Weekly eCommerce Reading List: Jan 2-6

We're only a week into January and the acquisitions are already in full force. This week in our eCommerce reading list Wal-Mart purchases shoebuy.com for $70 Million to support jet.com in their footwear and apparel offerings. Amazon has 45,000 robots their using in their fulfillment centers. Amazon expands its eCommerce presence in India by launching a marketplace, "Sell As Individual", allowing users to sell used goods. TechFest Toronto is back and promises to be bigger and better than ever, and Magento eCommerce raises $250 Million from a Chinese investment firm.

Wal-Mart buys ShoeBuy For $70 Million to Support Jet.com

Source: Internet Retailer

Earlier this week Wal-Mart announced it bought online shoe and apparel retailer ShoeBuy.com for $70 million in order to expand Jet.com’s apparel and footwear selection. The deal comes 11 months after Wal-Mart acquired home furnishings eCommerce retailer, Hayneedle, to expand it's indoor and outdoor home furnishing products. Along with the vast product selection, Wal-Mart is excited to acquire the talent and brand at ShoeBuy. Wal-Mart stated “ShoeBuy CEO Mike Sorabella, his executive team, and ShoeBuy’s 200-plus employees will continue to be based in Boston and will join our e-commerce organization,” In addition the ShoeBuy online store will remain in operation and maintain its brand name as was stated in the deal.

How Many Robots Does Amazon Have? 45,000

Source: TechVibes

Yep, you read that right, 45,000 robots, which the large eCommerce company uses across 20 of its fulfillment centers, up from 50% last year. However, the bots aren’t taking over yet. Amazon still employs over 230,000 human workers–for now. Amazon has stated that the robots are simply an experiment and they continue to test and optimize how humans and robots can work together. For example, some centers have more bots than humans, while others have more humans than bots. It will be interesting to see where Amazon takes this in the next year as they continue to work on AI, drone delivery and self serve grocery stores.

Amazon's Next Move In India: 'Sell As Individual' To Expand E-Commerce

Source: Forbes

India is fast becoming a region of interest to eCommerce giants such as Amazon. They recently released a pilot “Sell As Individual” program in Bangalore, India which enables users to sell used goods on it's platform. Amazon will handle the packaging and delivery of the product at a small cost. It’s a smart play by Amazon as the used goods market is growing fast in India where eBay, Quikr and OLX have already been taking advantage of the market potential, which some say will be valued at $25 million by 2020. Unlike OLX whom operates their business in India as a classified platform for used goods, Amazon will be following a marketplace model, again, assisting with packaging and delivery, which Forbes believes will attract more potential users to Amazon as it takes the barrier and hassle away from having to deliver the items once they’ve been sold.

Techfest is Returning to Toronto and It’s Going to Be Bigger and Better Than Ever

Source: TechVibes

Techfest Toronto, happening January 19, is not your average recruiting event. Where else can you go to find a job where tech companies from all over are pitching a crowd of potential employees on why they’re the best employer in the room. The event will host a plethora of tech companies such as Achievers, Axonify, BioConnect, BrainStation, Capital One Canada, Clio, EventMobi, Konrad Group, LoyaltyOne, Precima, StackAdapt, Symplicity Intersect, TELUS Digital, and Thomson Reuters. To give you an idea of how big the event is, Techfest is apparently expecting over 1,000 attendees at Steam Whistle Brewing rivaling for one of 300 career opportunities.

Magento eCommerce Raises $250 Million from a Chinese Investment Firm

Source: Internet Retailer

eCommerce platform provider Magento has raised $250 million from Chinese investment firm Hillhouse Capital in order to fund Magento’s global expansion, product development, and future acquisitions. It addition, the money will go to Magento’s worldwide sales expansion, as well as providing marketing and client support capabilities. Magento powers an impressive 250,000 eCommerce businesses worldwide. Of those, according to Magento, are 246,000 merchants using the Magento 1.0 free Community edition and 6,600 merchants paying for the Magento 1.0 Enterprise edition, as well as 7,000 merchants that use both the Community and Enterprise editions of Magento 2.0 combined. Magento continues to evolve their product with new additions to the platform. In August of 2016, Magento acquired eCommerce analytics platform RJMetrics and rebranded it to Magento Analytics.