How eCommerce is becoming a key part of publishers’ emerging revenue strategies

Current events and an accelerated consumer shift to ecommerce are fueling Amazon’s growth in a highly competitive market. As consumers turned to online stores (and Amazon in particular) for their everyday essentials during the COVID-19 pandemic, brands and retailers followed with a greater ecommerce presence and competition for shoppers’ dollars. A... See more

Any enterprising creator can build a business as a curator of products, monetizing her influence. Savvy businesses underpin this new economy. Flagship, one of my portfolio companies at Daybreak, allows anyone with a community to launch their own boutique storefront that showcases their favorite products. They earn ~20% of sales in exchange for dire... See more

This chart also gets to the heart of the challenges of being a content publisher: publishing content is expensive, requiring a significant investment in people (journalists, videographers, artists, etc.) or a significant payout to content creators. This leads to lower margins for content publishers relative to content platforms. The New York Times ... See more

The difference in margin between e-commerce and advertising has become a much bigger story than Amazon: everyone from Uber to Walmart to Instacart is pushing into ‘merchant media’, and hiring at scale: