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February 9, 2021Amazon beats the flu: Non-commerce drives impressive growth over [...]
Flash Report, ReportsThe pandemic has pushed ecommerce to new heights around the world, as consumers substitute their offline purchases for online in the absence of being able to leave their homes. In this new paradigm for retail, Amazon stands to benefit most, providing customers with convenient one-day delivery and a range of competitively priced products. -
January 27, 2021CES 2021: Consumer tech show switches on to the pandemic
Flash Report, ReportsThe home is now a bastion of more activity than ever before, from working to entertaining to socialising—more is being demanded of the domestic space—and in 2021 the consumer tech show offered a more holistic approach to the Internet of Things (IoT), accepting a ‘new normal’ would be centred on the home, even as the effects of the pandemic recede. -
June 21, 2017Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2017
ReportsMary Meeker discusses the key internet trends for 2017. The continued rise of digital advertising, as well as growth within eSports, and eCommerce all feature heavily -
February 28, 2017Fashion’s new look: digital sets new trends
ReportsFashion underpins the growth of ecommerce; online took a 14% share of all fashion retail in the UK last year and is set to rise further, challenging the economics of physical retail. Mobile is a key driver, it is changing research and shopping habits, and in turn affecting supplier product cycles, merchandising and marketing strategies. Social media has disrupted the traditional shopping funnel, changing how trends and styles proliferate and shifting the sites of authority and influence in a £66 billion sector. -
September 30, 2016Tug of War: Apple Pay versus The Big Australian Banks
ReportsApple Pay launched in Australia in November 2015 and is seeking to capture a slice of the banks’ interchange fee, worth an estimated $2.5b annually. With the exception of ANZ who adopted Apple Pay, this has not gone down well with other banks. We discuss the ongoing dispute between Apple and the large Australian banks, the repercussions of this for the market as a whole, including the consumer impact, and the expected outcome.
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September 28, 2016
Clash of the retail titans: Amazon vs Walmart
ReportsThe battle in the US between Amazon, ecommerce giant, and Walmart, the retail titan, reflects the changing face of US retail as online drives growth. Amazon, the everything store, innovates on marketplace, warehouse and logistics, and customer tools like Prime, while Walmart fortifies in-store and builds on its strengths. Walmart cannot overtake Amazon online, but it can defend its position as the largest US retailer as Amazon drives an ecommerce future for retailing.
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September 1, 2016
Digital video retail market in the UK
ReportsThe UK retail market for digital movies has shown steady growth, but has not offset the decline in physical sales. While iTunes remains the UK market leader, Sky is clearly driving the growth with its Buy & Keep offering, backed up with the reassurance of physical product. However, a move away from the collector mentality alongside the growth of a subscription mentality will affect long term prospects. This is not helped by the consumer proposition for digital retail, which remains disjointed, lacks inter-device operability and a clear consumer benefit. Without co-ordinated efforts and investment from the studios, content owners and retailers to resolve these issues, we believe the opportunity for digital video retail in the UK is limited. Even with that, the EST market may never be as profitable as the DVD home video market.
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August 11, 2016
Amazon Prime Air pilots in the UK
ReportsAmazon will test three possible features of their drone delivery system in the UK, which could make this novel shipping solution for small packages viable. When it launches, Prime Air will be limited to a catchment area of 2.3 million homes in the UK, with further exclusions for no-go areas for drones like airports and urban areas. Prime Air’s UK pilot will help the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) craft the rules for future drone delivery by retailers.
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July 22, 2016
Disruption In: Hospitality
ReportsThe hospitality ecosystem is getting smarter, applying technological solutions to old problems, including frictionless payments, cloud-based management reporting tools, as well as the generation of Big Data to aid decision making. We have identified four key areas of disruption which we believe are set to shape the hospitality industry.
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March 11, 2016
The arrival of electronic marketplaces and bookings platforms
ReportsMany overseas entrants are arriving virtually uncontested, winning customers with superior services and price. Though it is not too late, local incumbents need to move quickly… -
March 8, 2016
The role of Millennials in the digital economy and the generation [...]
ReportsAre Millennials really that different? Older cohorts increasingly exhibit similar behaviours and consume a similar mix of digital services. As the fastest adopters of technology, Millennials have become the focus of many marketers. However, as the digital expenditure of older, richer cohorts grows rapidly, companies need to deliver solutions and services for the whole market. -
October 5, 2015
Amazon’s Prime Directive
ReportsDespite dropping the Fire Phone, Amazon has upped the ante in its battle for digital media consumers, upgrading its Fire TV devices and rolling out a new range of low price and robust tablets, starting from £50/$50, squarely aimed at the mass market. As with all Amazon devices aside from the failed phone, they are conduits for the company’s media and retail services, aimed at increasing purchases and forcing other platform operators to include them. Although shrinking as a share of Amazon’s business, media remains crucial, both for direct revenue and to attract customers to Prime, its membership programme, which by some estimates now accounts for the majority of its US sales.
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August 6, 2015
Disruption In – Banking on disruption
Focus Report, ReportsBanks act as the intermediary between borrowers and lenders. Digital disruption is the enabling platform that connects borrowers and lenders while circumventing banks. Where banks once relied on scale (including brick and mortar infrastructure), asymmetric information barriers, regulatory barriers and vertical integration – technology is unbundling the value chain. This report is part of our ‘Disruption In’ series and uses our proprietary Disruption Framework to analyse the potential for disruption in the financial services industry.
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June 16, 2015
Mary Meeker’s State of the Internet
ReportsWe have synthesised the key themes from the latest Internet Trends Report from Mary Meeker at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. We don’t purport this to be our own ideas, but provide it as an interesting resource (see below for Australian ramifications). Three key trends are evident to us from the report: the shift to mobile, the shift to a service economy and finally that disruption of traditional industries is likely to continue for some time yet.
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June 11, 2015
Amazon Prime and the video market
ReportsDVDs are a core Amazon product, of which it is one of the largest retailers – the challenge is to sustain this position throughout the on-going transition to digital formats. Amazon Prime Instant Video’s first purpose is to help the transition by building Amazon’s digital video retail ecosystem. As part of the loss leader Prime bundle it also supports increased customer retail expenditure and stickiness. Despite strong headline growth in Prime membership and some high profile content, the streaming service has yet to generate significant consumer interest. Prime’s net cost is likely to rise as Amazon must finance content to meet rising consumer expectation while suffering competitive price pressures on the bundle.
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September 7, 2014
Amazon extends its gaming strategy
ReportsAmazon's acquisition of Twitch, a platform for watching and broadcasting live streams of video gameplay, provides the ecommerce giant access to a large, fast growing and highly engaged gaming audience. Like other media, retailing of games is in a state of transition away from physical media, where Amazon is more dominant, to digital, where Amazon is one player among many; this acquisition echoes those Amazon has made in other media. Twitch looks set to be a successful business in its own right, arguably reason enough to buy it; more importantly it offers valuable consumer behaviour data, as well as technology and platform benefits, and enhances Amazon's increasingly ambitious customer proposition.
Sector Ecommerce. -
January 30, 2012Apple rewrites the textbook
ReportsApple has begun selling interactive textbooks via its iBookstore, a move which is likely to accelerate the digital transition in education. However, the pace of change will be slowed by the cost of devices and the limited number of textbooks that have been designed for tablet computers. By developing educational software and course materials, Apple is trying to position the iPad at the centre of students' educational lives a niche that could significantly boost its hardware sales.
