RetailTechNews’ weekly roundup brings you up-to-date research findings from around the world. In this week’s edition: Google Teams Up with JD.com; Prime Arrives Down Under; Etsy Shows Resilience to Amazon.

Google Teams Up with JD.com

Google is set to invest USD$550m (£419m) in Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com. The two companies described the investment, announced on Monday, as one piece of a broader partnership that will include the promotion of JD.com products on Google’s shopping service.

This could help JD.com expand beyond its base in China and Southeast Asia and establish a meaningful presence in U.S. and European markets. Meanwhile, Google will see it as an opportunity to gain an edge on Amazon, in a region where the Seattle-based e-commerce giant has traditionally struggled.

The partnership not only lets Google bolster its retail ambitions in China, but also allows it to further tighten its relationship with Walmart, another investor in JD.com. Together, the two companies could challenge the dominance of Amazon and Alibaba in key markets around the world, analysts say.

In the past year, Google has partnered with Walmart on multiple fronts. In August 2017, they joined forces to offer hundreds of thousands of Walmart items on Google's voice-controlled Google Assistant platform to counter the dominance of Amazon in the voice-shopping market.

Prime Arrives Down Under

Amazon is rolling out its Prime subscription service in Australia, just weeks ahead of a policy change that will block Australian customers from shopping on its overseas websites, in response to a new tax law.

The e-commerce giant is taking a gamble that the package of free delivery, as well as access to digital videos, music, ebooks, and gaming, all through an AUD$59 (£33) annual Prime membership, will prove appealing to Australians. This is despite the limited selection of goods they will be able to buy from Amazon.

The level of choice for Australian Amazon customers has dropped recently, with Amazon blocking its U.S. websites for Australian shoppers. This is following new rules that force online retailers to apply a 10% tax to all online purchases being shipped to Australia from overseas.

Amazon is taking longer than anticipated to make major inroads into the Australian retail market; and the most recent tax will only make this task harder. The American behemoth will be hoping that the Prime offering will be enough to make Australian shoppers look past the limited selection of goods it offers, so it can start to gain some traction in the market.

Etsy Shows Resilience to Amazon

Amid stories of Amazon bulldozing every industry under the sun, it is refreshing to see some businesses fighting back. Etsy, for example, posted a 26% gain in their most recent earnings.

The vintage, craft goods marketplace's surge came after it announced it's hiking its transaction fee to 5% from 3.5%, and that the fee will now also apply to shipping costs. Thanks in large part to the fee hike, Etsy raised its 2018 revenue growth guidance to a range of 32-34% from a prior range of 22-24%.

Looking back over the past one to two years, we see numerous stories about Amazon Handmade stealing market share from Etsy. However, in recent times, these fears appear to have abated.

One theory is that this is due to the head start Etsy had in the craft industry, allowing it to build up greater mindshare in core markets, as has also happened with Netflix with streaming services, and PayPal with online payments. This allowed them to build up a powerful network effect, before Amazon even entered the market.