COVID case growth = e-commerce sales growth. E-commerce news by Nabil

Other news:

• Albertsons digital sales up 243%
• Amazon will invest $100M in Mexico
• Magazine Luiza Online retailer buy Digital School
• Amazon launches one-hour grocery pickup in U.S.
• Etsy crafts flex payment option
• Decathlon turns web shop into marketplace
• ShopUp raises $22.5M to digitize millions of SME
• Syte raise $30M for its e-commerce visual search platform

Facebook adds hosting, shopping features and pricing tiers to WhatsApp Business

Whatsapp will become another money machine for FB with the launch of multiple features which will enhance WhatsApp business. The objective is to transform WhatsApp on the main platform for SME businesses to sell & interact with their customers.

The game-changer feature in my opinion will be the In-chat Shopping functionality.

Albertsons digital sales up 243%, adding 6 micro-fulfilment centres

Digital sales across the grocery landscape have grown considerably since the beginning of the pandemic, this is probably the most impacted industry when it comes to consumer shift. Albertsons is riding this wave with Digital sales worth of 243% year over year.

Amazon announces $100 million logistics investment in Mexico

Invest, Invest, Invest ! Logistics is the competitive advantage in the race for e-commerce dominance.

Amazon is going to war in Mexico with the opening of new sites in Monterrey & Guadalajara. This means that the company fulfilment network will cover the 3 most strategic urban areas of the country with shorter deliveries and customer proximity.

Magazine Luiza buys ComSchool

We have seen e-commerce powerhouse moving to multiple sectors and verticals, going from fintech to robotics to autonomous vehicles…But this announcement from Magazine Luiza is quite interesting as this is the first time that I see an e-commerce company acquiring an education platform.

Amazon launches one-hour grocery pickup at all U.S. Whole Foods stores

Click & Collect or BOPIS (Buy Online Pick Up In Store) is one of the major COVID19 consumer behavior shift. While, this method was almost inexistent in countries like the US, this is now the fastest growing purchase methods for people who are shopping online. Why? Well, you don’t have to make the queue at the cashier, can buy online, can get your stuff faster than with standard delivery and you usually get better deals…

This is why you are seeing companies like Amazon doubling down on pick up in stores.

Etsy crafts flex payment option

We have seen multiple announcements of companies (Shopify, Macy’s, Sephora, Forever’s21) implementing online flexible payment options in order to keep selling products even when consumer wallets are getting tighter due to the pandemic…Great move from Etsy.

One of the winners of the pandemic is definitely Klarna (The biggest Fintech Unicorn in Europe) which is the company providing the flexible payment solution to Etsy (The company grew 44% in the first half of the year).

Decathlon turns webshop into marketplace

Decathlon turns its Belgian webshop into a platform on which other brands and partners can sell their sporting products. “The Decathlon webshop will become a real ‚Marketplace’, and Belgium will be at the forefront. As from the end of this year, the sports retailer’s e-commerce site will also feature products from more than a hundred other brands involved in sport, well-being and mobility. Online, customers will not only find Adidas football shoes but also Santini’s rainbow jersey, recycled T-shirts from Brussels start-up Shak&Kai and sports food from Innerme.”

At the end of the day, a marketplace is a digital mall or digital retailers so this is something we should have seen already for a while from many of the traditional players.

StartUps of the week!

ShopUp raises $22.5 million to digitize millions of mom-and-pop shops in Bangladesh

In countries like Bangladesh, Mom and pop shops are the engine of the economy and it’s great to see startups like ShopUp giving the tech & infrastructure tools for these businesses to thrive in the new normal!

Syte, an e-commerce visual search platform, gets $30 million Series C to expand in the US and Asia

Product discovery platform Syte offer three main products: Visual Discovery to let brands add camera search, recommendation engines and discovery buttons; “Searchendising,” which automatically generates tags based on visual AI to improve search and recommendation results; and a Discovery Marketplace used by publishers, smart devices manufacturers and social platforms to increase the reach of product advertisements. The solution is already used by brands like Farfetch, Fashion Nova, Castorama and Signet Jewelers. The introduction of technology such as Syte to increase conversion and experience of online consumers will be a critical advantage for the e-commerce winners of today and tomorrow.

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