Visionary adieu – how Google is becoming Microsoft 2.0

Grafik:Carlos Luna
Graphic:Carlos Luna
What the operating system is for Microsoft, is the search engine for Google. But the concentration on a single focus brings its dangers. Bill Gates could have certainly have sung a song about it. I had that feeling that Google is slowly losing the “we can do everything!” status even before Google Helpouts was closed down. The concentration on search engine business seems to have been eliminating all innovation in other areas for years. Many ideas are approached half-heartedly and eventually dropped.

Is this misleading or is Google on their way to becoming a Microsoft 2.0? – Once trailblazers, now quiet observers with a focus on their core business. Comparison with the competition is obvious, for instance, Amazon or Facebook. Fire, Kindle, Echo – hardware from Amazon or soon the VR glasses Oculus Rift with a Facebook brand? It is not just the products and service, but the way they are handled before the financial breakthrough which makes Google different from the current competition.

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Among enemies? Amazon sells on Alibaba

Grafik:tmall.com
Graphic:tmall.com
While Amazon rules the e-commerce market in the western hemisphere with virtually no competition, the US American company still has some problems in the Asian market. Especially Amazon.cn doesn’t seem to be doing as well as Amazon expected. Online trade in China will grow more strongly in the next few years than in any other country: The Chinese are supposed to spend at least a trillion US dollars online in 2019. It’s not good for Amazon that Alibaba is already there as branch top dog, dominating multiple marketplaces in China.

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Infighting, IPOS, and take-over waves: how are traders and manufactures dealing with the consequences of digitalisation?

E-Commerce Monpoly
Graphic: Daniel Broche
As we noted last week, e-commerce is not enough. How did it get this far? On the one hand, it is the nature of the beast: e-commerce projects often begin with a need for an online shop and then meander into a row of follow-up or precursory projects, as unexpected problem-areas come up or the simple existence of an online shop does not solve problems already existing in the company. The reason for this is that e-commerce has long been a complex business, which requires interdisciplinary and interdepartmental supervision. And the challenges are growing.

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Colours, Magento and games: the Handelskraft highlights in January/February

Grafik:MIXTRIBE
Graphic:MIXTRIBE

The first few months of 2015 are already over. It is time for us to look back at what interested our readers the most. Magento made it into the top ten twice: We asked ourselves what will happen with the shop system after the eBay era and what will be changed with the next 2.0 version. Articles on book trade and WordPress online shops, as well as our 4Care case study also made the top ten!

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Net Find: Man Power for the Smart Phone Battery

Grafik: Wankband
Graphic: Wankband

With their hilarious marketing idea, PornHub has often shown that it can do more than just manage a platform for pornographic films. PornHub is now taking things a step further and want to mix things up in the wearables scene with the Wankband. It might even work. Take a look at how the Wankband operates: when your arm moves up and down, the armband saves energy. Smartphones and tablets can then be plugged in and charged via USB.

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Why the pressure to innovate is rising in e-commerce

Amazon Prime Air
Photo: Amazon Prime Air

Some trend topics and innovative services, like drone delivery, currently sound more like a PR gag than like real possibilities. Whether or not such innovations will establish themselves often hangs in the balance. There just aren’t any laws for such scenarios to follow.
But if the past few years have shown one thing, then it is the enormous speed with which hype can turn into expectation. At the very latest, everyone starts panicking when the competition has successfully implemented a new technology. The spiral of expectations goes on and on. On top of this come new technologies and innovative, agile startups threatening to overtake traders.

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Every few years: the e-commerce hype is over

Graphic:Brian Smithson
Graphic:Brian Smithson
It’s that time of the year again: “online trade is over,” according to the summary by Grundersyene.de, based on a study from VC Capnamic Ventures. The venture capitalists analysed the financing requests from 2014 and came to the conclusion that the number of e-commerce start-ups has significantly decreased. Why? Clearly every niche is already full and there isn’t any space for new companies. So this time it is the investors who are holding the eulogy.

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3 alternatives to creating a customer account

Grafik:Tim Reckmann
Graphic:Tim Reckmann
Conversion rates show how many visitors to an online shop actually become purchasers and is influenced by numerous factors. The wrong colour, a non-functional internal search, or poor customer support can send conversion rates into the cellar. But even when wares are already sitting in the shopping cart, the customer journey is by no means over. Apart from payment providers and the length of the checkout, compulsory registration is also a reason for potential customers to break-off their purchase, despite a full shopping cart. So what alternatives are there to the customer account?

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dotSource case study: a clearer view with 4Care thanks to responsive design and migration to Intershop 7

Lensbest Logo Selling glasses online is a complex business, and there is now serious competition among classic traders and pure players, even in this initially controversial business model. Occasion enough for 4Care, one of Europe’s leading omni-channel providers of contact lenses, care products, and classes, to do a general overhaul of their fleet.

The migration to Intershop 7.3, the implementation of a responsive design, as well as a design merger of Lensbest and their partner sites, were important project goals. 4Care found a strong partner in us for this project.

The optimisation of the product data structure and the connected import and staging processes, as well as creating a new system landscape for the operation of the platform was also part of the project. This was no exercise for beginners, but we managed to master this complex project with success:

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