Tuniu Rising High on Luxury Travel

According to iResearch, the Chinese online travel market is expected to grow from $46 billion in 2014 to $75 billion in 2017. A more conservative estimate for the market was released by PhoCusWright, which estimates the market to be worth $30.3 billion by 2015 and that it will account for 24% of China’s travel bookings by 2015.

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TrueCar’s Growing Market Reach

A survey of more than 3,000 consumers conducted in February this year to understand car buyers’ behavior across the United States revealed the presence of a “trust gap” between car buyers and dealers. For instance, car buyers believe that dealers are getting significantly higher margins than what they actually get. According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, profits made by a dealer on a new-car sale have fallen from 5.5% in 2003 to 3.8% in 2013. Online negotiation and car buying and selling platformTrueCar (Nasdaq: TRUE) is hoping to minimize this gap in consumer perception by providing a more transparent solution.

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RetailMeNot Struggles to Deliver

It is not just online discount coupon site Coupons.com that is seeing their stock price fall below their list price. Market leader RetailMeNot (Nasdaq: SALE) is not faring any better—its stock is trading well below its list price from July. Recently announced disappointing results have not helped the stock either.

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JD.com Continues Investing in Infrastructure

In one of the most awaited e-commerce IPOs, Alibaba listed earlier this week to become the largest ever IPO in the world. But it is not just Alibaba that has led the recent Chinese IPO bandwagon. Earlier this year, Chinese B2C e-tailer JD.com had listed a successful IPO as well.

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GrubHub’s Successful IPO

According to a Euromonitor report, local independent restaurants account for 61% of all US restaurants. Within these small restaurants, takeout accounts for a big share of revenues—nearly $67 billion were spent on takeout by Americans in 2013.

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Coupons.com is Going on Discount

According to an eMarketer report published earlier this year, 55% of US Internet users aged 18 and above will redeem digital coupons at least once this year. The number of digital coupon users is expected to grow 8% this year. Within digital coupons, mobile coupons are rising sharply with more than 70% of US adult digital coupon users expected to redeem a digital coupon on a mobile device. The report predicts that number to grow to 83% by the year 2016.

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Borderfree’s International Growth Not Helping Its Stock Move

Analysts estimate that today nearly 20%-30% of the traffic to US e-commerce sites comes from international IP addresses. The growing importance of international consumers is forcing US-based companies to expand their e-commerce options to global locations. Companies are exploring options of international shipping along with the ability to transact in multiple currencies. Recently-listed Borderfree is helping retailers with these decisions.

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Is Gilt Groupe Ready for an IPO?

An eMarketer report released earlier this year estimates US retail sales to have recorded a 4% growth this year to $4.53 trillion. The researcher revealed that brick and mortar sales still amount to a major proportion of the retail sales in the country and contributed $4.23 trillion of total sales. E-commerce transactions grew 17% in 2013 to bring in $304 billion and are projected to grow to $491.5 billion by the year 2018 to command 9% of total retail sales in the country.

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E-Commerce Darling Zulily Grows Furiously Fast

Many analysts believe that flash sales sites are a passing fad. But, if one looks at players like Zulily and Gilt Groupe, that may not be true. By identifying a niche market space, addressing the target demographic and carefully selecting products to put on sale, both Zulily and Gilt Groupe have become the poster children for flash sales sites. >>>

MercadoLibre’s Rising Competition in Latin American E-Commerce

An eMarketer report released earlier this year estimates the business-to-consumer e-commerce sales in Latin America to grow 20% this year from $48.14 billion to $57.69 billion. The market is expected to grow to $74.5 billion by the year 2017, translating to a 12% annual growth over the period 2013 through 2017.

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