Amazon sold close to $40bn of advertising last year - bigger than Prime, bigger than the entire global newspaper industry and probably more profitable than AWS. But is this really advertising, rent, or something else? And what does that mean for Google?
Read MoreFor some companies, revenue is a feature.
Read MoreThe Covid Rotation turns, and ecommerce penetration is back to the trend line. But which trend line, and which penetration?
Read MoreAmazon’s ad business is bigger than YouTube and more profitable than AWS. Shein is the biggest fast-fashion retailer in the US, with no stores. US pay TV subscribers have fallen by a third. Where do ad budgets go, where does rent go, and how many brands will there be?
Read MoreSometimes the centre of gravity in tech is very clear, but as we enter 2022 there are lots of areas where trillion dollar questions are wide open. These are the questions I wonder about today, from crypto to cars to fast fashion - there are others.
Read MoreShould we still be talking about online and offline retail, or about trucks versus boxes versus bikes?
Read MoreAmazon has scaled indefinitely by treating every product as an interchangeable packet, and by not caring what they are, only what they weigh. At a fundamental level, it doesn’t know what it sells. What would happen if it could change that?
Read MoreAs we come out of lockdown, UK ecommerce penetration is 50% higher than the USA. What does that do to retail, and to startups, if it sticks?
Read MoreWhen software eats the world, the questions that matter stop being software questions.
Read MoreConsumers spent $120bn on Shopify in 2020 - double the figure for 2019 and over 40% of Amazon’s competing business. What does that tell us about competing with Amazon? Problems that were already solved? And most of all, about brands and consumers going direct?
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