⚡The Force Is With You ⚡
QComm social media game, Nykaa trends, Eat the menu, Aggregators aggregating
Hi Surgies 👋
Who needs mainstream media when the founders can garner enough views on social media? The Force is strong with the quick commerce founders. First up Hari Menon, Cofounder, BigBasket on the YoY growth and monthly BigBasket stats tweets.
Albinder’s posts on real-time data brought in a ton of engagement.
Meanwhile, Aadit has been updating the public on festive numbers regularly.
Moving on, looks like 2025 will be an action-packed year on the ecommerce front, with quick commerce folks ramping up, the rise of Tier-2 cities, government agencies getting super active, new privacy rules, trade restrictions and of course AI! Lets dive in.
Indian ecommerce funding dropped 42% YoY To $1.5 Bn in 2024. Despite the shrink in the overall funding quantum, ecommerce emerged as the leading sector in terms of the number of deals bagged in 2024.
Ecommerce startups lapped up 203 deals during the year compared to enterprise tech and fintech sectors, which had to make do with 167 and 162 deals, respectively, during the year.
Ecommerce also emerged as one of the most funded sectors at the seed stage. Startups in the space raised $127 Mn during the year.
🗞️Marketplace Buzz
Snapdeal’s revenue from operations increased by 2.1%, rising to Rs 379.76 crore in FY24 from Rs 371.96 crore in FY23. The company’s cost-reduction measures led to its adjusted EBITDA loss dropping by 88% from Rs 144 crore in FY23 to Rs 16 crore in FY 24. Snapdeal’s strategic focus on targeted cost-reduction initiatives led to significant expense savings across multiple categories. There’s light at the end of the tunnel!
ONDC now has a network of over 200 participants, along with more than 700,000 sellers and services from 600 cities across the country. Since its inception, consumers from over 1,110 cities and towns have transacted through the network, totalling more than 150 million transactions, as per Union Minister for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal’s post on X.
Marketplace SEO alert! Starting January 21, long titles with redundant keyword stuffing will be banished from Amazon for good. Looks like SEO will be more product and brand-focused. AI will play a big role in SEO.
The government quizzed quick commerce companies over FDI and operating models. Senior executives from Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, and Bigbasket met with Indian government officials. They discussed warehouse ownership, compliance with FDI norms, and the impact on kirana stores. The officials expressed concerns about delivery safety and competition for small shops.
Meanwhile, Zepto has set up a new entity, Zepto Marketplace Private Limited, as part of its restructuring plans ahead of its planned IPO. The move would allow Zepto to pivot from its current B2B2C operational structure to a marketplace model.
Side note on quizzing. Lucky Grapes? Blinkit saw record demand as Indians joined the ‘12 grapes’ New Year craze. The viral Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight for luck fuelled a surge in grape orders on New Year’s Eve in India. Blinkit reported delivering seven times more grapes than usual, reflecting the custom’s growing global influence.
Nykaa Trends Report 2024 came out last week. Key insights and data points include late-night shopping binges, the explosive rise of K-beauty, quick deliveries stats and store count
Blinkit launched a 10-minute ambulance service, starting with Gurugram, with plans to expand the service to other cities in India in the next two years. The ambulances would have medical equipment such as oxygen cylinders, AEDs (Automated External Defibrillator), stretchers, monitors, suction machines, emergency medicines, and injections. The ambulance would come with a paramedic, an assistant, and a trained driver.
As per data available from the National Health Mission, India had only 17,495 operational basic life support ambulances until December 2023. The number of advanced life support ambulances was even lower, with 3,441 such operational vehicles. A quick commerce platform jumping into ambulance services has highlighted the stark reality of the state of ambulance availability in India, where such vehicles are often difficult to obtain during critical medical needs, with a section of the population also priced out owing to the sometimes high upfront costs
Gurugram-based B2B marketplace OfBusiness has launched a new AI-powered discovery platform-Nexizo, for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. The platform aims to simplify the discovery of relevant buyers, provide market insights for competitive intelligence, raw material price discovery, and streamline procurement processes through AI.
🍕D2C Snippets
This may be the big one. FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) is reportedly in talks to snap up D2C brand Minimalist. The deal is currently in the advanced stages and could potentially see the D2C startup valued at $350 Mn. Founded in 2020 by siblings Mohit and Rahul Yadav, Minimalist develops and sells clinically tested skincare, haircare and body care products using ‘active’ ingredients. The beauty and personal care segment constitutes about 37% of HUL’s revenues. Its portfolio of BPC brands consists of Lifebuoy, LUX, Sunsilk, Clinic Plus, Dove, Lakmé, Pond’s and Closeup.
With an eye on bolstering its omnichannel play, men’s D2C fashion brand Snitch plans to open 10 new retail stores in January. Additionally, Snitch plans to open more than 65 new stores this year to take its total store count beyond 100. The company’s offline expansion spree comes a year after it bagged $13.19 Mn in its Series A round.
Amazon Aggregartors Aggregating. This is a 4 party merger 🤯. Juvo Plus merged with Cap Hill Brands to form Infinite Commerce, which later acquired Dragonfly and Moonshot Brands.
The Good Glamm Group has delayed salary payments for some employees, with a portion receiving only half their salaries. The company is also reportedly exploring selling some of its brands to address cash flow challenges. Over the years, the company has acquired several D2C beauty and personal care brands, including Sirona, MomsCo, and Organic Harvest.
📢Power Talk
“It’s not just about convenience anymore; it’s where aspiration meets affordability” Chirag Taneja, Cofounder, GoKwik
📚Reads and Recommendations
🧠 The Psychology of the Fresh Start Effect. Research shows our brains recognize a new week, month, or year as a “temporal landmark.”Belonging to the same family tree as trigger events, temporal landmarks are key moments in time that signal a new beginning—in more ways than one. Find out how aligning your offers with “fresh starts” can help drive your Q1 sales and hit *your* New Year’s goals.
👩How a single mom launched a $170 Mn office supply empire. Liquid Paper, a white correction fluid used to conceal handwritten or printed typos — became one of the world’s most popular and enduring office supplies.
📋Here’s a list of AI tools that marketers would love. You could scour the internet yourself for the best and brightest — or you could start with the curated list of the top 27 AI marketing tools.
🥘We don’t eat the food, we eat the menu. We don’t drink the wine, we drink the price tag. Our experience of the F&B we consume is highly driven by aesthetics and perception…and not necessarily by the tongue.
🧳Samsonite facing the D2C pressure in India.
That’s all for this week! Bye!
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