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
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!
A 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
Read more about the new records HERE.
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.
Learn more about the huge shop-openings HERE.
Self-Driving Delivery Startup Nuro Raises $500 Million In Latest Funding
The future of e-commerce 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…
All you need to know about Nuro is HERE.
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!
Check out Walmart’s self-driving cars HERE.
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 e-commerce giant to take a stronger position in the airline industry (which will be key for international e-commerce dominance).
Read more about Alibaba’s investment HERE.
Start-Ups of the week: Heroes and Kyklo
E-commerce startup Heroes raises $65M in equity and debt to become the Thrasio of Europe
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…!
Check out the details HERE.
Kyklo raises $8.5M to bring electrical distributors online
The e-commerce 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.
Learn more about Kyklo HERE.
This Week Ecommerce Earnings to watch:
- Tuesday: Walmart, Home Depot
- Wednesday: Target, TJX Companies, Lowe’s
- Friday: Foot Locker
Nabil Malouli is VP, Global E-commerce for DHL Supply Chain where he leads the innovation, strategy and product development of its e-commerce fulfilment and last-mile solutions.
Photo credit @ KCS/ Wikimedia Commons