Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jimmy Duvall, Chief Product Officer of BigCommerce (Part 2)

Jimmy Duvall: It’s a very interesting time in the industry because you have a consolidation of the high-end players. Adobe acquired Magento, Salesforce owns what used to be DemandWare, and Oracle has its own enterprise suite.

All of that is pulling the price point way up. There are a lot of the hosting-oriented vendors operating down at the lower-end of the segment. That mid area is just so ripe right now. With Magento going through their transition to Magento 2, there’s a huge base of companies that are meaning to re-platform as well as the continual updraft of companies.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jimmy Duvall, Chief Product Officer of BigCommerce (Part 1)

Jimmy has been in the e-commerce platform space for a long time. In this interview, he discusses how BigCommerce is using its open platform to extend the platform’s capabilities.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to BigCommerce.

Jimmy Duvall: I’m the Chief Product Officer at BigCommerce. I’m celebrating my third anniversary at the company tomorrow. I’ve been in this space for a pretty significant amount of time.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The big problem with the Shopify stock is the threat from Amazon. It has had a very good run because the trend is towards massive growth in ecommerce. Shopify has benefited from that.

Furthermore, there’s been a massive shift from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce from a small merchant point of view. Instead of setting up a shop in downtown, people now setup e-commerce sites on Shopify. That has been the trend.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: From a macro perspective, what’s happening? Is the industry seeing a tremendous shift from Shopify to Amazon?

Ethan McAfee: Market share of Amazon has been growing. Right now, Amazon has over 50% online commerce. Amazon’s market share growth is coming from two eBay and Walmart. I think they’re also taking market share from individual brand websites. It used to be that you would go to fender.com to buy a Fender guitar. Amazon has basically become the default mall of the internet.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about other channels like eBay?

Ethan McAfee: We’ve always focused on the Amazon channel because Amazon is 12 times the size of Walmart and Jet combined. A lot of the products on eBay are oftentimes used or collectible products. It’s not as much new products.

The main issue with eBay is, it’s very difficult to scale compared to Amazon. The reason why that’s the case is that the amount of customer service and handling is much higher on eBay than it is on Amazon.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How big a role does the backend fulfillment play in this particular case study that we are discussing. Does Amazon fulfillment also kick in gear in this kind of a situation?

Ethan McAfee: To be successful in selling online or on Amazon, you really need to use what’s called Fulfillment by Amazon, which is Amazon’s fulfillment network. What that involves is a brand sending their products to multiple Amazon warehouses across the country.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Rafael Zakinov, CEO of Ruby Has (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is the cost implication of all this? What does it cost to deliver this level of service?

Rafael Zakinov: By working with a third-party logistics provider, there’s obviously a lot of advantage. Amazon has the advantage because they’re a goliath. A startup might not have that capital and scale to achieve multiple warehouses and conveyor systems. The cost is mitigated by pooling it together amongst other brands. It’s relatively inexpensive compared to if you try to do it yourself.

Sramana Mitra: Prime gives an incredible level of service with their unlimited free shipping based on subscription. Cost-wise, it’s formidable to compete with this. >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Rafael Zakinov, CEO of Ruby Has (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: If an e-commerce vendor is trying to choose between you and another third-party logistics vendor versus Amazon, what is the case for choosing you? What is Amazon lacking?

Rafael Zakinov: First of all, Amazon does not provide any customization to the process. They don’t allow you to brand the packaging. Everything must ship in an Amazon box. In 2017, they did away with the option of paying an extra dollar for the use of a brown box. Amazon no longer gives you that ability. They’re really trying to do away with that whole third-party fulfillment. They want you to sell on their platform. Other marketplaces like Walmart don’t want you to ship in an Amazon-branded box.

Sramana Mitra: It’s the branding that is the key to choose another logistics provider. >>>