The largest growth opportunities for ecommerce?

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Hello readers,

Since we hunkered down at home, ordering food, groceries, and other daily necessities online have become quite the norm. This could potentially present a great opportunity for ecommerce companies, especially those in the fast-moving goods sector (FMCG) sector.

Scroll down if you fancy a short summary or click here for the full story (🔒).

But first, here are your quick bytes for the day:

1️⃣ Amazon fills up its shopping cart: The tech giant is said to be in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in Indian conglomerate Reliance’s retail arm JioMart. This comes after Reliance has wrapped up (🔒) its recent fundraising spree at over $20 billion.

2️⃣ Going up against Amazon and JioMart is FlipKart, which is taking over its parent company Walmart’s loss-ridden cash-and-carry business in India, Best Price. It will launch a new digital marketplace called Flipkart Wholesale. Now, you and I might be used to using the typical ecommerce sites, but the gap in user interface, the public’s lack of trust in the process, and language barriers still account for social commerce’s rise in India (🔒) and Indonesia (🔒).

3️⃣ Despite its failed space mission with Russia 9 years ago, China ain’t giving up on its dream: The country launched its first independent mission to Mars. In 2019, community writer Wayne Shiong wrote that we may see “China’s new space Silk Road [within] the next decade” – and it looks like it’s progressing just fine.

4️⃣ While some startups like Oyo (🔒) and Swiggy are going through layoffs and pay reductions, B2B startups such as Razorpay, Simplilearn, and PhonePe are going on a hiring spree.

5️⃣ With TikTok facing a potential ban by the U.S. government, a group of investors has come up with a plan: Buy TikTok from its Chinese owner. Looks like ex-Disney exec Kevin Mayer has had a busy few months since he was appointed CEO of TikTok (🔒) in May this year.

6️⃣ “Buy now, pay later” Australian tech giant Afterpay saw its valuation soar to close to A$20 billion at the time of writing. Outside of Australia, Pay-later products are starting to become a force (🔒) in Southeast Asia, as seen in the fast rise of Kredivo, Akulaku, and Oriente.

Big money for FMCG ecommerce peeps in Asia

The winners during Covid-19? Ecommerce players (🔒). And it’s not just food deliveries that are booming: Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) could also likely present one of the largest growth opportunities for ecommerce in the years to come.

• Eat at home: Many of the people surveyed in Southeast Asia said they would continue to eat at home more often even after Covid-19 has passed.
• New relationship with food: Food deliveries ain’t the cheapest so more people have turned to cooking and baking, both for therapeutic as well as affordability reasons.
• Opportunities for fresh food and groceries: In China, only 6.3% of fresh food is currently ordered online. But a lot of Chinese consumers are saying they don’t mind rolling with online grocery shopping even post-Covid-19.
• Companies are already eyeing this pie: Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent, and Pinduoduo have doubled down on their FMCG investments. In Southeast Asia, Lazada owns online supermarket Redmart while Shopee is using livestreaming to showcase fresh food to consumers.

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