e-Commerce news & more I 10th Feb to 16th Feb

While the coronavirus is creating new delivery experience with Contactless delivery powered by KFC & Pizza Hut, Shopify is crushing quarterly results!! Also…Brandless goes bankrupt, Wayfair lays off 550 employees, Walmart shut down personal shopping service JetBlack...and one positive news to close at least, Simsim secures $16M for its social commerce in India

1. Shopify crushed the expectations

Last year, I started investing in Shopify and it’s one of my best performing stock, very happy and I believe that we will continue to see a strong upside in the future. Shopify had another blockbuster year in 2019, total revenue for 2019 grew 47% to $1.58 billion.

I think that this is a company which has a huge potential and they are just getting started. As larger companies are starting using Shopify platform (mainly via Shopify Plus) and more and more companies are looking at Direct to consumer as a way to preserve their relationship with consumer, the sky is the limit!

2. KFC and Pizza Hut launch contactless delivery service amid coronavirus

While the coronavirus is still expanding across the globe, online sales in china & food delivery are growing as people are not going out! But how can you get your delivery and make sure that the delivery guy doesn’t have the virus? No worries, we have contactless delivery….How does it work? Pretty simple: Customers can select the “contactless delivery” option when placing an order online, and couriers will call to set a delivery location. The courier will then watch from 10 feet away as the customer takes the food. Innovation has no boundaries and people are ready to risk their life for a KFC or Pizza Hut J?

3. Brandless goes bankrupt

A startup that raises $292M in 3 years and shutdown…! Innovation has a cost and it seems that Softbank portfolio is really suffering these days!! Brandless, a direct-to-consumer startup focused on food, beauty and personal care products goes bankrupt. Trying

Brandless launched in July 2017 on the conviction that millennials were just as over conventional "brands" as they were canned tuna. It offered hundreds of everyday household items—from organic maple syrup to tree-free toilet paper—at just $3 a pop. Problem is a) people are not completely agnostic of brands (not even millennials) and b) with such a low price, when you factor CAC (Customer Acquisition cost) and logistic, the business is not sustainable & profitable!

4. Wayfair lays off 550 employees

Wayfair, the ecommerce powerhouse of furniture has laid off about 550 employees out of the 17,000 globally, most of them from Boston Headquarter. According to 1010data, Wayfair generated a third (33.4%) of online furniture sales in 2019, followed closely by Amazon (29.7%). Far behind are more traditional players like Walmart (4.7% of online furniture sales) and Macy's (3.7%). The company is leading the market but losses are increasing every year, selling home furniture’s online is not an easy task but operating and delivering large & bulky items to residential address is extremely expensive and complex, that’s probably where most of the losses are happening!!

5. Walmart shuts down its experimental personal shopping service, Jet black

Have you ever wanted to order your next online purchase by text message? I could see this becoming an additional way but not sure I see a strong value of this kind of solution. This is what Jetblack was basically offering to New Yorkers till it was shutdown by Walmart. Online order through text were piloted and intended by multiple brands but they haven’t been successful at this stage, If I would be a brand, I would rather double down on social commerce than trying to find other channels at this stage.

6. Start up of the week: 7-month-old Simsim secures $16M for its social commerce in India

Simsim, a social commerce startup in India, said on Friday it has raised $16 million in seven months of its existence as it attempts to replicate the offline retail experience in the digital world with help from influencers.

“Despite e-commerce players bandying out major discounts, most of the sales in India are still happening in brick-and-mortar stores. There is a simple reason for that: Trust” So Simsim is looking at building this trust through the following process.

Simsim users watch short-videos produced in local languages by influencers who apply beauty products or try out dresses and explain the ins-and-outs of the products. Below the video, the items appear as they are being discussed and users can tap on them to proceed with the purchase. Love it and believe this has huge potential!

Enjoy, Cheers

Nabil