Leading Ecommerce Stores Worldwide
Through the internet, e-commerce stores have blossomed, with many of them making billions. Jeff Bezos, the world's fifth richest man, is making a fortune from his e-commerce store, Amazon. Ecommerce stores have made shopping online easy. The following are the leading e-commerce stores worldwide.
1. Amazon
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and has grown tremendously to become the leading global retailer. Initially, the company started as a bookstore and expanded to sell other products like electronics, software and clothing. Amazon has also expanded to other countries like Japan, UK and India.
Amazon employs over 750,000 employees and attracts more than 2.5 billion organic visitors monthly. The company has managed to acquire other businesses. Amazon.com operates in the US while Amazon.co.uk operates in the UK.
Read also: Profitable business ideas in China.
2. Jingdong
Jingdong, also known as JD.com, began in 1998 and started online operations in 2004. You probably have never heard about it, but it is the second-largest online store worldwide. It mainly operates in Beijing and it's a significant rival to Alibaba.
The company mainly sells tech products like drones, robots, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). JD.com employs over 137,000 employees, while Alibaba employs only 65,000. Its revenues for 2018 surpassed those of Alibaba. The online retailer is collaborating with scientists to develop drones that can carry up to one metric ton for customer deliveries in rural areas.
3. Alibaba
Alibaba is the third leading global retailer that dominates the Chinese market. Jack Ma founded Alibaba Group Holdings in 1999 in Hangzhou, China. Jack Ma started from a humble beginning after he got rejected in over 30 job posts. He began to create websites for companies with his wife.
Jack Ma could not hire professionals in the initial stages resorting to hiring farmers as salespersons. However, it was a boost for those salespersons since they earned better salaries. Alibaba store is available in over 200 countries and it operates other businesses like AliExpress, Taobao.com, and AliPay, an online and mobile payment platform. The online store sells a wide variety of products.
4. eBay
eBay was founded in San Jose, California, in 1995 and operates majorly in the US. It was the first e-commerce store to establish a shopping cart. It is the fourth largest eCommerce store worldwide. The online store gets average traffic of 850 million unique visitors.
During the initial stages, it was a marketplace where people would sell their used products. Today it has grown to become a peer-to-peer marketplace that sells new products. eBay acquired other businesses like Flipkart that took over eBay India. It also acquired PayPal, an online payment processing platform, before it became a company on its own.
5. Rakuten, Inc
Rakuten, Inc is a Japanese eCommerce store founded in 1997. Apart from operating the largest online shopping in Japan, it also operates an online bank and credit cards. It owns the widely used messaging app, Viber.
Rakuten Inc and Wal-Mart partnered in Japan to provide grocery deliveries. You can purchase groceries online and have them delivered at your doorstep by Rakuten Inc. The company hosts more than 40,000 businesses, while it also bought BitNet, a company that processes Bitcoin payment. It also sponsors several football clubs, and among them, Barcelona.
6. Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is probably the world's oldest eCommerce store. It was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton in Rogers, Arkansas. Wal-Mart is operational in the US and 28 other countries. It is the largest private employer in 19 U.S states.
Wal-Mart has excellent innovations like the Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), that allows vendors to manage their products while they are in Wal-Mart's warehouses. It also developed Continuous Replenishment (CR), a feature that allows vendors to refill their stock when it reaches a re-ordering point.
