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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.

Kicking off the new FY with an interesting insight. It pays to persevere. According to marketplace pulse, many of the top Amazon USA third-party sellers have been at the top for nearly a decade. They persevered despite growing competition, increasing fees, and other headwinds. 20% of the top 10,000 sellers on Amazon in the U.S. have been at the top for over seven years. The other 80% couldn’t retain their position, but most didn’t give up on Amazon - over 60% of the top sellers in 2015 are still active today.

🗞️Marketplace Updates

• It finally happened (not in India for now). Amazon’s free and easy return policy for the vast assortment of items is key to the company’s pitch to the consumer. Now the company is waking up to the fact that some customers have sent purchases back too often. Now Amazon, in recent months, started warning customers that an item they are about to buy has been “frequently returned.” The notice suggests that customers check “the product details and customer reviews” before they purchase.

  • In other news, the company has sued sellers for submitting fake takedown requests against competitors. Amazon has filed three lawsuits against bad actors that pretended to be legitimate copyright owners in an attempt to remove products from the Amazon Store.

• Ecomm firms face fresh trouble as govt may ban related party services. It will essentially mean that ecommerce companies cannot offer their in-house logistics services, Ekart and Amazon Transportation Services, to their merchants. (But, but, solving logistics is one of the key problems that marketplaces solve for small sellers.) Talks are also ongoing around stipulating marketplaces to not license in-house branding to third-party sellers who will sell it online. (Goodbye private label brands?)

  We only hope that the government is prudent in its approach and does not impact an ecosystem that’s only beginning to take off compared to offline retail.

• Dunzo is in the late stages of talks to raise approximately $50 million in a new financing round. o optimise costs, the company recently shut some of its dark stores across India. Reliance—which is also an investor in Dunzo—last month shut down JioMart Express, which relied on Dunzo for the last-mile delivery and used other delivery-based services.

• ONDC onboards 22,000 restaurants after integrating Magicpin. Besides the tech integration on ONDC, Magicpin will also be setting up all back-end logistics related to ordering and delivery, helping small businesses tap a larger customer base. ONDC, which went live in September last year, is currently operational in over 180 cities, with more than 24,000 sellers on its platform and 2.6  million SKUs.

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🍕D2C Bites

• Lifestyle brand, The Souled Store raised Rs 135 Cr. The company will utilize the fresh capital for expanding into new categories and launch over  100 stores pan India within the next 2 years. The investment will also be used to offer a buyback of 100% of vested employee options (ESOPs).

  The Souled Store designs manufactures and retails apparel products with designs ranging around pop-culture themes such as superheroes, movies and TV shows. 

  The platform partners with over 150 franchisees and its product portfolio include t-shirts, mobile covers, badges, boxers, notebooks, mugs, and umbrellas among others.

• FreshToHome,  the e-commerce platform for fresh meat, fish and seafood, spent $79 Mn to make $13.5 Mn in FY22. The sale of products including chicken, seafood, and other meats from its own supply accounted for 77.7% of the total operating revenue. FreshToHome’s closest competitor Licious was at least six times bigger than FreshToHome in terms of scale. Licious’ operating income registered a 64.3% growth to Rs 682.6 crore during FY22 as compared to Rs 415.5 crore in FY21.It also counts Zappfresh, BBDaily, and Easymeat among a few others as competition.

• D2C Pet Care Brand Wiggles Acquires Rival Capt Zack. Capt Zack's product portfolio includes accessories, toys, and beds, which would help Wiggles enter newer categories. Wiggles competes with the likes of Heads Up For Tails, Wagr, and Supertails in the fast-growing pet brands market.

• D2C nutrition snacking startup Kikibix has raised $300K. Founded in 2022 by Ridhi Kaur, Kikibix is a Gurugram-based D2C nutrition snacking startup targeting otherwise known as unhealthy categories such as cookies, nut butters, savoury snacks like namkeens, baked bhujia, chips, condiments like ketchup and sauces, ready-to-eat breakfast mixes and cereals. 

  In the last six months, the firm claims to have seen 10X growth in its monthly revenues and plans to use the funds to launch more product categories, build a team and enter more distribution channels across the country.

• March 2023: The first ever 100 cr revenue month at Atomberg as per this linkedin post. In other news, the company is raising $90 mn in a round led by Temasek

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📢Leader Speak

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

Reads and Recommendations 📚

• D2C companies and IPL sponsorships. Happlio, The Souled Store, Cred and Boat have struck sponsorship deals.

• How to pull off a successful brand collab?

• What Is Instagram’s Collaborative Collections Feature?

• Immortal endorsements. Stephen Curry signs new long-term Under Armour agreement that will extend beyond his playing days and into his retirement.

• How Shein and Temu are approaching expansion beyond the U.S.

That’s all for this week! Bye!

Stay tuned for more.

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