao, One Kings Lane
• Extras: Groupon vs. LivingSocial, Wag.com, Rakuten, AmazonLocal

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiß, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

E-Senses: Tactus Seeks To Make Touchscreens More Tactile

From a commerce perspective, there is not much technology out there which is truly inspiring. “Touch” is great, but “human touch” would be far better.

How would it be if you could feel materials online? If we had interfaces which surpassed our sense of sight and gave us a tactile shopping experience? With such an interface, which would focus more on human needs rather than what technology offers (or limits) us, we might be able to see e-commerce move beyond the ubiquitous “pictures under glass”.

This week, Tactus Technology raised $6 million to make tactile touchscreens:

"The interface enables buttons to morph out of the surface of an electronic device. The physical buttons rise from the surface on demand, as needed, and then recede back into the screen, leaving a flat, transparent surface when gone.

It works by using a “tactile layer,” which can be integrated with touchscreen devices such as smartphones, tablets, personal navigation system and gaming devices. The layer replaces the cover glass of the touchscreen and is about the same thickness of the layer it replaces."

Surely this isn’t yet the Holy Grail, but in all respects a good start.

All who find this topic interesting, would find "A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design" a great read. Thanks to Daniel from 47Nord for the tip!

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

The Top Books of the Year 2011

Now a tradition, we are again listing out the year’s most popular books (according to the Amazon sales tracked by Exciting Commerce). Like last year, where one book dominated the charts (Rework: Change the Way You Work Forever), this year Jochen Krisch’s German language book “E-commerce for the Advanced” was a clear favourite.

Amongst the English language books, the most unusual was surely “The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World”. Chris Guillebeau is following the footsteps of 4 hour man Timothy Ferriss.

Always popular are life stories such as “Delivering Happiness” (Tony Hsieh/Zappos), “One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon” and “Steve Jobs: A Biography”.

Here are the top English language books on our list for 2011:

1. Rework: Change the Way You Work Forever
2. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
3. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
4. The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business
5. The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-life lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing
6. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
7. What Women Want: The Global Market Turns Female Friendly
8. One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com
9. What Would Google Do?
10. The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World
11. Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing
12. Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests
13. Steve Jobs: A Biography
14. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
15. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
16. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves

All other Exciting Commerce book recommendations are in our books category.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Extras: Fab.com, Plum District, Groupon, Zappos, Marka VIP

Some further exciting e-commerce news from the past several days:

Fab.com

Investors have put $40 million into Fab.com, valuing the company at $200 million. Founder Jason Goldberg (ex SocialMedian/Xing) first started Fab.com as a travel community for gays and lesbians, but then expanded it to a private shopping club for interior furnishings, jewelry and art. The Wall Street Journal:

"An $8 million fundraising round in July, shortly after relaunching the site, valued Fab.com at around $25 million, people familiar with the matter said. The difference, Andreessen Horowitz says, is the company's fast growth. In November, Fab.com processed 100,000 orders, double the previous month, and is now averaging $1.4 million in sales a week. Fab.com already claims 1.2 million registered users, and is seeking to reach 4 million members next year."

Plum District

Plum District, the deal site with focus on mothers has raised $20 million investment capital. All Things D reports:

"Plum District, which relies on a salesforce of moms who acquire local discounts targeted at other mothers, has raised $20 million in venture capital."

"Altogether, Plum District now operates in 27 markets and has a network of 300 salespeople — the company calls them “mom consultants.”"

Geographic expansion will be one of the applications for the newly collected capital.

Groupon Scheduler

Groupon is rolling out a Groupon Scheduler which will help merchants with their handling of Groupon vouchers. Using the tool, customers will be able to book appointments directly and merchants will be able to manage their service resources to handle their appointments:

"We recognized that there were thousands of appointment-based Groupon merchants looking for a simple way to implement online scheduling. Groupon Scheduler can accommodate schedules for different employees, services, and business locations, allowing consumers to book appointments without having to call or email.
Groupon consumers can book appointments with participating merchants through their account on Groupon.com and will receive a reminder email 24 hours before the scheduled appointment."

