Bangladesh's Full-stack B2B Commerce Platform ShopUp Secures $75 Million in Funding

Bangladesh's ShopUp has secured $75 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. The Series B round also saw participation from Prosus Ventures, and existing investors Flourish Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and VEON Ventures.

The funding round for the largest full-stack B2B commerce platform in South Asia went oversubscribed. The company has raised $110 million in total funding till date.

"Our mission is to put 4.5 million small retailers in the driving seat of Bangladesh’s economic growth. We are building best-in-class infrastructure to support retail operations all over the country, adding new categories to serve the underserved small retailers and launching new financial products to meet the unarticulated needs of the retailers we serve," said Afeef Zaman, CEO and co-founder of ShopUp.

Bangladesh has one of the largest fragmented retail markets in Asia. 98% of retail consumption in the country happens through the small mom-and-pops stores. These stores often struggle while procuring goods from multiple suppliers, distributor and wholesalers. They also encounter many other problems such as unreliable delivery, lack of price transparency. ShopUp is looking to help these retailers by removing the inherent blockers within traditional supply chain, logistics, and financing.

 

Shopee Becomes Brazil’s Most Downloadable Shopping App, Outrunning Big Players

Shopee, a Singapore-based eCommerce company, becomes the most downloadable shopping app in Brazil in just two years. The company’s game-changing approach has turned the tables around in the country in such a short time. Its approach to ecommerce is simple: in-app mini-games offering coupons to winning users, Reuters reported on Monday.

 

As the report confirms, in Singapore, Shopee just took five years to become Southeast Asia’s most popular ecommerce portal, outdoing two of the big players such as Lazada and Tokopedia. They are backed by Alibaba and SoftBank Group, respectively.

 

 “Shopee has a track record in Southeast Asia of coming into the market late, looking at how others have solved existing problems, and then building a system to leapfrog those issues,” said analyst Jianggan Li at advisory firm Momentum Works.

 

Mr. Li was quoted as saying by Reuters.

 

Apart from its game-changing approach, Shopee’s timing in Brazil was not less than perfect as Covid-19 hit worldwide immediately after the company’s launch in the country. Brazilians, like the rest of the world, resorted to online shopping, as a result. This shift greatly helped the company expand its offerings and win more users across the country. As mentioned above, Shopee offered coupons and so many relevant offers, to grab users’ attention. Now, after two years, the company is all set to lead the Brazilian ecommerce sector from the front.

 

 

Retail Giant Walmart Focus on Hiring Digital, Cryptocurrency Lead

Walmart, the largest US retailer by total sales, has stated that it is looking to hire a digital currency and cryptocurrency product lead. The company has stated that this new role seeks to provide leadership with ways to identify technology and current customer trends. Part of the role's remit will also include driving the retail giant's digital currency strategy. Investments needed to build on those existing trends will also be advised by the crypto product lead.

It is likely that Walmart is making moves to accept cryptocurrency as payment. Besides, in 2019, the company applied for a patent on price-stable crypto similar to Facebook's nascent project, which was called Libra. Walmart has also experimented with distributed ledger technology for many nonfinancial uses like tracking drugs and food along the supply chain.

Now Walmart has created a fintech unit called Hazel. This move has now signaled the big-box retailer has not lost its appetite for a piece of the consumer finance pie. It is only a matter of time before the world's retail giants open the floodgates by enabling crypto payments; the rest will follow pretty quickly when that happens.

 

 

Due to shortage of supplies and pressure on the supply chain, back-to-school shopping is expected to be a bit different from the previous year

It is a well-known fact that the back-to-school season is a peak time for family shopping. Generally, the children from elementary school to high school are expected to spend more than $850 in school supplies this year—which is more than $60 than 2020. According to the reports from National Retail Federation, the total back-to-school spending is projected to reach a whopping $37.1 billion this year. Parents will have to deal with a shortage of high-demand items this year.

GlobalData Retail’s MD, Neil Saunders, has stated that some important products like sneakers, backpacks, stationery, and gadgets are expected to be in high demand while the supply chain might not be in a position to fulfill all the Demands. He furthermore added that the supply shortage might not reach catastrophic levels, but continued pressure on the supply chain will hurt their operations, and there is a chance that not all the retailers will get a minimum amount of supply to meet the demands. This will lead to the consumer having to select from a small range of supplies, and few may not even be able to get exactly what they wanted, especially during the end of the season. Parents are now choosing online modes for purchase, and retailers are trying to adapt to the new norm.

 

India’s Lenskart to Recruit 2,000 Employees by 2022

Indian eyewear brand Lenskart has said that it will be hiring over 2,000 employees in India and 300 more overseas by 2022 to reach more people.

Over the next few years, Lenskart is going on the offensive to expand its consumer base. The company will hire 1,500 employees to add to its retail locations and more than 100 engineers to beef up its technology team across India. In addition to this, Lenskart will recruit over 300 employees to join its supply chain and manufacturing operations. One hundred more people will be hired for corporate functions.

“We have continued to grow exponentially, in international markets as well as in India, and we are building a strong presence in regional markets as well through our stores and e-commerce. This has opened up several job opportunities across Lenskart to serve and delight our customers at a huge scale. So, hiring is a key aspect in our growth journey, and we are looking at actively hiring skilled talent across verticals for regions like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi, among others,” said Lenskart’s CEO and founder Peyush Bansal, in a statement.

Founded in 2010, Lenskart has a huge presence as an eyewear brand in India. It has over 5,000 employees on its payroll, including engineers, designers, and data scientists. The company serves over 7 million people all over the world.

