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Written on 26th December 2008
1 COMMENT 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Amazon.com had it’s best Christmas ever with more than 6.3 million items ordered during its peak day December 15th, nearly 1 million more than 2007’s 5.4 million. There has however been no mention of figures for revenues and profits, which is clearly what matters.
As we posted yesterday, shopping online seems to be where most consumers are heading for their Christmas shopping and late bargains. With the economy in the state it is, it seems Amazon (unlike other major retailers) have a particularly successful year ahead.
Interesting Facts
- In premarket trading, Amazon’s shares jumped $2.85, or 5.5 percent, to $54.29 Friday morning.
- Amazon.com sold enough “Breaking Dawn” books that stacked end to end they would reach the summit of Mt. Everest eight times. (more…)
Written on 26th November 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
German shopping club Brands4Friends.de has raised a €10 million round of funding. It’s their series C, led by Partech International. Some old friends from previous rounds joined them: Mangrove Capital Partners and Holtzbrinck Ventures both chipped in. In these rough economic times, such a large boost in an ecommerce site is quit spectacular.
Yet when you read Brands4Friends’ story, the financial backing makes complete sense.
Maybe it’s the concept of a shopping club that does it. Fashion victims still want to spice up their outfits with designer brands, yet for a bargain price. Clubs like Brands4Friends, French Vente-privee.com, and Russian KupiVIP.ru are invite only. As soon as you’re among the club of happy spenders, a world of deluxe sales opens up for you. From grand cru wines to a Hermes bag, you can get it for a special, really special price. KupiVIPR.ru recently got a multi million financial boost too.
Brands4friends.de launched in September 2007 and already has 1.2 million online club members – adding 10k users every day. Its current annual revenue run rate is €30 million. I’d say: join the club and start a shopping club for your own country. Successful examples enough.
Written on 14th November 2008
10 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Visa have shown off their new card built to combat online shopping fraud. The card, to be tested in Britain next year has a 12 button Keypad and display powered by a battery which should last 3 years.
Card holders will be required to key in their pin every time they make a purchase online. A security code is then sent to the card which appears on the display which then needs to be typed into the website.
‘We hope this new card will help allay those fears, and give consumers more confidence when shopping online.’ said Visa’s Sandra Alzetta.
Written on 29th October 2008
5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
In an upcoming Internet market like Russia, it pays of to choose for the infamous European copy-cat approach (once invented by the Samwer brothers, had Freundefeed as the absolute peak). Yakov from Quintura reports that a Russian Vente-privee.com rip-off has raised a multi-million dollars round of funding from Mangrove Capital Partners and ABRT Fund.
KupiVIP.ru copied the shopping club idea of Vente-privee.com, : which has proven to be a success in several European markets. According to Wikipedia, the French company has around 5.7 million members. Award-winning eCommerce man, Founder and CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon, employs 750 people and probably welcomed 2007’s year report with a smile (€0.5 billion turnover).
“What’s this unique shopping concept?”, I hear you ask. For starters, it’s an invite only store. If you want to join Vente-privee.com and KupiVIP.ru, you’ll have to ask an existing member for an invite. As soon as you’re among the club of happy spenders, a world of designer brand sales opens up for you. From grand cru wines to a Hermes bag, you can get it for a bargain.
So yes, consider it to be a safe choice for Russian industrial investment group Arlan to bring this unique shopping concept to a country which has fallen in love with consuming. The first round of funding is just the beginning.
Written on 12th March 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
This week we’re interviewing Josh Tabin, founder of PrismaStar. That’s a Czech software company that uses a patent-pending consumer-profiling technology to help consumers find products and services, personalized to their own individual needs. Basically they want to save you the hassle of navigating through sea of mass market advertising and mega stores. Their site is rather overwhelming, due to truck loads of information. So I’m glad Josh took the time to participate in our weekly series to explain what his company is about and how he developed it.
How did you come up with the idea of Prismastar?
“It’s really simple; I couldn’t find the products I wanted and searching for product information online was more frustrating and time-consuming than helpful. No results found, too many results, non-relevant results, too much scrolling, too many pages, bad data etcetera etcetera. And I wasn’t the only one having these problems. So, for more than three years we researched how people really make decisions and created AnswerOil™. Now people everywhere can make better and faster decisions when AnswerOil is deployed on their Websites, in-store kiosks, and even mobile applications.” (more…)
Written on 8th February 2008
0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When online marketing expert David Sadigh from IC Agency asked the LIFT08 audience who used the Internet in 1995, he was surprised by the huge response. “In 1995 it used to be a tool for geeks”. The situation has obviously changed, since the Internet is a mass medium now. “Even dogs are about to go online” Sadigh joked (no response this time). That makes it interesting for sales, he said. But the striking thing about the Internet is that the content is the same for everyone, yet we’re all unique and have our own wishes.
Because the content is not adapted to their needs, 98 percent of the visitors leave commercial sites without buying. Yet business pump in 35.5 billion dollars in online marketing on a yearly basis to attract visitors to their site. “Imagine if you had a store where everybody walks in but nobody is buying anything – you would definitely fire the person whose running the shop. Then why do we accept this on the Internet?”
As you might have guessed, Sadigh had the answer to this shocking question. ‘Internet isn’t really born yet”, he said, it’s a new medium, sort of like a 2 or 3 month old fetus”. So because of its new character, we’re not yet focusing on things like customer experience. Well, actually we just started, since Sadigh confronted us with this phenomenon. He urges companies to decode the visitors’ intentions and personalize content according to the decoding. Just like Amazon already did in the early years with the personalized recommendations. It’s just that Sadigh wants us to take it to another level.
How can we do that? What can we personalize? Some suggestions made by Sadigh:
- Intentional targeting, display a specific product related info related to an engine search on that specific model. When somebody searches for family vacations in Italy, you don’t show just a classic Italian picture but go for the family-eating-at-a-big-table photo.
- Geographic targeting
- Event targeting, like showing product info related to a current TV campaign.
- Behavorial targeting, when people buy something on your site, they’re probably there for the third time. So keep track of their surfing behavior and adjust the product related info to that
To be honest with you, I find the numbers Sadigh mentioned shocking, but his suggestions don’t sound revolutionary to me. Maybe he sees them merely as a way to prepare companies for the REAL personalization, or the techniques needed aren’t available yet. To give it a positive twist at the end: things can just get better.
Written on 14th February 2008
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