Since the majority of Groupon deals are redeemed with reservations, this is a logical extension for Groupon.

The Scheduler is rolling out in waves starting first in Sacramento and Miami.

Zappos

Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn reveals some insider stories in an interview with Business Insider:

"He was rejected by just about every VC. No one thought people would buy shoes online, even though Swinmurn had a stat that said 5% of people bought their shoes from mail order catalogs."

"Zappos decided to sell when it started to realize that an IPO wasn't going to be viable. The company had big sales, but relatively small profits. It had a goofy culture. The VCs worried that the stock would be clobbered, thus making an IPO worse than selling to Amazon."

MarkaVIP

MarkaVIP, a private sales club based out of the Middle East, has received their first financing round of $5 million. TechCrunch:

"MarkaVIP was founded in Jordan by CEO Ahmed Alkhatib and CTO Amer Abulaila in November 2010. Early investors include former Yahoo VP Usama Fayyad and former US ambassador Karim Kawar, along with Hummingbird Ventures and Turkish serial entrepreneur Çağlar Erol.

MarkaVIP, which has adapted the flash sales model popularized by companies like Vente Privée and Gilt, has attracted 700,000 registered users to date, with up to 5,000 more joining per day."

Twitter

O'Reilly Radar has described how a small bookstore is using Twitter successfully.

"Omnivore Books follows a simple Twitter rule: 1/3 personal, 2/3 professional."

Related posts:

• Extras: Swag Of The Month, Hunch, Etsy, Kindle, Private Sales Clubs
• Extras: Ordr.in, API Management, Amazon, Taobao, One Kings Lane
• Extras: Groupon vs. LivingSocial, Wag.com, Rakuten, AmazonLocal

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Dwolla Providing Payment Alternative to Credit Cards and Paypal

Dwolla is an exciting new startup working with payment processing. It is leveraging its access to social networks to challenge the traditional domains of Paypal and credit card providers. Instead of a fee based on percentage, Dwolla charges a flat fee of $0.25 regardless of transaction size.

Founder Ben Milne describes the functionality in an interview with Business Insider:

 "With Dwolla, payments are made directly from your bank account.  No credit or debit cards are allowed.  And because they don't exist in the system, we don't have to bring the fees into the system. 

You can spend any amount of money and when you do that, the person on the other end doesn't have to pay 1, 2, 3 or 4%. They only pay $0.25 a transaction, which is especially helpful when it's $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000 transactions.  Obviously PayPal becomes very cost prohibitive with those larger transactions. "

"you can send money to anyone.  Only the person sending it has to have a Dwolla account to initiate the transaction.  The person receiving it will have to sign up for an account, but we've been surprised at the conversion there.  It's worked relatively well.  

We leverage social networks really heavily as contact lists, which is one thing we do really different.  You can send money with an email address or with a phone number, but the most popular way to do it is to connect to Facebook and type in a friend's name."

According to own estimates, Dwolla is particularly strong in the B2B sector. Only 11% of all transactions are taking place between private persons. Dwolla is currently processing transaction volumes from between $30 - 50 million per month. The estimate for next year is $350 million.

Dwolla also supports payments via smartphone:

"We take the website, plop it into the cell phone, start adding proximity solutions so you can see which Dwolla merchants are close to you, and then make it easy to pay once you go into a store that accepts our system. Dwolla uses the GPS feature and allows you to make a payment in real-time."

"you'll just walk into the store and pay.  It's like checking in on Foursquare, you're just paying instead of checking in. We started in one coffee shop and now we're working with 400 or 500 merchants."

In September, Dwolla developed an integration to LinkedIn, which raised their number of transaction interfaces to seven:

"With these additions, there are now 7 ways to send money via Dwolla: Dwolla ID, Facebook, Twitter, email, SMS, Proxi and LinkedIn."

Just recently we reported on Square, who as opposed to Dwolla are betting on credit card users and have used their software solution to also enter the payment processing sector.

Related posts:

• How Square Looks at Credit Card Transactions from a Software Perspective
• Groupon Now! and the Mobile Future
• Groupon App Helps Merchants With Groupon Redemption

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.