 

Reliance retail is speculated to take over Subway India operations

Reliance Industry’s retail arm Reliance Retail is soon speculated to takeover Subway Inc India. The new deal is expected to be closed for a whopping $200+ million, and the official announcements on the same are expected soon. Subway, a very popular name in the F&B segment, is now undergoing a restructuring process under John Chidsey, CEO. The new moves are the result of the company’s effort to reduce headcount and cut costs due to reduced sales. In recent times, various reports had suggested that Subway is looking out for ways to streamline its operations in India, and it wants to collaborate with local agents to renovate the current individual networks and regional master franchisees.

As of now, master franchisees were acting as development agents who will run the stores in the cluster while not owning them. Reliance Retail is a worthy candidate for this new offering as it has operations in retail chains spanning across categories like fashion, lifestyle, consumer electronics, luxury, and grocery. Some of the brands in Reliance Retail’s portfolio are  Reliance Fresh, Reliance Trend, Reliance SMART, Reliance jewels. Hamleys, and Project Eve. RIL also acquired a 20 percent controlling stake in popular search engine Just Dial to connect local merchants.

 

Influencers Can Now Showcase Their Brands and Sell Products Online With PopBox

AnyMind Group has announced the launch of PopBox, an online retail store for influencers where they can showcase and sell their own brand and products. Currently, PopBox is being made available in Thailand and Japan.

Apart from being a great platform for the influencers, PopBox will also enable the consumers to discover and purchase a wide variety of products from influencer brands. AnyMind Group has said that it will make PopBox available in other Asian markets soon.

Thai influencer brands 11am Shop by MayyR and Land of N by Nisamanee Nutt, and Japanese influencers such as Kanockstar and Mukuena have already listed on PopBox. Although these merchants are currently part of the AnyCreator influencer network, AnyMind has plans to open PopBox up to any influencer in near future.

“Since the start, we have constantly developed new products and business models and we can now provide platforms that form the next-generation business infrastructure for the digital economy, similar to a super app for running a business. PopBox adds to our vast amount of offerings for influencers and content creators that span content monetization and distribution, brand collaborations and the creation of influencer brands,” said Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind Group.

 

 

Even though the retail giants are reporting positive numbers, the retail sector is yet to recover from COVID

Retail giants ITC Ltd and Hindustan Unilever have recently revealed their Q1 FY22 numbers, and it seems promising. Even though the numbers are good, it, however, did not reward the share prices. When compared to the previous year’s numbers, HUL has managed to increase its profits by 9.5 percent (1,881 crores). Retail giant ITC has taken a huge leap and has reported a 28.6 percent rise in standalone profit (3,013.5 crores) for q1 of 2021. In the corresponding year of the previous cycle, ITC had reported Rs 2,342 crore as standalone profit.

Even though June month was severely affected by the second wave of COVID, both the retail giants managed to deliver good numbers in profit. Only a handful of companies have managed to show profits in this q1, and there are more than 50 percent of retailers who are yet to reach the pre-pandemic level in terms of profit. Data from RAI suggests that the profits of June month fell severely, and it showed that sales were down by 50 percent when compared to 2019 June. CEO of RAI, Kumar Rajagopalan, has stated that retail businesses are finding it very difficult to bounce back, and pan-Indian retail sales came down by 50 percent.

 

 

Ahold Delhaize USA begins operations at its new distribution center in Mauldin, S.C.

Ahold Delhaize USA (ADUSA), a retail giant, has begun its operations at its new distribution center in Mauldin, S.C. ADUSA Supply Chain, the retailer's distribution arm, has stated that the first shipments at the Mauldin DC went out to 56 Food Lion supermarkets. Dairy, fresh, and frozen products were the first items to begin shipping from the facility. Once the company sets up the fully operational unit, the DC will fulfill grocery, fresh, frozen, health, and beauty care shipments for around 200 grocery retail stores.

Ahold Delhaize USA has purchased the Mauldin DC from C&S in May. The transaction halted from the retailer's June 2020 acquisition of 62 Bi-Lo and Harveys stores from Southeastern Grocers. Also, ADUSA is planning to open its Supply Chain market in DC in Manchester, Conn., which will supply Ahold Delhaize USA's Stop & Shop.

The company has stated that it's actively hiring in Mauldin and 17 other network locations. To date, more than 250 associates have been hired and onboarded at the Mauldin campus, which will employ more than 800 in the local community. The company said it is seeking full-time employees for driver, selector, forklift operator, sanitation, and facilities maintenance roles.

 

 

Internet Outage Brings Down Several Major Retail and News Websites

Earlier this morning at 6.44 AM (Eastern Time), many governments and news websites in the U.S. and Europe were inaccessible, with at least one internet outage tracker reporting widespread disruptions. Sites like the U.K. government's main public-services portal, major U.S. and European news outlets, such as the New York Times, CNN, and Le Monde, were shut down.

Down Detector, an internet services tracker, reported the spike in outages. Many social media users described widespread outages in various regions. Fastly, an operator of the network service said issues with its services, though it was unclear whether the broader website outages were related. The company stated that it is currently investigating potential impact to performance with its CDN services.

Fastly's status page indicated the company had identified a problem with its service, stating that a fix was being implemented. Fastly also observed traffic volume to drop by about 75 percent, according to network monitoring company Kentik Inc. Most of the websites went down and displayed a simple error message in plain text, which said "Error 503 Service Unavailable," along with other codes.