AliExpress might takeover South Korea too

🏈 Touchdown, Korea

AliExpress has made a splash on South Korea, despite competition against Coupang and 11Street.

• According to The Chosun Daily, 1 in 5 South Koreans now use AliExpress

Its low prices and wide selection of products have attracted a large number of price sensitive consumers.

⛵️ Not all smooth sailing

However, AliExpress initially faced challenges, with slow shipping times being a major hurdle.

• While Korean platforms like Coupang boast next-day delivery, AliExpress originally took 6-20 days to deliver orders.

To address this, they have partnered with local logistics companies like CJ Logistics, enabling faster deliveries in as little as three days through their "AliExpress Choice" service.

🥕 AliExpress, grocery edition

AliExpress also has aggressive expansion into fresh food delivery.

Unlike its Korean competitors, AliExpress doesn't charge commission from sellers, making it a good option for many businesses. This strategy has already seen over 300 Korean companies join the platform within a week.

This tool lets you build a custom AI for your online store

🤖 Build your own AI solution with XGen

Businesses are always looking for ways to get more personal with customers and get more sales.

XGen AI helps achieve just that by giving businesses the tools to build their own custom AI solutions according to what they need.

XGen's platform is user friendly, allowing teams without AI experience to design and execute on AI features that enhance the customer journey.

This is made possible through a library of AI models built specifically for ecommerce, like XSearch, XRecommend, and XGenerate.

🔎 How (and if) it works

These models use machine learning to predict customer preferences and deliver personalized search results, product recommendations, and even answers to questions in over 110 languages.

One of the main advantages of XGen is its simplicity: working seamlessly with any website and any device all without needing to hire developers or engineers.

According to XGen themselves, some of its numbers are:

• An revenue increase of 9% to 23%

• A deployment time of 1-2 weeks

• 1 hour max to make your own AI

💰️ Funding and Amazon

XGen AI's recent $16 million funding round and partnership with Amazon Web Services give it a worthy position as a soon-to-be major player in ecommerce AI. It’s well positioned to help ecommerce companies unlock their full potential and thrive digitally.

Companies fight back against Labor Law enforcement

⚡️Too much power?

Amazon (and a few other companies like SpaceX and Trader Joe's) are challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB). They say it:

• has too much control and power (makes rules, investigates, and punishes). This breaks the system where different government parts have different jobs (separation of powers).

• Companies don't get a jury trial before the NLRB fines them. They believe this goes against their right to fair treatment (due process).

Amazon’s arguments are similar to SpaceX in January and Trader Joe's in February.

Both companies raised concerns about the NLRB's structure and its ability to impose penalties without a jury trial.

These arguments seem to come from a growing movement by some businesses to weaken labor protections.

• Labor advocates argue that these efforts, if successful, could significantly hurt workers' rights and make it more difficult for them to form unions and bargain collectively.

🛗 The next steps

The legal challenge to the NLRB's constitutionality are likely to wind their way through the court system for some time. It remains to be seen how the courts will ultimately rule on these issues.

However, the outcome of these cases could have a significant impact on the balance of power between workers and businesses in the United States.