e-Commerce & more I 4th to 10 Jan - #75

Just keep It!

While Elon Musk was becoming the richest man in the world as Tesla Stock Soared, the US Capitol Riot shocked the world, ecommerce businesses were busy handling an estimated $70.5 billion in returns from the holidays season!

Also…

Amazon Air expanding again it’s Air fleet…! Brazil MadeiraMadeira (the “Wayfair of LATAM”) raises $190 mln, Ecom Affirm Fintech prepare its IPO this week, India Udaan Marketplace raises $280 million, India Jumbotail B2B e-commerce Marketplace raises $14.2 million

Amazon, Walmart Tell Consumers to Skip Returns of Unwanted Items

Returns is one of the most critical overlooked cost center for many ecommerce companies! With certain categories of product with up to 40% of returns in average companies have to build strong capabilities to build profitable business with this kind of returns volume. The first week of the year is the “week of returns”! yes, you guessed, if you also received an ugly sweater from your mother in law, you will want to return it!

CBRE estimate the volume of returns to be around $70.5Bln this year!

Amazon buys Boeing jets from Delta, WestJet as aircraft prices drop

While passengers traffic is still suffering and Airlines are struggling to recover, no better time to purchase some of their assets. Amazon announced last Tuesday it’s buying 11 used Boeing 767-300 jets from Delta and WestJet!

Amazon air fleet was launched in 2016 and expects to have more than 85 planes (leased and owned) by the end of 2022!

SoftBank-backed MadeiraMadeira raises $190 mln in new funding round

MadeiraMadeira! The company called the Brazilian Wayfair or Brazilian Ikea is now worth over $1 billion! The ecommerce company is planning to use the funds to expand its presence and launch own brands! Created 11 years ago, the company grew 250% last year as the pandemic pushed online sales! Online sales penetration for Home goods went from 7% precovid to 17% during the pandemic!

Indian B2B e-commerce startup Udaan raises $280 million

The ecommerce scale up as just raised $280M to accelerate growth! The company focus on connecting small retailers with wholesalers and traders in order to facilitate the B2B transactions. The startup today serves more than 3 million retailers and small and medium-sized businesses and it has signed up thousands of brands, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Boat Lifestyle, Micromax, HP, LG, ITC, HUL and P&G.

B2B Ecommerce has a way bigger potential than B2C so this will be an exciting space!

Online lender Affirm to be valued as high as $9.2 billion in planned IPO 

Want to pay in 3 installment your next online purchase? No problem, Affirm will help you to do that! Affirm, which provides installment loans to online shoppers is going to IPO this week and should be an interesting company to follow & invest into! The company biggest customer Peloton has been a huge catalyst of growth but recent partnership with Shopify announced last year in Jul will certainly drive growth for the company and give them access to 1M+ merchants!

StartUp Of the week: Jumbotail

Jumbotail raises $14.2 million for its wholesale marketplace in India

Jumbotail, the online wholesale marketplace for grocery and food items raised an additional $14.2M. The company focus on helping neighborhood stores digitize in the world’s second-largest internet market. Grocery & food is the fastest growth category and we can expect to see continuous momentum in the space for the next couple of years as penetration is still low!

Cheers, stay safe

Nabil