The Order : Weekly Aggregator Roundup - Agora
Chart of the Week:
A relief on the Cost of Goods Sold side - freight rates continue to trade downwards. Overall, Drewry’s composite World Container Index decreased by 0.9% to $7,657.20 per 40ft container this week.
New funding this week: $84M
Funding Craze 💰
Shopify merchant aggregator Agora announced an $84M round led by Maverick Private Equity. To date Agora operates brands across various D2C categories including automotive, apparel, personal wellness products and home goods. [Yahoo Finance]
Movers & Shakers
Great software for brand houses and merchants: "Swiftline Acquires Leading e-Commerce Market Data and Intelligence Platform, Charm.io" [Business Wire]
More funding for merchants (part 1): Irish unicorn Wayflyer eyes further growth as it secures $300m debt line [The Irish Times]
And more funding for merchants (part 2): Shopify, Square among companies hoping to ease e-commerce slowdown by lending money to merchants [The Global Mail]
Strategy 📈
Amazon's ad machine: "Amazon's advertising revenue is $31 billion and growing. Here's everything we know about its booming ad business." [Business Insider]
"Online Retail Post-COVID" [Hahnbeck]
While I don't agree with every sentiment in here (and we see continued growth of a majority of players across both Amazon & Shopify) - the article overall bring together key strengths and weaknesses of the space: "How Thrasio, the well-funded creator of Amazon aggregator space, went from 'hypergrowth' to layoffs in less than 2 years — and leaves the model it pioneered in question" [Business Insider]
Amazon is shutting down Selz, the e-commerce startup it acquired last year [Geekwire]
Flipkart to phase out one of its seller fulfillment services [Economic Times]
Ecommerce enablers emerge as hot picks for investors amid D2C boom [The Economic Times]
2022 Ecommerce Fulfillment Trends Report [Supply Chain Management Review]
Events 🎤
Tools, Tech and Data for Profitable FBA Brands, The Fortia Group, May 26
Ambizion Amazon Seller Event Estonia, Tallinn June 4
Shoptalk Europe, London June 6-8
Orange Klik Barcamp with Dragonflip, Lisbon June 9-10
Let's make this week count,
Christian