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Articles by: Marcia Kaplan

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Marcia Kaplan

Marcia Kaplan is a longtime contributor to Practical Ecommerce, addressing capital markets, global online trends, and more since 2011.

She is also a seasoned business writer and technology market research analyst, having written for trade magazines and newspapers, including CRN, Silicon Valley Business Journal, and Ziff Davis. Her consulting clients include Fortune 500 companies as well as startups

Marcia holds an M.B.A. from San Jose State University in California and a B.A. in sociology from Binghamton University in New York.

Finance
Raising Funds Becomes Easier with New SEC Rules

February 11, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has modified rules that affect how companies can raise capital via direct listings and equity crowdfunding. Previously, in a direct listing, a company could sell existing shares (from employees and private investors) on public stock exchanges.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Everything to Know about Amazon Marketplace Sellers

January 28, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Amazon marketplace sellers are diverse, spanning many countries, age groups, and reasons for participating. What follows is a summary of demographic and psychographic data about sellers.
Business
2020 Holiday Sales Wrap-up

January 14, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Challenged by a pandemic and an unstable economy, online and brick-and-mortar retailers scrambled to salvage the 2020 holiday shopping season. Most merchants started offering discounts much earlier than in previous years to accommodate the changed shopping dynamics. This is my third consecutive holiday sales wrap-up, following installments in 2018 and 2019.
Cross-border Selling
China Is Dominating Ecommerce

January 3, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

In China, a drab gray Mao suit was once the required attire for men and women. No longer. The country is poised to become the largest luxury apparel market worldwide by 2025. With a 2020 population of 1.4 billion and a flourishing middle class with an appetite for foreign luxury goods, China is dominating ecommerce.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Marketplace Sellers Are Attractive Acquisition Targets

December 20, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Buyouts of Amazon marketplace sellers are booming. Aggregators are scooping up successful small sellers and creating large and lucrative portfolio companies. The acquisitions are mostly fueled by angel, venture capital, and private equity funding.
Business
Sales Report: 2020 Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday

December 2, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

The challenges of this unique holiday shopping season have made omnichannel commerce a necessity. With several states closing non-essential brick-and-mortar stores and others severely limiting the number of shoppers allowed inside, consumers embraced online shopping with gusto during Cyber Week — Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday — with a big surge in mobile ordering.
Cross-border Selling
Alibaba’s 2020 Singles Day Breaks Record, Attracts Luxury Brands

November 15, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Alibaba's Singles Day is typically a 24-hour event on Nov. 11. This year, however, Singles Day ran for nearly two weeks, from Nov. 1 through Nov. 11. Gross merchandise volume during that period, according to Alibaba, was $74.1 billion. This compares with $38 billion in a 24-hour period on 11.11 in 2019.
Finance
SPACs: 2020’s Most Popular Method of Going Public

November 3, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

The traditional IPO has mostly been the domain of large, high-profile companies that had received hundreds of millions in venture capital over a period of years. This year, however, traditional IPOs have been overtaken by a method that has been around for roughly 20 years but has gained traction only in the past two.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Winners on Prime Day 2020? Non-Amazon Sites

October 19, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Amazon’s delayed 2020 Prime Day event ran for two days — October 13 and 14 — as it did last year. While it does not release total revenue for Prime Day, Amazon touted in 2019 that Prime Day sales exceeded the prior year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined. This year Amazon did not make such a claim.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Can Walmart+ Compete with Amazon Prime?

October 11, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Walmart launched its premium subscription Walmart+ on September 15. The service offers unlimited free deliveries on orders over $35, up to a five-cent per gallon discount on gas at Walmart and Murphy fuel stations (Sam’s Club stations will be added shortly), and scan-and-go purchasing at any of its physical stores.
Local Business
Mall Owners Become Retailers Amidst the Pandemic

September 29, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent store closures have brought new momentum to the decline of brick-and-mortar retailing, especially malls. More than 50 percent of the department stores that anchor malls in the U.S. will permanently close by the end of 2021, according to real estate investment firm Green Street Advisors.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Holiday Shipping Surcharges Are Coming

September 10, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Selling during the upcoming holiday shopping season will not be normal. For the first time in its history, the United States Postal Service is imposing a holiday surcharge on commercial packages. The price increases will begin on October 18 and run through December 27, 2020, and range from $0.24 to $1.50 per package.
Business
Ecommerce in Q2 Takes a (Much) Bigger Share of Total Retail Market

August 27, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that ecommerce as a percent of all retail sales jumped from 11.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020 to 16.1 percent in the second quarter, representing a 31.8 percent increase to $211.5 billion. The data also shows a 44.5 percent bump from the second quarter of 2019, adjusted for seasonal variations.
Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in France: Loyalty to Domestic Sellers

