Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jimmy Duvall, Chief Product Officer of BigCommerce (Part 1)

Jimmy has been in the e-commerce platform space for a long time. In this interview, he discusses how BigCommerce is using its open platform to extend the platform’s capabilities.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to BigCommerce.

Jimmy Duvall: I’m the Chief Product Officer at BigCommerce. I’m celebrating my third anniversary at the company tomorrow. I’ve been in this space for a pretty significant amount of time.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The big problem with the Shopify stock is the threat from Amazon. It has had a very good run because the trend is towards massive growth in ecommerce. Shopify has benefited from that.

Furthermore, there’s been a massive shift from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce from a small merchant point of view. Instead of setting up a shop in downtown, people now setup e-commerce sites on Shopify. That has been the trend.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: From a macro perspective, what’s happening? Is the industry seeing a tremendous shift from Shopify to Amazon?

Ethan McAfee: Market share of Amazon has been growing. Right now, Amazon has over 50% online commerce. Amazon’s market share growth is coming from two eBay and Walmart. I think they’re also taking market share from individual brand websites. It used to be that you would go to fender.com to buy a Fender guitar. Amazon has basically become the default mall of the internet.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about other channels like eBay?

Ethan McAfee: We’ve always focused on the Amazon channel because Amazon is 12 times the size of Walmart and Jet combined. A lot of the products on eBay are oftentimes used or collectible products. It’s not as much new products.

The main issue with eBay is, it’s very difficult to scale compared to Amazon. The reason why that’s the case is that the amount of customer service and handling is much higher on eBay than it is on Amazon.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How big a role does the backend fulfillment play in this particular case study that we are discussing. Does Amazon fulfillment also kick in gear in this kind of a situation?

Ethan McAfee: To be successful in selling online or on Amazon, you really need to use what’s called Fulfillment by Amazon, which is Amazon’s fulfillment network. What that involves is a brand sending their products to multiple Amazon warehouses across the country.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Ethan McAfee, CEO of Amify (Part 1)

E-commerce strategy for small merchants is becoming quite complicated with Amazon becoming a giant player in the space. This interview cuts through a lot of that complexity.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Amify.

Ethan McAfee: I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Amify. We help brands maximize their opportunity on the Amazon platform.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Drura Parrish, President of Xometry (Part 6)

Drura Parrish: In manufacturing, margins are spread across a lot of players. In between all those players, there’re different collection fees at every point. On one hand for manufacturing, you’ve got systems for both data and protocols and machines. On the other hand, you have financial systems that still aren’t concrete.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Drura Parrish, President of Xometry (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How do engineers and designers find you or how do you find engineers and designers to bring on to your platform?

Drura Parrish: Mostly through traditional channels. We really care about our customers, but we’re out talking a lot. This is something that all of us at Xometry deeply believe in. We want to help speed up innovation, centers of profitability, growth, and entrepreneurship, and increase employment.