)Never waste a Crisis
Covid19 impact will be remembered forever as one of the milestones for exponential growth and major consumer shift in multiple industries such as remote working, online grocery, delivery services, sustainability…!
The news of this week reflect a perfect mix of what is happening in industries benefiting from the pandemic situation!
Walmart enters second hand market with ThredUp
Zalando GoGreen or GetOut
Jiomart expands online grocery to compete with Amazon
Dubai building an Ecommerce City
Alibaba’s InTime department store grows sales using streaming
JD.com partners with Kuaishou, the main rival of TikTok’s
Otrium raises $26.4M to sell end-of-season fashion
“Furniture-as-a-service” – Fernished raised 15Millions
Drone deliveries at Wing doubled since Pandemic started
Are you buying second hand clothes today? If not or this seems ridiculous to you, you might change your mind soon.
Walmart’s latest fashion play is to enter the resale market through a partnership with thredUP, the leading clothing resale service. Walmart will relist more than 750,000 used items on its website from 2,000 brands sold on thredUP.
We have seen a huge momentum with the second hand & rental markets in the last couple of months with huge fundraising from companies like Rebag and Vestiaire collective. Walmart certainly doesn’t want to miss out on this, especially in times like now with economic downturn impacting the wallets of many consumers.
Europe’s Largest Online Fashion Store to only sell sustainable Brands from 2023
Zalando, Europe’s largest e-comm fashion retailer will only sell sustainable Brands!
Sustainability will be a requirement for all brands on the platform and starting 2023, merchants will have to complete a 250-question supply chain assessment. If they don’t comply or aren’t willing to improve poor scores, they’ll be kicked off Zalando’s platform.
Zalando is the first retailer to require that brands use a sustainability measurement tool to remain partners. This is a major move from the company not only to impact positively the negative environmental impact of fast fashion but also to appeal to environmentally friendly consumers and to compete more effectively with the second hand brands which are positioning sustainability as a key aspect of their value proposition.
JioMart expands to 200 cities in India as it seeks to compete with Amazon and FlipKart
“Never waste a crisis” Damodar Mall, CEO of grocery retail at Reliance Retail which own JioMart.
The company is expanding its online grocery to 200 cities across India, a move to challenge Amazon and Flipkart.
The company has raised more than $10 billion in recent weeks, including a $5.7 billion investment from Facebook (FB) which clearly shows that we are entering a battle of Titans in the Indian Grocery market as people are still asked to stay at home due to the pandemic.
A ‘city’ for online shopping is being built in Dubai
A mini city built exclusively for ecommerce!
That’s the new challenge that Dubai is launching to take advantage of the huge ecommerce growth in the region. The project named “Commercity” will have tenants benefit of no income or corporation tax, and “one-stop shop” of support services including for immigration, healthcare, administration, and banking. Clients will be able to make use of the logistics cluster, consisting of heavily automated AI-powered warehouses, and a social cluster of restaurants and cafes. The first buildings are expected to be opened in November, with staged openings until the project is completed in 2023. E-commerce in the Middle East is projected to be worth $48.6 billion in 2022, up from $26.9 billion in 2018. It will be interesting to see if some other regional hubs like Panama, Singapore or HongKong follow with a similar project.
Alibaba’s InTime department store chain turns to live-streaming to boost sales during coronavirus
A physical store using livestreaming to sell products? Yes! That’s what InTime is doing. The department store owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, turned to livestreaming and online sales during China’s coronavirus lockdown and it is working!
The move pushed online sales to account for 20% of the company’s total so far this year versus a “single digit” number in 2019. Chen said InTime will boost the number of livestreams it does and open more physical stores. Social commerce and the Livestream sales are already a major channel in China and will probably expand to the rest of the world.
JD.com partners with Kuaishou, the main rival of TikTok’s
JD.com announced Wednesday a strategic partnership with Kuaishou, the main rival of TikTok’s. The collaboration is part of a rising trend in the Chinese internet where short video apps and e-commerce platforms increasingly turn to each other for monetization synergies.
This is basically like the old days when your mum was watching something on TV and buying the product on the phone, main difference here is that the person selling you the items is an influencer that you follow and “admire” to certain extend and that’s way more impactful than a random person on TV.
We are seeing a major trend around video platforms leveraging the trust that influencers instill in their audience to sell products to them. Will you buy?
StartUp Of the week:
Otrium raises $26.4M to sell end-of-season fashion
Did you know that many brands destroy their unsold inventory? Yes, they burn it to maintain brand value and avoid selling products on clearance. With concerns around sustainability, this doesn’t make sense! We can expect this practices to stop as brands are facing critics and regulations are on the way to avoid this. Especially in the world of fast fashion, brands have to clear some space in stores to release new items. They usually have end-of-season sales but this is not enough and companies remain with a lot of inventory on hand.
Otrium is a marketplace which wants to add another sales channel for those specific items and help brands clear out the inventory. At a time where there is a higher demand for environmentally friendly options, this is a good option to help brands!
StartUp Of the week: Fernish
Fernish, a high end furniture rental service, said it raised a $15 million Series A this month.
Why not renting your sofa or furniture?
In a time where Work from Home is more and more popular, this could be a great option for people to change their home decoration without huge cost.
Fernish is offering a subscription model attempting to make “furniture-as-a-service” a new normal for home decoration. The startup has partnered with trendy and high-end retailers such as Crate & Barrel and CB2! Of course, there is a bit of COVID19 related to this story!! The company said orders for its home office furniture grew 300% from the start of the pandemic. Demand for throw pillows and other couch accoutrements jumped 75% in the same period.
Fernish is riding 3 major trends in times of COVID19:
Ø Economic crisis means people have lower budget, rental is better
Ø Sustainability sentiments are growing in consumers minds, so Recommerce and rental subscription are great alternatives
Ø WFH growth will probably mean people will want to change their office design way more often than before!
Stat of the week:
Wing’s drone delivery services are booming worldwide
Where is my drone delivery? You might soon ask yourself!
I know we have been talking about drones for years and it seems that nothing has happened, but they are coming (slowly)! The pandemic has raised interest from government and law makers in options for contactless experiences and avoiding movement for people. Well, drones might be a great options for both (and also many other aspects)!
Wing, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, is operating already in Australia, Finland and Virginia in the US, and has seen its deliveries double month after month globally since the pandemic started. They also see a 350% increase month on month in customer sign-ups around the world.
We are far from massive implementation of this kind of solution for deliveries but we will see an increased interest and applications in niche markets accelerating!
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Cheers
Nabil Malouli
VP, Global Ecommerce Lead
DHL Supply Chain