Ecommerce news & more! 2nd to 8th Dec 2019

The big news of this week was certainly the record breaking results of Cyber Monday showing the continuous momentum and strength of #ecommerce growth, Canada Goose 0 Inventory store, the rise of B2B at #Amazon, #RentTheRunway partnership with #Whotel, the push on sustainability in #NYC and more news on startups raising money to keep disrupting the ecommerce landscape.

1. Cyber Monday online sales hit record $9.4 billion, boosted by late-night spending spree, Adobe says

Cyber Monday was the biggest ever, online shoppers spent $9.4 billion, up 19.7% versus last year. Aside of the record breaking sales, there are 3 major things to highlight:

The average to peak sales increased, retailers with more than $1 billion in annual revenue saw online sales jump 540% compared to an average day. Smaller retailers with less than $50 million in yearly sales also benefited from the shopping holiday, seeing a 337% increase. This shows that peak management is everytime more critical for brands and that more and more consumers are waiting for these promotional days to make purchases

$3.1Bln sales done on smartphones, a significant increase as this is becoming the preferred purchasing method

Records sales at the end of the day, certainly linked to the increase in sales on mobile, if you didn’t get a chance to buy during the day, you could do it easily before to go to sleep.

2. The new Canada Goose Toronto store doesn’t have inventory, but it does have a daily snowstorm

The future of physical retail is not dead, it’s transforming! It’s becoming evident that retail space is moving toward experimental purpose of brands rather than inventory or storage location. Could you imagine a store with 0 inventory and 100% experimental? Well this is now a reality at the Canado Goose store in Toronto.

Who enjoy carrying bags and products home?

Which employee like to go through backroom inventory to look for jacket that a consumer want?

Nobody!!! that’s why this model could become a reference model for brands. This kind of retail experience will also increase the convergence of offline-online sales. It’s key to have a solid logistics operation to perform the fulfillment and deliveries of products effectively.

3. There’s a unit inside Amazon that will be a $31 billion business in four years, RBC says

I’ve been talking about B2B Ecommerce growth as a major opportunity for a long time and this article just show how big the opportunity is!! RBC estimates Amazon’s business will see revenue reach $31 billion by 2023, something to keep an eye on and act, especially if you are in the consumer product business/brand, it could be a major disruption of the distributor model!!

4. Amazon, UPS and DHL are testing cargo bikes in New York City

Parking & congestion in cities is one of the major challenges related to growing ecommerce. NYC amount of for-hire vehicle increased by 81% between 2013 to 2017, while Ecommerce penetration are still very low, this is something that needs to be tackled at large scale between public and private sector.

This announcement from NYC to enable sustainable delivery methods such as Ebikes as an alternative is a great sign. Proud to see DHL as one of the leaders in sustainable logistics. While in Europe, many cities have put targets limiting vehicles delivering in urban centers, NYC is opting to implement a tooling system as of 2021, I personally don’t think it will reduce traffic and just increase the costs to the users and increase income to the city.

5. Flipkart leads $60M investment in logistics startup Shadowfax

Following the moves from all the major global marketplaces, we are now seeing the trend of ecommerce players investing in logistics startups and network becoming the norm. Walmart’s Flipkart working on strengthening their logistics network in India with this investment in Shadowfax. This startup process more than 10M deliveries per months, mainly powered with crowdsource delivery solution but also has own warehouses and fulfillment hubs.

6. Rent the Runway partners with W Hotels so you can pack lighter

This is a genius idea, very complex to execute logistically but great. The cooperation of brands seems to be a great fit considering W & RentTheRunway clients profile. Basically you pay $69 and you get access to borrow four outfits during your stay. It will be very interesting to see how RentTheRunway can manage to make it work financially and logistically.

7. StartUp Of the week: Flow

Flow raises $37M to simplify international e-commerce

Cross border ecommerce is growing at +25% year on year with very promising outlook and growth in the coming years. Flow helps ecommerce brands to sell worldwide simplifying the overall experience by customization of local payment, pricing, and logistics. Startup to watch!!

Enjoy, cheers

Nabil