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D2C Pulse is a newsletter written by the team at GlobalBees, curating happenings in the direct-to-consumer ecosystem of India.

The festive sales are on and looks like the consumers are back. The increase in sales range anywhere from 28% to more, across various reports. Meanwhile, in weird stories, Beyond Meat founder was charged with biting a man’s nose during a fight.

🗞️Marketplace Updates

• Amazon India’s customer base from tier 2, 3 cities jumps 2-fold during the first 36 hours of the ongoing festive season sale. The company said its Prime member sign ups grew 1.9 times than last year and 68 per cent of the total new sign ups were from tier 2 and 3 cities.

• Meanwhile, Flipkart had 1.6 mn users per second on its app as 'Big Billion Days' sales kicked in. Looks like consumer demand is on the uptick given these numbers.

• Myntra takes a dig at celeb culture in its latest campaign featuring Ranbir Kapoor and Kiara Advani. Check out here

• Analysts took a trip to a Blinkit dark store and had ample to say about portfolio spread, seasonality, microfocus and profitability. The interesting insight, customers are buying large pack sizes too suggesting that the use case is not restricted to small purchases. Love or hate quick commerce as a business, as a service it’s super convenient.

• Meesho announced an 11-day break for its employees post the festive season to Reset and Recharge.

🍕D2C Bites

• Patna-based online meat delivery startup Freshsharp has secured a seed fund of  $125K. The company sells meat, seafood and other fresh animal protein through its website. Apart from Bihar, the company has expanded to West Bengal and caters to consumers and businesses.

• Gifting solutions company Join Ventures raised $23.5 million in funding. Join Ventures owns and operates a portfolio of digital-first brands offering handmade, personalised and curated products across food, home and fashion categories.

• FableStreet raised Rs 50 Cr in Pre-Series B funding. The company recently transitioned from a single brand to a house of brands with the launch of Marigold, a modern Indian wear brand and Mikoto, a sterling silver jewelry brand.

• Pepperfry’s operating revenue grew around 23% to Rs 247 crore in FY22 from Rs 201 crore in FY21. The company was recently in talks to raise $250-$300 million through the IPO. The Mumbai-based ecommerce player was last valued at around $500 million when it raised capital in 2020

• New Delhi-based men’s grooming startup Ustraa has raised INR 16.8 Cr in a strategic funding round led by Info Edge’s subsidiary Startup Investments. The round also saw participation from IIFL Seed Ventures and Wipro Enterprises. 

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📢Leader Speak

Get the latest on what D2C Founders and Leaders had to say this week!

“This year, we will create over 50,000 additional direct seasonal jobs in our supply chain, taking the total workforce count to 2.5 lakh” - Hemant Badri, Senior Vice President and Head of Supply Chain Flipkart

“Last year, it (revenue) was Rs 636 crore; this financial year, we are targeting about Rs 1,000 crore. At the same time, we are trying to see how to keep the growth rate of 50 to 60 percent up even on such a large base.” - Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, Co-Founder and Director, WakeFit.

Reads and Recommendations 📚

• Brands look beyond unboxing. Hacks and roasts: Inside the new social media currency.

• A ranking of the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies by a16z 

• Ogilvi’s Advertising Bible. Always something interesting here everytime we read it.

  Chris Hladczuk @chrishlad

  I found the advertising bible. David Ogilvy sold over $1,500,000,000 of ads using these 38 lessons. My favorite: "Nobody was ever bored into buying your product."

  

  September 19th 2022

  288 Retweets1,813 Likes

That’s all for this week! Bye!

Stay tuned for more.

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