Hello everyone,
Happy Friday! It’s time to unwind, especially if you’ve been working from home through the week. There is another good news. Online retailers will soon be accepting orders for non-essential items.
Up and running
E-commerce marketplaces will start taking orders of non-essential goods as early as this weekend after multiple states issued notifications allowing sales of such items.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Goa have already given the green light to online retail platforms, in line with directives issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued on April 15.
Big boost
Smartphones, PCs, electronics, apparel, furniture, home décor and other such products comprise 90% of gross merchandise value or GMV for large online retailers.
- A Flipkart executive told ET that bulk of the shipments from sellers had started arriving at its fulfilment centres and the company “should open up orders for non-essentials in other states as early as Friday evening.
- Paytm Mall said it will start selling non-essential products and continue to keep build its essential products portfolio.
- Snapdeal, which continued to accept all orders through the lockdown with a promise of delivering them later, has told sellers to ready the orders for shipment starting April 20. Read more here.
Sops for vendors
To bring back variety to its product listings and lessen the financial stress on small businesses affected by the nationwide lockdown, Amazon is offering a 50% waiver on commissions for small sellers till June.
Is it enough?
Jeff Bezos-led online retail giant said sellers that earned less than Rs 10,000 in January and February would be eligible for the concession.
Its rival Flipkart is also giving special offers on loans to small sellers through its Growth Capital programme. Sellers who take loans during the current period will get extended financial limit with a six-month moratorium. The Walmart-owned retailer is also offering insurance against Covid-19 to sellers. Read more here.
A shot in the arm
Online real estate search platform NoBroker has picked up an additional $30 million (about Rs 231 crore) from existing investor General Atlantic. This is the private equity firm’s third capital infusion into the Bengaluru-headquartered company since it initially invested in June last year.
Valuation soars
The investment is expected to value NoBroker at about $400 million, with the blue-chip PE firm having pumped in about $80 million in the six-year-old company till now. In June last year, General Atlantic had invested $40 million, which was followed by a $10 million cheque in October. Read more here.
Pumping cash
Building a war chest
Lightspeed Venture Partners has announced the closing of three new investment vehicles, totalling $4.2 billion in fresh capital commitments.
- Lightspeed Venture Partners XIII has raised $890 million and will support early-stage companies from seed to Series B rounds.
- Lightspeed Venture Partners Select IV, which has a corpus of $1.83 billion, will look to accelerate existing portfolio companies and identify new investments.
- Lightspeed Opportunity Fund, a new fund, will use $1.5 billion to invest in breakout companies across the markets that the multi-stage venture capital firm operates in, including China, India, Israel, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Why it matters
Lightspeed has also been among the most active venture capital investors in India. Lightspeed India Partners has been an early backer of hospitality chain Oyo Hotels & Homes, ed-tech unicorn Byju’s and business-to-business e-commerce marketplace Udaan. Read more here.
Fighting Covid-19
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos highlighted various steps taken by the e-commerce giant to tackle the Covid-19 crisis in the company’s annual shareholder letter for 2020.
Here are some key steps taken by the world’s largest online retailer:
Global Picks
- UK’s National Health Service is in a standoff with Apple and Google over coronavirus tracing. Read more at The Guardian.
- Expedia Group chairman Barry Diller said the company plans to slash its ad spending from $5 billion to less than $1 billion this year. Read more at CNBC.
That’s all from today. See you next week. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated with the latest news on startups and emerging businesses.
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