The Order : Weekly Aggregator Roundup - Lenskart
Read of the Week:
Amazon's 2021 Letter to Shareholders - a first for Andy Jassy - outlines Amazon's journey over the past 25 years across key pillars of its offering. Most notably: Its fulfillment network doubled in the last 24 months.
The fulfillment network now comprises 410 fulfillment centers, 168 sortation centers, 1055 delivery stations, 260,000 drivers & a fleet of 100 cargo aircraft.
New funding this week: $200M
Funding Craze 💰
India: Eyewear retailer Lenskart in final talks to close a $200M-$250M being led by Alpha Wave Capital following a $315M Softbank & KKR backing last year to accelerate aggregation of DTC brands across the US and Europe [Economic Times]
Strategy 📈
5% fuel and inflation FBA Fee surcharge: "Amazon Hikes Fees for Fulfilling Seller Orders" [eCommerce Bytes]
21% of eCommerce holiday sales were returned. A problem for many, a chance for others: "How Amazon plans to fix its massive returns problem" [CNBC]
0.1% of Etsy sellers go on strike, and get quite some attention: "Etsy Sellers Strike as Site Ramps Up to Battle Amazon" [Wall Street Journal]
"Check out the 10-slide pitch deck 2 Amazon alumni created to reel in a $27.5 million Series A round for Shipium, an e-commerce logistics startup" [Business Insider]
"Meta's Horizon Worlds is testing in-app purchases and creator bonuses" [Techcrunch]
"Why D2C brands need to enhance digital presence through social commerce" [Economic Times]
Events 🎤
eCom World, May 4-6 online
KPMG Retail VAT and Customs Masterclass 2022, May 12 online
One additional day to mark on your calendars: Prime Day is July 18
Let's make this week count,
Christian