👋 Hello!

Welcome to mid-week D2C Pulse: A bite-sized newsletter where we cover e-commerce space in different countries every week.

🌎 Going Global: 🇻🇳🇻🇳

Today’s pick is considered to be one of the happiest countries in the world, is one of the largest coffee producers in the world, is famous for its floating markets on boats, (selling local produce), and is a country with no legal drinking age!

That’s right, Asia's youngest consumer market: Vietnam.

Don’t consider it a noob though - its audience is already accustomed to all the new tools and updates in the e-commerce world including social commerce, live commerce, super apps, virtual influencers, Shopee, and well Shark Tank (with over 4 seasons already)!

Roughly 49.3 million people made online purchases in Vietnam in 2021 and its e-commerce industry is expected to reach close to USD 9 bn by 2025.

Here’re a few interesting Vietnamese start-ups that caught our eye:

MULTIVIETNAM makes healthcare hardware products with the application of AI and IoT. Its offerings include smart glasses that alert the drivers when they are sleepy, other glasses have features like reducing eye strain, and supporting people with disabilities to use computers, through the eye and head movement.

WEPHOBIA changes the stereotype about tight office clothes. It is an apparel brand focusing on the woman's body. All of their clothing, suits, and trench coats have a wide, indecent form of "smart casual" vibe, a subtle menswear spirit - simple but trendy and neat.

PS: Did you know, the phrase "Mephobia", means the fear of being too great!

A 4-year-old Street fashion brand called DIRTY COINS is the first Vietnamese brand with 1 mn Instagram followers. Why? It’s influential; the brand symbolizes bold & risky fashion, gives value to blood money, the fruits of sweat and tears. Moreover, the Brand collabs with budding V-rap and V-pop artists. (Vietnamese Supreme??)

After V-Supreme, Vietnam has got V-IKEA, MAKEMYHOME, a start-up that focuses on making minimal, versatile, and functional furniture, especially as living spaces are getting smaller. The brand positions to remove dependency on foreign furniture.

With a passion for feng-shui stones, GYPSYLALA combines Thai silver patterns on colorful feng shui bracelets, to bring new, unique feng-shui jewelry.

🗞️ Global Marketplace Updates

1. After shitting on Twitter some time back on “free speech”, Elon Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder and joined the platform’s board of directors. Mush amassed 73.5 mn Twitter shares worth a total of about USD 3 bn, making his stake in the company close to 9%.

2. Finally, Twitter is looking at an edit button. Also, you got to see this post on Twitter and Instagram trolling each other on all the new updates on their platform. Spoiler alert, Insta had the last laugh on the trolling!

3. Casual Instagram is in town. Gen-Z is now hooked to social media called BeReal. The point of BeReal is to “show your real self,” with no filters. AKA Casual Instagram.

4. Another Amazon center votes to unionize. It’s Staten Island.

5. YouTube is getting more serious about podcasts, trying to beat Spotify.

6. CCI plans to probe Zomato and Swiggy for affecting fair competition.

📊 Graph-iti Of The Day

Bitcoin is not the only thing ‘going to the moon’, Apple can take you to space too?

Well, not literally, but it’s still cool how a tower of every iPhone ever sold (2.8 bn iPhones), stacked end-on-end, would reach the moon i.e. cover about 243,056 miles of distance.

That’s all for today! We hope you enjoyed this mid-week treat. If you liked it, give us a ❤️ below! Also, if there is any specific country you want us to cover next week, do let us know in the comments section.

Byeee!