Amazon Vs. eBay

eBay has always beaten Amazon when it comes to traffic. However, for the holiday season in December Amazon had won over eBay for the first time ever.

59,624,000 Americans clicked to Amazon compared to 59,374,000 who clicked into eBay.

B2C E-Commerce in Asia-Pacific

The Business to Consumer ecommerce in Asia Pacific region shall grow at 23.11 percent annually. The projected volume by 2011 is $168.7 billion. Japan and South Korea are the top two countries in terms of the ecommerce value. By 2011, India and China shall have substantial chunks in the pie.

How Big is the Chinese Video Sharing market

Chinese video sharing market is small, yet growing. Youku.com is one of the largest and raised $40 million in venture fund.

Revenue from Chinese Video Sharing Web Traffic : $5.5 million ($40 million Yuan)
Growth by 2009 : $25 million (approx.)

Growth of B2B Online Advertising in US

In 2006, the online spending of B2B advertising was $2.8 Billion. That was 16.6% of the total spending online. It grew to $3.5 Billion in 2007. The projected value of B2B Online Advertising (the share in total online advertising in brackets) are

2008 : $4.4 billion (16%)
2009 : $5.3 billion (16.3%)
2010 : $6.4 billion (17.1%)
2011 : $8.0 billion (19.0%)

How rampant is IP violation?

Legally filling up an iPod shall cost upto $40,000. This has been the reason of the rampant violation of IP. According to Digital Music News, over 36.4 percent of the world’s computers have Limewire installed on them. Usage of BitTorrent is lesser, but it consumes more bandwidth since most downloads using BT are movies.

Residual Impact of iPhones and iPods on Apple’s Revenue

This post is not about the revenue from sales of iPods and iPhones. It is about the sale of songs, movies and TV Shows through iTunes.

5 Million iPhones are expected to be sold by the end of 2007
25 Million is the iPod sale for the current quarter
This gives a total of 5-10 million widescreen devices that provide channel for revenue through sale of digital content through iTunes

iTunes has rights to
6 million songs
500 movies
550 television shows

This has resulted in sales of three billion songs, two million movies and hundred million television shows.

DRM-free Music: Apple vs. Amazon

Amazon is currently winning over Apple.

Amazon
Collections from
Warner Music Group ( Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Green Day)
EMI
Universal
and 33,000 independent labels

The total catalog is of about 2.9 million songs. Amazon lets tracks to be priced variably

Apple iTunes
DRM-free music only from EMI. Catalog is of about 6 million tracks and they are priced at fixed rate (99 cents a track).

Rent Videos through iTunes

The deal is between Apple and 20th Century Fox. This shall be announced formally on Jan 14.

Possible video rental charge :$2.99 for 30 days.

What’s most popular at Amazon this season?

62.5 items were ordered on Amazon every second on December 10. The best sellers at Amazon from November 15 to December 19 are

Toys : Jakks EyeClops Bionic Eye, IlluStory Make Your Own Story Kit and Spinmaster Air Hogs Havoc Heli

Videogames : Nintendo Wii, “Super Mario Galaxy” and “Call of Duty 4.”

DVD : “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” “Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

Books : “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, “The Dangerous Book for Boys” by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden and “I Am America (And So Can You)” by Stephen Colbert

Music : “Noel” by Josh Groban, “Raising Sand” by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and “As I Am” by Alicia Keys

Consumer Electronics : Garmin GPS, Canon PowerShot digital Elph cameras and Samsung LCD HDTVs.

PC : Apple MacBook, Nokia Internet Tablet PC and HP Pavilion Entertainment Notebook PC.

Home Improvement : Black & Decker auto wrench, Black & Decker Gecko grip level and Leatherman Micra multitool

Watches : Timex heart rate monitor watch, LEGO Kids’ Star Wars Darth Vader watch and Skagen women’s Silver Dial mesh bracelet watch

Web Customers most satisfied with Retail Firms

Retail firms topped the rankings for customer respect index, measured to see the customer service levels on the web. Overstock.com was ranked Number 1. Now why retail?

83% of customers feel they received a helpful response for their inquiries (Industry average : 60%)
65% of email inquiries were responded within a day (Industry average : 57%)
21% felt the Online Chat service was a nice option (Industry average : 12%)