Weekly eCommerce Reading List: Week of January 9

Boohoo a Step Closer to Acquiring Nasty Gal’s Assets for $20M

Source: TechCrunch

Boohoo, the British online fashion retailer, is inching closer to acquiring the brand and customer database of US fashion retailer and eCommerce giant Nasty Gal, whom filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy last November. Nasty Gal, in its recent update to investors writes that on December 28, 2016, they entered an asset purchase agreement with boohoo. The British retailer is bidding $20 million for the Nasty Gal brand name and customer database. However, the closing date for additional bids is set for February 2, giving others just over 2 weeks to place a higher or more favorable bid. If no other bids occur, boohoo will be subject to a final approval by US courts which is expected to happen on or around February 8. boohoo which was founded in 2006, the same year as Nasty Gal, says that the purchase of the Nasty Gal brand would be “an ideal next step in inspiring an ever-growing range of young customers internationally”.

Trump Meets With CEO of China’s Biggest eCommerce Company, Alibaba

Source: TechVibes

Earlier this week, U.S president elect Donald Trump met with Jack Ma, the executive chairman of Chinese-based eCommerce leader Alibaba. The meeting centered around the creation of jobs in the U.S. Trump stated that he and Ma discussed a deal that would create over 1 million new jobs in the U.S over the course of five years that would see small businesses in America sell to Asia. Ma told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan “We’re focused on small business.” Further, Ma’s company release this statement “Alibaba will create 1 million U.S. jobs by enabling 1 million American small businesses and farmers to sell American goods to China and Asian consumers on the Alibaba platform.” The eCommerce platform acts very closely in comparison to Ebay or Etsy. Third-party sellers can create online mirco-shops. According to Ma, Alibaba has been keen to enter into the US market for quite some time. What does Trump this of Ma? Well, Trump called Ma a great entrepreneur who loves the US.

Holiday Online Sales for Hudson’s Bay Up 14% Physical Stores Keep Declining

Source: Internet Retailer

The long time Canadian department store that also owns Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, has been seeing a year over year increase in online sales of 21.7%. They also reported that their eCommerce store increased its holiday sales this year by 14.7%. However, their physical locations have been seeing a year over year sales decrease. “While we were pleased with our performance at Hudson’s Bay in Canada, the retail environment has remained challenging in the U.S. and Europe,” HBC CEO Jerry Storch said in a statement. Storch suspects the decline of the euro against the Canadian, along with heavy discounts has hurt sales coming from Europe. HBC now expects sales of C$14.4 billion during this fiscal year which is down from the original estimate of C$14.6 billion.

Amazon Canada Fined $1 Million For Misleading Pricing

Source: Retail-Insider

Could Amazon have been using dark user experience techniques to trick customers into thinking they were getting a deal? It certainly seems to be the case as Amazon Canada has been given a $1 million fine by Canada’s Competition Bureau over misleading prices. After some investigation by the Bureau, they found that Amazon’s past pricing practices compared its prices to a regular “list price” which insinuated a savings for consumers. The Bureau found that Amazon didn’t verify that the list prices provided by its suppliers were accurate. A statement from the Bureau reads “These claims created the impression that prices for items offered on http://www.Amazon.ca were lower than prevailing market prices…”The investigation was focused on pricing practices between May 2014 and May 2016.