Also in this letter:
■ Myntra bets on global, D2C brands for festive season upper hand
■ Ethereum’s ‘Merge Day’ lifts gloom in India’s Web3 community
■ Instagram brings its parental supervision tools to India
Ecommerce sales have picked up since August: Flipkart group CEO
Ecommerce sales have picked up over the past few weeks in the run-up to the festive season sale after a relatively sluggish year when growth was muted, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart group, told us as the online retailer prepares for its flagship Big Billion Days sale, which kicks off on September 23.
Outlook: Flipkart expects to clock similar growth rates to last year’s festive season even as the Covid-led boost for online businesses starts to wear off. Compounding challenges for consumption-led businesses are inflationary pressures and macroeconomic uncertainty, which usually deter purchases, especially of high-value items such as smartphones and other electronics.
But as shoppers move towards value-driven products, Flipkart will focus on expanding its price points, mainly targeting users in smaller cities and towns, Krishnamurthy said.
Battle royale: The Big Billion Days sale, a property it launched in 2014, and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival Sale both begin on the same day, a tradition they have followed over the past several years. The month-long sale has sparked many battles between the two companies as they fight to lure Indian consumers to buy online.
We reported on on September 4 that while Flipkart will push new categories like travel, live commerce, Shopsy (which competes with Meesho at the lower end of the market), easy financing options and its loyalty programme through SuperCoins, Amazon is offering a 50% fee waiver for new sellers and launching live commerce just days before the sale begins. Flipkart said its loyalty programme Flipkart Plus has 20 million members.
Muted growth: So far this year, the ecommerce sector has seen consumption growth moderating across categories, especially in segments considered to be discretionary. As per estimates from market research firm PGA Labs, ecommerce shipments are expected to grow 20% annually in the ongoing financial year, ET reported in July. This is a lower rate of annual growth compared to the last two financial years, especially FY21.
Myntra bets on global, D2C brands for festive season upper hand
Flipkart-owned Myntra is betting on international and direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, and new categories such as Gen Z and teenage fashion to boost growth and give it a competitive edge during the upcoming festive season sales, its new chief executive told us.
The fashion marketplace said it would go live with its ‘Big Fashion Festival’ sale on September 23, the same day as Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon India’s Great Indian Festival.
Why the numbers: Myntra expects close to six million unique customers to shop online during the sale.
CEO Nandita Sinha told us the company would kick off the sale season with 15 new international brands.
The e-tailer is also factoring in Indian consumer preferences around D2C and will put the spotlight on new-age brands such as Label Life, Almo, and Breakbounce.
Close to 100 D2C brands will be live on the platform this festive season, the company said.
Overall, the company said it would launch 100 new brands for the upcoming sale, and offer 6,000 brands and over 1.5 million styles to customers in total.
This is 50% higher than in last year’s festive sale, Sinha added.
Competition from Reliance: Myntra’s focus on international brands comes at a time when Reliance Retail has been on a tear to get international brands into the country.
Over the past year, Reliance Brands has partnered with the likes of Gap, as well as luxury labels such as Tod’s, Maison Valentino, and Balenciaga to bring them to Indian customers.
Ethereum’s ‘Merge Day’ lifts gloom in India’s Web3 community
The Indian Web3 community celebrated the successful completion of Ethereum’s transition to a less energy-intensive technology to run its blockchain on Thursday, with “Happy Merge Day” becoming the greeting of choice among stakeholders.
The transition, dubbed the ‘Merge’, was touted as one of the most important events for the cryptocurrency industry in recent years.
Gloom lifts: The completion of the long-anticipated shift was met with cheer in the Web3 community on social media, in what has been an otherwise gloomy year for crypto in India.
At one point, over 30,000 people around the world joined the “Ethereum Mainnet Merge Viewing Party” on YouTube, hosted by the Ethereum Foundation, as it happened in real-time.
