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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.

U.S. e-commerce grew 8% in 2022 - the slowest growth in over a decade as per Marketplace Pulse. Adjusted for inflation, it likely didn’t grow at all. But it reached $1 trillion in yearly sales and is still up 81% from 2019. Shein and Shopify were the biggest e-commerce winners in 2022.

Their sales are still significantly above pre-pandemic levels too. Etsy was strong, Walmart with Amazon did okay, and eBay struggled the most.

While Shein is a clear winner with 900% growth, Walmart didn’t do too badly over a 3-year period. During the last three years, the company expanded its advertising platform, doubled down on its marketplace, and pushed sellers to use its fulfilment service.

🗞️Marketplace Updates

• Amazon joining ONDC is a biggie. But the Techcrunch headline Amazon joins Indian e-commerce initiative that seeks to challenge Amazon is Gold! Amazon will integrate its Smart Commerce and logistics services with the ONDC network. Amazon logistics services include pickup and delivery, while Smart Commerce is a suite of SaaS (software-as-a-service) products hosted on AWS that can assist MSMEs to build and scale their business and integrate it with the ONDC network.

  ONDC is (still) in the beta phase and has conducted pilots in select cities.

  • Last year, ONDC signed an MoU with the Small Industries and Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to onboard its huge ecosystem of MSMEs on the network.

  • Several companies including Microsoft, Meesho, Paytm, and Dunzo have already joined the platform.

• Flipkart Wholesale is experimenting with dark stores and a hub & spoke model to expand the business. Flipkart Wholesale typically does not deliver to retailers who are 100 km away from its offline stores as it is not financially feasible. With this new model, some of the bigger retailers will start becoming like a hub and will help sell products further to distant retailers.

• WAAS?: Ekart, Flipkart's in-house logistics arm has launched warehousing-as-a-service for brands, manufacturers, and retailers across industries. The company has rolled out the service for over 20 categories, onboarding brands and manufacturers from mobile phones and international and domestic apparel brands.

  • Ekart has a pan-India supply chain network spread across 20 million square feet. As part of its latest offering to third-party businesses, the company will offer services across four dedicated sites, including Bilaspur (Haryana), Malur (Karnataka), Saidham (Mumbai), and Uluberia (West Bengal). Besides this, Ekart will offer 17 of its shared sites across India to third-party businesses. 

• Temu is killing it in USA by becoming the most downloaded app surpassing Amazon and Walmart. It turns out American consumers worried about inflation enjoy Temu bestsellers like ~$10 Lenovo earbuds and ~$3 sunglasses. It’s now the most-downloaded app in the US, with 24m downloads since its September launch and 11m+ monthly active users,

🍕D2C Bites

• Meaty Round: FreshToHome, an online platform for fresh meat, fish and seafood, has raised $104 million to expand to the Middle East and Africa. The fresh funding has come after a gap of 28 months for FreshToHome. The company has raised around $258 million to date. The startup has established its own supply chain network and transports items by trains and planes for faster delivery. Currently, it serves over 4,000 fishers and farmers and millions of customers in over 160 cities in India and the UAE.

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• Global D2C Ethnic Wear Brand ‘Shobitam’ Acquires Fashion Brand ‘House of Blouse’. Founded by Aparna Thyagarajan and Ambika Thyagarajan in 2019, Seattle-based Shobitam is a growing D2C platform for ethnic fashion, serving in over 40 countries. Meanwhile, House of Blouse sells sarees and tailored blouses through its website and claims to ship worldwide.   

• Untube: Founded in 2020 by Ravinder Sharma, Bengaluru-based oral care brand Live-a-bit offers solid plant-based formulations in tablet form. It has secured regulatory approval for 55 products and over 80 SKUs.

  Live-A-Bit offers sustainable products such as untubed toothpaste, unbottled mouthwash, and under-manufactured toothbrushes that replace plastic with biodegradable wood.

  The D2C platform also allows consumers to build their own oral care kits based on their preferences.  Each bottle has 60 bits (tablets). According to the company, each tablet has the perfect dosage for individuals to clean their teeth every day - aided by some water. 

• D2C discovery platform, Blingg has raised a pre-seed round of $ 100k. The company enables D2C brands to launch, sample and sell through their Shopify integrated platform. Since its inception in 2021, Blingg has worked with 75+ D2C Brands across food, beverage, health, wellness, and beauty, launched 200+ new D2C Products and shipped out 10,000+ D2C Discovery boxes to its exclusive community of users.

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📢Leader Speak

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

Reads and Recommendations 📚

• 🍻24th Feb was World Bartender Day. Here’s a great article on the Indian Bar scene to commemorate it.

• 😩Infographic on consumer confidence. TLDR: It’s not looking good

• 🤔Turn your thoughts into memes with supermeme.ai

• 💊A tale of e-pharmacies and regulation

• 🎴Shopify merchants can mint and sell NFTs easily

Bento Boxes are a Rage!🍱

Kids and office folks have been looking for a cooler version of a lunch box forever. This year Pinnacle has launched a range of bento boxes which have created quite a storm. Why? Because they look awesome besides being leakproof and airtight. Grab one for yourself today!

PS: Their Ice boxes are great too. Load em up your beers, sofa and ice cream.

That’s all for this week! Bye!

Stay tuned for more.

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