U.S. retail online sales increased 20% year-on-year in April, and Amazon updated its logistics requirements for small and light commodities

U.S. retail online sales grew 20% year-on-year in April

It is reported that online sales in the United States increased by 20% year-on-year in April and increased by 95% compared with April 2019.

A Mastercard spokesperson said the increase in retail sales was attributed to government consumer subsidies, as well as warmer weather and nationwide reopenings, which have boosted purchasing demand. Steve Sadove, a senior advisor to Mastercard and former CEO of Saks, said: "The growth in retail sales this month highlights the urgent consumer demand in the United States. Industries that were depressed in 2020, such as department stores, jewelry stores and the hotel industry, are beginning to be reborn."

Amazon updates Small and Light program requirements

It is understood that starting from June 1, 2021, if the Amazon barcode or the total number of available items is on the outside of the packaging, products of the same ASIN cannot be bundled together. Examples of such packaging include: packaging bags, manufacturer's original packaging, and seller's shipping box packaging. If the barcode of the shipped goods is on the outside of the packaging, rather than on the individual items, scanning the bundled items may be incorrectly identified as one item. This delivery defect may cause delays in receipt.

Malaysian B2B e-commerce platform Lapasar completes US$1.8 million in financing

Recently, Malaysia's B2B e-commerce platform Lapasar announced that it has received US$1.8 million in funding in its latest round of financing, led by shopper360.

According to Lapasar founder and CEO Thinesh Kumar, “The funds will be used to accelerate business growth. We aim to serve 10,000 grocery stores, restaurants and hawker stalls with wide distribution capabilities in the next 24 months through the launch of our mobile app, Lapasar-Borong.”

Etsy plans to spend $40 million to increase monitoring of prohibited goods

According to foreign media reports cited by Seller Home, Insider's investigation found that approximately 800 listings on Etsy violated Etsy's prohibited sales policy, including ivory, animal remains, pornographic materials, weapons, and a series of mass-produced items that were counterfeited in a handmade manner.

Insider pointed out that although Etsy has regulations prohibiting the sale of pornographic products, superstitious products, weapons and non-handmade products, in fact, the platform's review and supervision still have large loopholes, and banned items can still be found everywhere on the platform.

eBay Germany: Improvements to “personalized” item attributes

Today, eBay announced that in order to make it easier and more personalized for sellers to sell on eBay, for items with "personalized" attributes, buyers will be able to view the free text fields edited by the seller for this item through the "Buy Now Button" in the future.

According to reports, in this field, sellers can enter the required personalization information. To this end, when creating an item listing, sellers need to provide buyers with simple and clear details about the personalization required in the free text field under "Item Attributes > Personalization", with a maximum of 200 characters.

Zalando's first-quarter sales surge 47%

It is reported that German fashion e-commerce Zalando recently announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2021. Data showed that Zalando's sales in the first quarter soared 47% to 2.24 billion euros (2.69 billion U.S. dollars), with operating profit of 93.3 million U.S. dollars.

Zalando said this was mainly due to the continued reduction in return rates. Zalando also said it would add five more warehouses to its network of 10 by 2023 and raised its full-year performance forecast again after strong sales and profit growth in the first quarter.

Zalando also achieved its strongest customer growth in eight years during the quarter, with 41.8 million active customers.

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