E-Commerce and the luxury goods sector Read in yesterday’s FT about Armani launching a Chinese E-Commerce site . That kind of sums up the current story on the global luxury goods sector today : China + the Internet ! Interesting to see how e-com is catching on with a sector for which both the physical product and store have always been a key component . The report said that online sales will contribute 5% of total luxury goods sales in 2011. I think this trend at least in some ways will challenge some long standing assumptions / received wisdom about what really constitutes the appeal of these goods in terms of exclusivity , pricing , etc. As also bring to the fore a very basic tenet we may tend to forget sometimes : irrespective of the selling plank (say , exclusivity versus price) , you go where the sale is.
A few months ago , The Economist carried another interesting piece on e-commerce becoming more – what else ! – Social. (Read here)
Google A couple of posts ago (read here) i touched upon Google expanding into more and more areas of our lives. In the last couple of days , we read about (a) its investment into the O3b Networks satellite venture - a $1.2 Bn project including $ 410 mn in equity from a group of companies led by SES and including HSBC , Liberty Global and Google which aims to provide internet access by satellite to 150 developing countries through wholesale deals with telcos / providers - (b) and then about Google Translate getting into patent application services free of cost for the European Patent Office . Both are perfect fits. Over and above direct financial returns on the O3b investment itself is the bigger picture – higher the internet penetration , more the reach of Google. Then , from the EPO deal will come experience and the physical volume required to hone and improve the translation product. No such thing as free lunch after all !
UAE Peoplemeter Project This one is going ahead then , is it? (Read here ) A welcome bit of news but one will wait to eat the pudding first ! I see that still no dates are mentioned. And of course its still status quo on the parallel (and more important) Project Illumination project for KSA. Oh , waiting for the day when we cynics will be made to feel foolish !
In the attached Ballpark 8 file : top e-commerce sites by base and updated nos for Amazon and Google
Cheers 
