In his seminal essay “E-commerce is a Bear,” Andy Dunn, founder and chairman of Bonobos.com, elaborates on why B2C e-commerce is a winner-takes-all game, and what options remain for other players who don’t have the luxury of deep pockets or a sugar daddy.
Much of this comes down to a “David versus Goliath,” Peter Thiel-esque contrarian approach to e-commerce. The U.S. e-commerce scene has been dominated long enough by Amazon to witness some of these models coming to fruition over the last several years: 1) Proprietary Pricing (think flash sale, Gilt Groupe), 2) Proprietary Selection (ModCloth, NastyGal), 3) Proprietary Experience (Rent the Runway, Birchbox), and 4) Proprietary Merchandise (Warby Parker, Bonobos).