E-Commerce

Publishing giant Condé Nast, already a supporter of fashion startups like Rent the Runway and Farfetch, is upping its investment in e-commerce. On Monday, the company said it had led a $20 million investment in Vestiaire Collective, a Paris-based site that lets people buy and sell pre-owned luxury fashion items. The Series C round, which brings the startup's total amount raised to more than $30 million, also included Idinvest Partners and existing investors Balderton and Ventech.

Billabong is a global omnichannel retailer of surfwear and extreme sports apparel that has a presence in more than 100 countries, including 110 brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S. With its extended reach and strong international customer base, Billabong frequently saw customers from around the world shopping in its U.S. stores. To provide these international customers shopping in the U.S. as seamless an experience as possible, Billabong recently installed a "Pay in Your Currency" payment solution in 85 of its stores across the country.

Buying an engagement ring ranks as one of the biggest purchases a consumer will ever make, both in terms of a sentimental and financial investment. Now imagine going through this entire process online — browsing a website to create the exact ring your future spouse will love, making sure it's sized just right and then paying for it via an e-commerce checkout page. Ritani is trying to make this experience the norm rather than the exception … with a healthy assist from traditional brick-and-mortar storefronts. Leading Ritani's efforts at transforming the traditional retail jewelry store model is Brian Watkins, the company's president.

Being found on the web is a whole different problem from being found physically. A physical storefront depends on things like curb appeal and location. But what happens when your location is the amorphous web, and being found means manipulating several variables that all have to work together so prospects can find you? Online retailers have to be experts in far more than just the merchandise they're selling. They need to be connoisseurs of search engine optimization, application programming interfaces, marketing and website performance monitoring. So what does it mean to get "on the map" in cyberspace, and how do you stay there?

I came across an interesting report last week from marketing communications firm JWT called Retail Rebooted. The report focuses on key trends taking place within the retail industry today. I was most interested in the report’s "20-Plus Things to Watch in Retail" section, which offers a relatively quick rundown of developments in retail, from innovative business models to shifting consumer behaviors to the latest technology launches. In today’s blog post (part one of a two-part series), I’ll recap 10 of these 20-plus things, such as 3-D printing, alternative brand currencies, and click-and-collect shopping.

Facebook is completely revamping it Gifts commerce platform, the first step of which is removing sales of physical items. In their place will be greater focus on virtual goods and digital-only gifts. "Since launching Gifts in December last year, roughly 80 percent of gifts have been gift cards. So we're now adding more digital codes and making the Facebook Card redeemable at more merchants," a Facebook representative was quoted Monday. "As a part of this shift in focus to Facebook Card and digital codes, we're also phasing out physical gifts."

JCrew.com delivered in July. With meaningful improvements in delivery speed and package quality, JCrew.com topped all other online retailers' customer service efforts, landing at the top of STELLA Monthly Benchmarks. Notably, the retailer improved its average time to deliver packages by two full days from the previous month. JCrew.com also led retailers in the Apparel/Accessories category for phone support with high scores for professionalism and issue resolution - meaning the retailer's agents solved STELLAService Analysts' questions in full.

The potential for Facebook commerce has been a topic of much debate. eMarketer took a close look at this trend in its recent report, "F-Commerce: Evolving, Not Extinct," stating that "nearly every leading online merchant in the U.S. now has a Facebook page. The question is whether retailers can crack the commerce half of social commerce and use Facebook to go beyond awareness and engagement."

A Hong Kong website that appears to have scraped product listings from Etsy in order to drive traffic to its site through Google search results has turned to Amazon.com's affiliate program for revenue after Google apparently ejected the site from its AdSense advertising program. But it took five months from the time sellers first discussed the site on Etsy discussion boards for any action to have been taken at all. Etsy sellers noticed EtsyStore.net in March, but weren't sure if it was helpful in driving traffic to their listings, though they noted it appeared to be "fishy."

According to a recent article in Inc., women fill just 8 percent of the leadership roles in technology startup companies. That's a small number. However, what's fascinating to me is that the women who do fill C-suite roles in technology tend to gravitate toward e-commerce. From Fab.com's COO Beth Ferreira to the women who founded Birchbox (Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp) to Gilt's CEO Michelle Peluso, more and more women are rising to top leadership positions in e-commerce. Coincidence? I don't think so.