E-Commerce

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Hear a study in short-term versus long-term marketplaces strategies and how one company has made it a driving force for their sales.

Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group recently invested in Jet.com, a soon-to-launch online retailer that hopes to challenge Amazon.com, multiple sources confirmed to Forbes. Alibaba's previously undisclosed investment came as part of Jet's $140 million round in February, which was led by Bain Capital Ventures and joined by the likes of Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates and others. The Montclair, N.J.-based company also raised about $5 million last month in a filing disclosed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In 2012, Amazon.com quietly launched AmazonSupply, the e-commerce company's foray into the unsexy but hugely lucrative world of B-to-B wholesale. By 2014, when Forbes covered the burgeoning business, AmazonSupply was already offering 2.2 million products for sale in 17 categories, from tools and home improvement to janitorial supplies. Industry insiders were already concerned about the potential impact of AmazonSupply on America's 35,000 distribution companies, almost all of which are regional and family-run. Could they compete with AmazonSupply's infrastructure and deep cache of consumer data?

Normcore? So last year. String bikinis? Most definitely over. Even interest in skinny jeans may be waning, if 6 billion fashion-related queries by Google users are any indication of this year's most popular trends. Instead, consumers are googling tulle skirts, midi skirts, palazzo pants and jogger pants, according to the company, which plans to start issuing fashion trend reports based on user searches twice a year. The new trend aggregations are part of the company's bid to become a bigger player in e-commerce and fashion beyond its product search engine or advertising platform.

The tide is starting to turn for brick-and-mortar retailers. Long the digital laggard to online-only shops, traditional stores are beginning to capitalize on their robust physical footprints — namely, by using them as souped-up distribution networks — as they continue to make their web and mobile operations easier for shoppers to use. "Our analysis indicates traditional retailers' supply chain costs are roughly three times lower than [online] pure-plays when leveraging store fulfillment capabilities," Cowen & Co. Analyst Oliver Chen wrote in a note to investors Thursday.

Amazon.com rolled out a new service Tuesday to help people plan and book local getaway trips through its website. The service, called Amazon Destinations, provides lists of locations near a user's home for short-term trips, offering hotel bookings, as well as information on dining and attractions. For instance, for a New York customer, the site provides bookings for hotels in the Catskills, the Hamptons and on the New Jersey Shore. Still, the rollout for now is small, with the service available for only the New York, Los Angeles and Seattle metro areas. 

Target was hoping for a smooth launch for one of its most highly anticipated designer collaborations in years. Instead, the discount retailer's website was overwhelmed in the early hours on Sunday as legions of fashionistas who had been up overnight tried to snap up Lilly Pulitzer's fashions, only to encounter delays in the colorful beachwear line's availability on Target.com and, in many cases, end up empty handed. The incident has raised questions as to why the retailer wasn't fully ready for the onslaught.

Dick's Sporting Goods is factoring the potential of added sales from e-commerce into its brick-and-mortar expansion plans, even as it announces it was lowering its projections for how many stores it will eventually have. While the company now operates more than 600 stores, Dick's expects to max out at 750 stores by the end of 2017, less than the 800 stores the company originally forecast. Dick's leadership is pitching investors on the potential of new stores as a way to achieve more sales online.