Busy, busy week in the payments industry and we’ve got highlights for you. Vox looks at the fascinating success story of Amazon Prime and its impact on e-commerce. Wayfair’s 2019 Way Day event was another big sales success. We look into PPRO’s Almanac 2.0 of local payments preferences to help build cross-border B2B sales. New Proofpoint research shows Imposter email attacks on financial services companies grew 60%. MasterCard and Visa said they will reduce debit and credit card fees for tourists in the EU.
Fresh from its acquisition of Vyze, MasterCard remains on the hunt for other fintech buys. Whole Foods keeps upping the grocery home delivery ante with 13 new cities served. According to CEO Tim Cook, Apple Pay should reach 10 billion transactions this year. Then there’s Ollie’s, a $5 billion discount store sales juggernaut and not a digital sale in sight. Finally, the story of Lemonade, which keeps making fresh profits out of fintech insurance sales to millennials. Enjoy your weekend reading.
The making of Amazon Prime, the internet’s most successful and devastating membership program
It’s easy to forget now, but Amazon wasn’t always the king of online shopping. In the fall of 2004, Jeff Bezos’s company was still mostly selling just books and DVDs. That same year, Amazon was under siege from multiple sides. Some of its biggest competitors were brick-and-mortar chains like Best Buy, which was still in expansion mode at the time, with sales growing 17 percent annually. And during the holiday season, Amazon’s website suffered repeated outages, drawing the wrath of customers and the press alike. Read more…
Wayfair’s 2019 Way Day led the way to record sales
Wayfair’s April 2019 Way Day, recently completed, was an even bigger success according to Edison with larger sales than Black Friday and last year’s 2018 Way Day event. “Way Day 2019 saw increases in gross sales, orders, customers, and spend per order, compared to Way Day 2018,” Edison reported. Read more…
Local payments preferences critical to e-commerce success
When it comes to e-commerce and cross-border payments, it’s critical to consider the importance of local payment methods (LPM) and preferences. Payment specialist PPRO has released Payments Almanac 2.0, its latest analysis of global payments markets, e-commerce growth and local payment preferences. The Almanac has details on over 450 LPMs and insights for over 150 different countries. It shares detailed breakdowns of global markets and highlights emerging payment trends to watch around the globe. Read more…
Proofpoint research: Imposter email attacks on FinServ grew 60%
New research from cybersecurity firm Proofpoint shows that imposter email and email phishing attacks on global financial services companies grew 60% over last year. The FBI estimates that business email compromise (BEC) has cost organizations around the globe a potential $12.5 billion since the end of 2013. Proofpoint’s analysis of more than 160 billion emails and 100 attacks on financial services company during the past two years showed 56% saw more than 5 employees targeted by impostor attacks in Q4 2018. Read more…
Mastercard Will Remain on the Hunt for Acquisitions and Fintech Investments, CEO Says
Mastercard Inc. has been active on the mergers-and-acquisitions front lately, and that’s going to continue, according to company president and chief executive Ajay Banga. The acquisitions typically involve financial-technology firms in all corners of payments. Just two weeks ago, Mastercard announced that it had acquired Vyze Inc., the provider of a point-of-sale lending platform for merchants. That deal came on the heels of two other planned acquisitions – Ethoca Inc and cross-border business-to-business payments provider Transfast. Read more…
Online grocery shopping shakeup from Whole Foods
Amazon fired another shot over the bow of the grocery business with the addition of 13 new cities now able to get home delivery service from its Whole Foods subsidiary. Now available in 88 US cities, Prime members can shop through Prime Now for thousands of grocery items including fresh produce, meat and seafood, everyday staples and other locally-sourced items from a Whole Foods Market and get delivery in as little as an hour between the hours of 8 AM and 10 PM. Read more…
Mastercard and Visa agree to cut overseas card fees
Mastercard and Visa have both agreed to cut their fees for tourists using their cards in the EU, after a long-running battle with the European Commission. The credit card firms will now charge retailers around 40% less on non-EU credit and debit cards payments. The European Commission said the deal would lead to “lower prices for European retailers to do business”. Read more…
Apple Pay on Track to Hit 10 Billion Transactions in 2019
Boosted in part by transit systems and other merchants adopting contactless payments, the Apple Pay mobile-payments service had another quarter of record volume and is heading for a milestone this year, Apple Inc. chief executive Tim Cook said Tuesday “Apple Pay transaction volume more than doubled year-over-year, and we are on track to reach 10 billion transactions this calendar year,” Cook said on the iPhone maker’s quarterly conference call with analysts. Read more…
The Outlandish Story of Ollie’s: A $5 Billion Retail Empire That Sells Nothing Online (But Is Beating Amazon)
Ollie’s is very possibly the only company in America whose brick-and-mortar stores are not just surviving but thriving. Butler focuses exclusively on traditional retailing, selling not a thing online. Read that again: nothing sold online. Nonetheless, Ollie’s sales have doubled in four years. It moves more than $1 billion a year of low-priced goods from its large (30,000 square feet or so), no-frills stores. Read more…
First, Fire All the Brokers: How Lemonade, A Millennial-Loved Fintech Unicorn, Is Disrupting The Insurance Business
Using artificial intelligence, a mobile app, and other tech-centric methods, Lemonade founders Daniel Schreiber and Shai Wininger are turning the centuries-old business of property insurance into a Millennial-friendly consumer product. In 2018, its second full year offering renters and homeowners insurance, Lemonade took in $57 million in premium revenue from 425,000 customers, 75% of them under 35 and 90% of them buying such insurance for the first time. Read more…
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