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US-based online marketplace Zulily has introduced a competitor price tool to its platform. The tool will allow online shoppers to compare the prices of Zulily’s products with those of colossal retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. Zulily has stated that they integrated the tool as 59% of online shoppers are doing more comparison shopping, and they believe that they offer the best deals in products such as clothing and lifestyle items.

J&P Comments

With consumers being able to easily compare prices between platforms, the price comparison tool will definitely give retailers such as Zulily an advantage over online giants such as Amazon, and this could turn Zulily into a potential competitor.

Following the launch of Amazon Prime in Brazil in September, the demand for Amazon’s services has grown in the country and Amazon is using this opportunity to expand further into the Brazilian market. The E-commerce giant has added Brazilian Portuguese support to its virtual assistant Alexa, and Amazon Echo will be available to purchase in the country from November. In addition to these changes, the company has also established in-house fulfilment and a delivery network in Brazil.

J&P Comments

As virtual assistants are growing rapidly in Brazil, the introduction of Brazilian Portuguese to Alexa is promising in terms of the expansion opportunities it will offer for Amazon. However, Amazon is not the only company with a virtual assistant that supports Brazilian Portuguese – Google Assistant is also available in the country in this language as well as Microsoft’s Cortana. This may make the competition tougher for Amazon.

Amazon has launched a local online marketplace in the city-state of Singapore, “Amazon.sg”, two years after their Prime Now delivery service was introduced there. Amazon promises that on the new site “millions of products” will be available to Singaporeans including books, consumer electronics and products for the home. The new marketplace offers consumers free 2-3 day delivery on orders above S$40, and those who pay an extra S$2.99 can receive their order in one day.

J&P Comments

Amazon’s new marketplace will help the American giant to get ahead of its E-commerce rivals in Singapore –the top online marketplaces in the city-state include Qoo10, Lazada and Shopee.

International courier DHL has confirmed that they have ended their delivery service for ‘Amazon Fresh’ in Germany. This is due to the fact that there has been little demand for being able to order fresh food online, and ‘Amazon Fresh’ has been growing at a very slow rate since its launch in 2007. A DHL spokeswoman has said “The market for online ordered fresh food has been far behind expectations to date. Due to this reason, we have significantly reduced our activities in this area.”

J&P Comments

​DHL is not the only logistics service that has recently cut ties with Amazon – J&P reported earlier this month that FedEx has terminated its shipping contract with the E-commerce giant and will no longer carry out ground deliveries for Amazon in the US. This is due to the fact Amazon is expanding its own independent delivery network, and logistics providers may feel threatened by this.

The time-scale for parcels to be transported from Sweden to Finland is 5.6 days, and almost two of those days (1.8) are spent in Finland once the parcel has crossed the border. Cross-border purchases made by Finns on Swedish online stores are becoming popular, as studies show that 21% of Finn shoppers purchased their shopping at a Swedish online store.

J&P Comments

​Finland is one of the top countries that Finns like to purchase from online, despite the 5.6 transportation time. However, If you reside in Sweden and sell goods online in Finland, you could use a storage fulfilment centre located in Sweden or somewhere nearby to help reduce transportation time. Another thing to consider when trading in Finland is the four popular e-commerce payments: debit/credit cards, direct payment via bank, invoice and PayPal.