Ecommerce news & more! 4thNov to 10th Nov 2019
First of all, I will be hosting an Ecommerce fireside chat on Thursday 14th Nov at 10am US ET, please join me and Rachel Premack (from Business Insider) at the link below for an interactive conversation!
This week we saw Alibaba increasing stake in its logistics unit Cainiao by 3.3bln, huge momentum on Alibaba Singles Day (ongoing right now with +32% in the first hour VS last year), Ralph Lauren launching merchandise digital ID, JP Morgan moving to ecommerce solutions and Wardrobe startup fundraising enabling further disruption on the rental fashion business with an interesting concept!
1. Alibaba says Singles' Day sales hit 91.2 billion yuan in first hour
Hot off the press live from Shanghai!! Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba just announced it hit $13 billion of GMV sales within the first hour of Singles Day, up 32% from last year's. This is more sales than Black Friday & Cyber Monday combined in a single hour. Many people thought that trade war would be impacting the growth but it seems that ecommerce is just keeping its momentum! Excited to know what will be the final sales numbers!
2. Alibaba to invest $3.3B to bump its stake in logistics unit Cainiao
Alibaba is definitely moving stronger and stronger in the logistics space, increasing its stake to 63% in Cainaio by pumping $3.3Bln! Alibaba keeping increasing its stake in its logistics arm shows the strategic importance of logistics in the ecommerce dominance in China and Globally! Logistics & Supply chain is not anymore an operational or support function but a critical advantage in the world of ecommerce.
3. Ralph Lauren launches digital IDs to authenticate merchandise
While many companies gets “distracted” by Blockchain technology for traceability of single unit merchandises through supply chains, and, many others are looking at older technology like RFID, Ralph Lauren seems to approaching the challenge of traceability and authenticity from another angle: a digital ID! With Ecommerce grow, comes also counterfeit growth and many brands are concerned so these kind of solutions will be critical to maintain integrity of brands, especially premium brands! We are also seeing some interesting technology such as Veracity Protocol which is transforming physical assets to digital records (basically a finger print of physical products)
4. More US retailers set to participate in Alibaba’s Singles Day shopping extravaganza this year
Even with the geopolitical tensions and trade wars challenges, many of the US retailers are planning to ride the wave of Singles Day sales! We saw earlier this year many brands joining Amazon on their prime day and we are now seeing these kind of ecommerce promotional events becoming global, even if they are led and created initially by one company!
5. JPMorgan targets ecommerce and gig economy firms with e-wallet
It was time for traditional Banks to move into ecommerce, last year I had the chance to be one of the panelist at a Citibank event and realized that banks were looking at ecommerce as an huge opportunity but were still defining how to effectively enter into the space!
Many of the large players such as Amazon, Mercado Libre, Rakuten, Alibaba have developed their own banking & financial solutions in the meantime. I think it’s starting to become critical for banks to move faster into the space. Virtual bank accounts are becoming the norm for many people and are highly relevant for people who have not access to banking easily and still want to purchase services and products online!
6. StartUp of the week: Wardrobe
Wardrobe picks up $1.5 million for a new fashion rental marketplace. Could dry cleaner become the future of warehouses for fashion and apparel? I love the concept developed by wardrobe and how they built a model that can scale very fast using existing infrastructure as part of the supply chain competitive advantage: Dry Cleaners! They just raised 1.5M for their fashion rental marketplace
Enjoy, cheers
Nabil