Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Rafael Zakinov, CEO of Ruby Has (Part 1)

Amazon is setting the bar very high for e-commerce merchants in terms of delivery. Read how the industry is responding.

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

Rafael Zakinov: I’m the Founder and CEO of Ruby Has Fulfillment. We’re an e-commerce-focused fulfillment company. We’re based out of Long Island, New York. We have locations throughout the United States servicing both coasts. We have come to be a real brand name amongst emerging B2C brands.

Sramana Mitra: What scale are you at? How many customers are using you? What size customers are you particularly suited to? >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: TrueCommerce CEO, Ross Elliott (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What are the broad trends that you see in your network?

Ross Elliott: The biggest single trend is, we see people beginning to recognize that they need to distribute their product both through traditional channels and through emerging channels. The overwhelming scenario is to go through more than one channel. Oftentimes, you’ll find an industrial manufacturer that sells only through distribution. That’s how it’s been done.

Consequently, that’s the way they continue to do it. Now, they’re beginning to think about selling their product either with direct to consumer, through Amazon, or other means to get the product out. How do I tie everything in so that I’m not intermediating the guys that have been with me >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: TrueCommerce CEO, Ross Elliott (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What sectors are you big in? What sectors are adopting your methodology?

Ross Elliott: If I showed you the chart, you would say we are very cross-market. If you narrow it down, you’d find that the largest single group of customers on our business are in the industrial business. These are people that sell electrical supplies, plumbing equipment, heating, and air-conditioning.

We’ve got two types of the manufacturer community. We’ve got 10 or 12 of the top 25 electrical manufacturers globally. The second community would be for things like consumer-packaged goods. These are people like Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble. Then we >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: You may have read my article on this subject especially in the context of fashion. I did the first e-commerce in fashion with exactly this premise – that it needs to be a personalized store. You have to use technology in the backend, and it’s a very expensive technology to build.

Daniel Gulati: I think the point, is we’re moving away from gut and more towards more of these analytical techniques. On the consumer side, there are some interesting apps that provide deep recommendations where you get to know the consumer. They go through and they actually have many product attributes for each SKU that they carry.

If I put what I know about you together with deep product attribution, can I give you the best recommendation that you will get? >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The part of retail that I find interesting is the niche. Let’s take fashion. I don’t wear big designers as much anymore. I also shop a lot when we’re traveling in esoteric designers that don’t have big footprints. These kinds of things are not accessible.

If there’s a small retailer that assembles and really well merchandises a group of designers and a group of products that are special and interesting, that kind of curation has tremendous value. It’s a small market. This is a very esoteric market. >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I’ve thought about this quite a lot. My observation is that you have to have private-labeled brands to compete with Amazon at this point. In whatever category that you’re working in, you need a product that you can differentiate with.

You can’t really differentiate on the basis of other people’s products that easily unless you get some sort of an exclusivity from other designers or other product conceptualizers. The user experience is part of that differentiation. There are a lot of mattress brands right now. >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 3)

Daniel Gulati: What’s changed with Amazon is, historically, you used to be able to red-line categories as Amazon-proof. Amazon is an intent-based environment and doesn’t really do well on discovery. They’re not going to get fashion, the inspiration, and emotional connection of buying a $300 dress online. On the grocery front, Amazon doesn’t have a fresh supply chain.

This idea of being Amazon-proof is fading away. Specifically within fashion, Amazon has a bunch of leading direct to consumer fashion brands now. We’re past this world where you can categorically say that Amazon is not going to enter my >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is there a counterpart of yours on the enterprise side who also deals with seed stage investments in the B2B businesses?

Daniel Gulati: There are two relevant streams there. We have a sister fund that we are an LP in. They lead the best B2B investments on the East Coast. One of my colleagues focuses on enterprise and frontier tech based out of New York.

Sramana Mitra: In Silicon Valley, you don’t have an enterprise investor in the seed stage? >>>