Greener blockchain: According to digiconomist.com, which tracks the impact of digital trends, prior to the Merge, a single Ethereum transaction consumed enough electricity to power the average US household for 6.76 days. This will now change, with Ethereum expected to become 99.95% more energy efficient.
Will the dough flow? The transition to a more energy-efficient blockchain could bring in more institutional participation and developer adoption for Ethereum, venture capitalists and founders told us.
“Institutional participation will increase as it is easier to buy, stake and participate in various simple and complex financial instruments in both DeFi and traditional finance,” said Pranav Sharma, founding partner at Woodstock Fund, a Web3-focussed fund investing in early and growth-stage startups.
Vikas Singh, cofounder of the NFT-derivative platform Bliv.Club, said the event will draw more developers into the ecosystem, especially those who had stayed away because of Ethereum’s carbon footprint.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Instagram brings its parental supervision tools to India
Instagram said on Thursday it has rolled out its new parental supervision tools in India, which will allow parents to control how their children use the platform, monitor their usage, and notify them in case of any trouble. The social media platform is also introducing a ‘family centre’, where parents and guardians can access supervision tools and resources from experts.
The move comes after Meta launched parental supervision controls and a family centre in the US in March.
Requirements: The platform said Meta has been working closely with experts, parents, guardians and young people in India to understand their needs. One of the biggest needs is to provide tools and resources to educate parents about digital services. For this, the company will work with Kidsstoppress.com to engage with parents and spread awareness of the tools.
Family centre is an education hub where parents and guardians can access resources from experts through articles, videos and tips. These will cover topics like how to talk to young people about social media.
ET Ecommerce Index
We’ve launched three indices – ET Ecommerce, ET Ecommerce Profitable, and ET Ecommerce Non-Profitable – to track the performance of recently listed tech firms. Here’s how they’ve fared so far.
ETtech Done Deals
■ Data engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider Sigmoid said on Thursday it has raised $12 million in funding in a mix of primary and secondary funding, as part of its latest funding round from Sequoia Capital India. With the current round, Sequoia has $19.3 million in Sigmoid. The startup will use the capital to evolve its market offerings, expand delivery centres and cater to new industries.
■ Cross-border raw material sourcing startup Ximkart said it has raised $2.4 million in funding led by Matrix Partners India. The startup will use the funds to strengthen its position in existing categories, launch new categories and expand to new geographies.
■ Edtech firm Upgrad has acquired corporate training solutions leader Centum Learning in a share swap deal. With this transaction, Bharti Enterprises Limited and its affiliates will join Upgrad’s cap table. Centum is expected to clock a revenue of Rs 170 crore in FY23.
■ AI-powered dubbing platform Dubdub.ai has raised $1 million from Waveform Ventures and Accel Atoms. The fresh funds will help the startup build technical expertise in the team and validate several use cases for global customers. It was founded in August 2021 by Anubhav Singh, Rahul Sankhwar, Rahul Garg, and Anchal Jaiswal.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Oracle cloud business ‘clocks triple-digit growth in India’: Oracle’s cloud business is growing in the triple digits in India on strong demand from private and public sector enterprises, a senior executive said. India is the second-largest centre for the US tech company, with about 40,000 employees. “…we are witnessing extremely great momentum for cloud in India,” said Kapil Makhija, vice president – technology cloud business, Oracle India.
Paytm to partner with Flipkart on payments for The Big Billion Days sale: One97 Communications Limited, the parent company of Paytm, announced it will be Flipkart’s payment partner for the ecommerce platform’s flagship sales event, The Big Billion Days. During the sale, customers shopping on Flipkart will receive a Rs 25 instant cashback on purchases of Rs 250 and above on paying via Paytm UPI Rs 50 on spends of Rs 500 and above through Paytm Wallet.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ Would you geotag your home for your government? 50 million Indians did (Rest of World)
■ Silicon Valley can’t keep track of your data (The Washington Post)
■ Chinese investment flows to Silicon Valley venture funds (WSJ)
