e-Commerce & more I 9th to 15th Nov - #71

11.11! China Ecommerce is booming!

The big news of the week is the incredible sales number for 11.11 Festival in China, 115Bln in total sales including $75Bln for Alibaba alone!! That's more than 7X Cyber monday sales last year! And over double Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined!

Also...

Ulta Beauty & Target partnership, beauty and the beast!! Nuro Self Driving delivery raises $500M, Walmart announce Self Driving Vehicles pilot with Cruise, Alibaba Logistics Arm invest in Air China Cargo, E-commerce startup Heroes raises $65M to scale FBA Merchants, Kyklo raises $8.5M to bring electrical distributors online

1. Alibaba, JD set new records to rack up record $115 billion of sales

$75Bln, that’s the final sales number from Alibaba alone during 11.11 Festival !!! That’s a 26% increase VS last year. We can all agree that with the pandemic, it was expected to see some significant growth, but, these numbers start to become really impressive. Just to give you a sense, US Cyber Monday in 2019 was 9Bln, yes 9Bln…China single’s day Alibaba sales alone are 7 times all US Sales on CyberMonday!

Couple of stats!

$1B sales first 85 seconds

$10B sales first hour

$75.6B sales in 24 hours

90% sales via smartphones

More than 250,000 brands

800 million consumers

2. Ulta Beauty strikes deal to open hundreds of shops at Target stores

In a world where experimental retail around Omnichannel experience will be critical for brands and retailers to bring people in stores & online, this kind of partnership between Target & Ulta will certainly be replicated....

Basically, it's the alliance of the Beauty and the Beast! Ulta will benefit Target store traffic, logistics, delivery infrastructure while Target will get a unique experience in store with Ulta experience and deeper reach into the beauty category, seems like a good win-win

3. Self-Driving Delivery Startup Nuro Raises $500 Million In Latest Funding

The future of ecommerce delivery (food, grocery and everything else...) will be powered by a combination of self-driving vehicles, mobile pick up and drop off locations and all this will be orchestrated around consumer data and preference…When I speak with people around the power of self-driving vehicles in the logistics space, some people look at me like…”Wait this will not happen anytime soon”…But look!! companies like Nuro are not only gaining momentum and permits to test their vehicles in the real world (California counts as the real world yes!), they are also getting huge amount of money to push and adapt the technology to the consumer demand and regulations. Your pizzas, avocado and groceries will be soon delivered autonomously…If you don’t believe me, ask Jeff Bezos…

4. Walmart teams with electric self-driving carmaker Cruise in the retail giant's latest push for futuristic delivery technology

Walmart is also planning to test self-driving vehicles in 2021…! The company made an agreement with Cruise, a company that operates a fleet of all-electric self-driving cars.

Walmart is testing a lot of things at the same time, I think they should buy one of the self-driving technology company soon before it's too expensive! 

5. Alibaba-Backed Cainiao Joins Group Buying Stake in Air China Cargo

Ecommerce Giants continue to invest in their logistics network. Last week, I shared the Air Fleet investments from Mercado Libre (Latam) & Amazon (in Europe)! This week it’s Alibaba logistics Arm Cainiao who is not only buying or leasing aircraft but investing directly in owning stakes in Air China Cargo. As the airline industry is suffering from the pandemic, this might be the best time for ecommerce giant to take stronger position in the airline industry (which will be key for international ecommerce dominance). 

6. Start Up of the week: Heroes

E-commerce startup Heroes raises $65M

Did you know Heroes? Probably not yet, the company manage high-performing FBA businesses from different sectors including baby, pets, homeware, kitchenware, garden, DIY, sports and outdoors categories. The company basically provide these companies with an exit opportunity, leveraging Heroes’ infrastructure to scale these FBA companies internationally via its in-house team of experts.

If you are a successful Amazon seller, you might want to check them out…!

7. Start Up of the week: Kyklo

Kyklo raises $8.5M to bring electrical distributors online

The ecommerce momentum is going to categories of products (you heard me say this already many times if you are a long time reader)!!

Kyklo, a startup that helps wholesale distributors of electrical and automation products launch e-commerce stores just raised $8.5M. Have you ever tried to buy technical parts on Amazon or other large marketplaces? Well, I just tried recently and it’s not easy and there is not a lot of choices so specialized marketplaces like Kyklo will definitely have a space to play in facilitating commerce in these industries.

8. This Week Ecommerce Earnings to watch:

Tuesday: Walmart, Home Depot

Wednesday: Target, TJX Companies, Lowe's

Friday: Foot Locker

Enjoy, Cheers

Nabil