August 13, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

France has the third-largest population in Europe with 65.3 million residents and the second-largest ecommerce market. French consumers are loyal to their national brands and often shun cross-border ecommerce. Roughly 60 percent of French shoppers make only domestic purchases.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon, with Demand Surging, Transitions FBA

July 30, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Amazon is experiencing a dilemma that other ecommerce companies wish they had: a demand that exceeds supply chain infrastructure. In a note in mid-July, Amazon told sellers using Fulfillment by ...
Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in Germany: Opportunity Amidst a Pandemic

July 15, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Germany hosts Europe’s biggest economy and, with 83.7 million people, its second-largest population after Russia. It is the fifth-largest ecommerce market in the world and the second-largest in Europe, behind the U.K. Eighty-five percent of the population has Internet access. Germany represents a good opportunity for online sales.
Business
Ecommerce Briefs: Walmart and Shopify, Physical Store Outlook, Instagram

June 25, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

“Ecommerce Briefs” is my occasional series on news and developments that impact online merchants. In this installment, I’ll report on Walmart's partnership with Shopify, the struggles of brick-and-mortar retailers, and Instagram's ecommerce efforts.
Cross-border Selling
Mexico’s Ecommerce Matures

June 11, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

When I last addressed Mexican ecommerce, in 2014, citizens distrusted online purchasing, relied on simple payment methods, and did not buy from foreign websites. In 2020, much is unchanged. A large percentage of Mexicans still do not have bank accounts or credit cards.
Cross-border Selling
Japan Is an Enticing Market for Cross-border Ecommerce

May 28, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Japan is the world’s third-largest ecommerce market following China and the United States. However, it is often overlooked by foreign online merchants because of an unusually low cross-border purchase rate and a somewhat insular approach to online shopping.
Local Business
Bankruptcies, Layoffs Deplete the Retail Industry

May 14, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

At the beginning of 2020 several brick-and-mortar chain retailers were struggling, trying to restructure debt or find new lenders while dealing with plummeting revenues. The Covid-19 pandemic has closed stores and effectively made those efforts pointless.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amid Covid-19, Amazon’s Q1 2020 Earnings Confirm Ecommerce Dominance

May 7, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

On April 30 Amazon announced its 2020 first-quarter results. As anticipated, its total earnings for the three months ended March 31 were exceptionally strong — about $33 million an hour in sales.
Finance
Alternative Funding Sources for the Covid-19 Crisis

May 1, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

The Paycheck Protection Program has mostly not reached the intended beneficiaries. There is not enough money, and loans to date have often gone to large businesses. What follows are some options for small businesses.
Finance
Impact of Covid-19 on 2020 Startup Investments, IPOs

April 16, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Initial public offerings underperformed in the last half of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. That set the stage for an undesirable climate. Then came Covid-19.
Finance
Will ‘Irrational’ Startup Valuations Continue?

March 30, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, IPOs for many start-ups with supposedly bright futures crashed when they entered the public market. Some didn’t even make it that far, canceling in 2019 their public offerings. A disturbing gap between the private and public valuations of venture-capital-funded start-ups has emerged. This divergence will likely continue as many start-ups are remaining private for longer periods of time.
Shipping & Fulfillment
5 On-demand Warehousing, Fulfillment Providers

March 12, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

On-demand warehousing and fulfillment providers act as middlemen — a kind of Airbnb for logistics. Merchants search on a provider's platform for available warehouse space in the location they want. It's one way for ecommerce sellers to achieve faster delivery.
Business
Reset in the Direct-to-consumer Market

February 27, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Direct-to-consumer brands were stars from 2018 through mid-2019. The storyline was that they were flawlessly executing while brick-and-mortar retailers were flailing. Now weaknesses in the DTC arena are emerging.
Cross-border Selling
Coronavirus Disrupting the Global Economy, Including Ecommerce

February 13, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

When the coronavirus outbreak emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Chinese authorities asserted that it was localized, albeit in an area with a large population and many manufacturing plants. Then the virus spread to other areas of China.
Amazon & Marketplaces
New U.S. Regulations on Counterfeit Goods Target Marketplaces

January 30, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

On January 24, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a report signaling the federal government’s intention to crack down on ecommerce sales of counterfeit goods. In the report, the federal government all but declares that ecommerce is a threat to national security.
Finance
2019 Holiday Sales Wrap-up

January 16, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

The 2019 holiday shopping season exhibited mixed results, with online revenues growing substantially but brick-and-mortar sales showing meager or negative growth. The entire holiday season — November 1 through December 31 — saw a modest total increase in overall revenues.
Local Business
Physical Store Closures Hit a New High in 2019

December 26, 2019 • Marcia Kaplan

2019 was not a good year for brick-and-mortar stores. As of November 1, U.S. retail store closures reached 9,302, a 59 percent increase over 2018 according to Coresight Research. The biggest contributor was Payless ShoeSource, which declared bankruptcy and closed all of its 2,100 stores.

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