e-Commerce & more I 5th Oct to 11th Oct - #67

If everything is under control, you're not fast enough!

The big news of last week is Apple starting to fulfill online order from its stores! Can you imagine the iconic Apple retail location used as mini warehouses? Well, that’s what we can expect to see more and more! 

Also…

GoPuff raises $380M, Walmart signs trio of drone deals, Woolworths goes into micro-fulfillment, Shopify & Youtube working together on e-commerce video, Logistics startup Flash Express raises $200 million, Shogun Ecom platform raises $35M

Apple Starts Shipping Devices From Stores to Speed Up Deliveries

“Ship From Store” is certainly not new and has been one of the greatest solution for companies like Target in order to compete in the new normal!

What is quite interesting is that such a premium real estate location like Apple store will be used for this purpose. This is a smart move in my opinion as it gives Apple the ability to ship faster and cheaper from a network of almost 300 retail stores spread across the U.S. and Canada!

Delivery startup goPuff raises $380M at a $3.9B valuation

As Instacart have seen its popularity (and valuation) skyrocket since the beginning of the pandemic ! GoPuff, a startup that delivers products like over-the-counter medicine, baby food and alcohol (basically, the stuff you’d buy at a convenience store) in 30 minutes or less is gaining traction as well. GoPuff is focusing on the extra fast service of 30 minutes or less! The war on grocery is just getting started!

Walmart signs trio of drone deals as it races to play catch-up with Amazon

While many people doubt we will never see drone deliveries anytime soon, companies are investing heavily in order to ensure that they are prepared when the regulations and technology are fully in place. Walmart just made deals with three drone operators to test how the technology could be used for on-demand deliveries.

Companies like Amazon, Wing and others have invested for many years in these programs and even though they are not yet implemented at large scale, they will someday.  

Woolworths speeds online orders with micro-fulfilment

Woolworths (one of the largest grocery chain in Australia) is moving to automated Micro Fulfillment. They made a partnership with Take Off in order to pick and dispatch online grocery orders in four minutes!

This kind of technologies and solutions are starting to get more and more popular across the globe and we can expect to see more of these micro fulfillment solution popping up in the back of the stores!

Shopify working with google on youtube e-commerce trials

According to Bloomberg, Shopify and YouTube are currently testing out a new integration that would allow for products of Shopify merchants to be sold directly through YouTube!

While social commerce is increasing in the US and many other markets, this kind of integration could be a huge opportunities for Shopify merchants and a huge revenue stream for Youtube!

Thailand’s logistics startup Flash Express raises $200 million

Logistics is the new oil! Last mile is the new competitive advantage!

“Flash Express, a two-year-old logistics startup that works with e-commerce firms in Thailand, said on Monday it has raised $200 million in a new financing round as it looks to double down on a rapidly growing market spurred by demand due to the coronavirus pandemic”

Shogun raises $35M to help brands take on Amazon with faster and better sites of their own

Couple of years ago, creating an ecommerce website was expensive, complicated and hard to maintain! In the last decade, we have seen a huge focus from many innovative companies to build systems that simplify the experience. This is exactly what Shogun does! The company created a platform which allow companies to build sites that sit on top of e-commerce back-ends like Shopify, Big Commerce or Magento to let them sell goods and services.

“The company has raised $35 million in funding after seeing its business grow 182% over the last year, with 15,000 companies”

Cheers, Enjoy

Nabil

Ps: Don’t miss PrimeDay this week (13th & 14th Oct). It’s expected to generate $10B in sales!