Amazon's big India bet, and other rejigs
Also in today's edition, TMRW's listing plans, and Tata Digital's leadership shuffle.
D2C Insider’s newsletter, D2C Insider Digest, unpacks many aspects relevant for digital-first brands.
In today’s edition, we delve into Amazon’s India investment plan, YouTube developing AI-based dubbing for videos, and reshuffle in Tata Digital’s leadership.
Let’s dive in!
Amazon is upping its monetary bet in India
Amazon plans on putting in US $15 billion more in its domestic arm by 2030, the marketplace’s boss Andy Jassy tweeted on June 24, 2023.
This move comes after the e-commerce giant has already invested US$11 billion since its inception in India. The new capital is majorly going to be reserved for Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) expansion in the country.
India remains to be a crucial market for Amazon, among other overseas countries, even at a time when the Seattle-headquartered marketplace has closed a few offices in the last couple of quarters. Amazon is also the only major rival to Walmart-owned Flipkart in the country.
Aditya Birla’s TMRW is already planning its future
TMRW, which invested across eight digital-first lifestyle brands merely seven months ago, is already making plans to get listed.
The venture modelled as Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Ltd.’s (ABFRL) ‘House of Brands’, is in the process of onboarding external investors and also aims to take its brands in physical stores for deeper retail penetration. So far, the firm has acquired casual wear player Bewakoof, Juneberry, which focuses on women’s wear, and kids clothing firm Nauti Nati, among others.
The firm’s business model of acquiring brands and providing them with growth tools is similar to the roll-up business model, which gained popularity during the pandemic-led online shopping boom.
If TMRW is able to list publicly it would probably be the first-ever firm– among its roll-up business or house of brands competitors– to do so. Currently, Ananth Narayanan-headed Mensa Brands, 10Club, backed by Fireside Ventures, and Delhi-headquartered Globalbees, among others, are operating in this space.
Tata Digital’s leadership shuffle
Tata Digital-run Tata Neu and Tata Cliq are undergoing leadership change.
Shivcharan Pulugurtha, who was serving as Tata Neu’s chief strategy and business officer, has reportedly left the super app only in a year's time. Tata Cliq, on the other hand, is onboarding Nykaa Fashion’s former chief business officer, Gopal Asthana, as chief executive officer (CEO).
Asthana’s entry comes at a time when Tata would want to establish a strong presence in fashion e-commerce, after becoming a formidable player in medicine delivery, through 1mg, and in grocery with Big Basket.
L'Oréal and PepsiCo foray into the gaming market
Instead of advertising on video games PepsiCo., and French beauty giant L'Oréal have started developing their own ways to reach gamers.
To promote Mount & Dew, the beverage-and-snack conglomerate, collaborated with video game publisher 2K Games, created its own game and slipped it into one of 2K’s megahit series NBA2K.
Last year, L’oreal worked with Activision Blizzard’s Candy Crush Saga and gave free Prada Candy fragrance samples to players, who completed the game and filled a form. While the promotion lasted for close to five weeks, the brand ended up mailing about 40,000 samples in the first 24 hours.
Advertising through games has been a strategy used by many consumer brands in the past. Games give brands access to a highly engaged userbase. But many gamers also use ad blockers, which makes it difficult to reach them.
Back home Fireside Ventures has been betting on the gaming industry to merge synergies with digital-first brands in the last few months. The Bengaluru-based investment firm has so far backed Giga Fun Studios.
Founder’s corner
Arindam Paul, founding member at Atomberg, shares his tips on creating brand loyalty.
“Outside of your fantasy world, where you obsess about your brand, consumers have neither the time or inclination to go out of their way to seek your brand. I often quote this line by John Mars (owner of Mars chocolates): ‘The consumer is loyal to the brand they can find and buy easily’,” Arindam says.
According to him, to improve customer loyalty brands should focus on:
Making their brands distinctive so consumers can easily identify them
Improve distribution so the products can be found easily
Easy to buy. Avoid unnecessary product choices
Community Chatter
Our community, consisting of more than 5,000 members, exchange a lot of advice and tips with each other everyday.
This week polls were pretty popular across our groups.
The screenshot on the left depicts a poll on digital storefront, and the right one members have voted for accounting software.
GoKwik has partnered with CRED to assist the digital-first brands with payment options listed on the Saas (software as a service) player’s platform.
Also, we crossed a huge milestone. Our D2C Insider’s community now has more than 1,000 female founders.
Deals of the week
Omni-channel jewellery seller, Bluestone, is being chased by Steadview Capital for a significant majority stake purchase.
Blume Ventures raised Rs 200 crore (about US $25 million) as a first close for its new opportunity fund.
Delhivery’s private equity backer Carlyle sold 2.5 percent, its entire remaining stake in the logistics firm, for Rs 709.5 crore (almost US $86 million).
Social media tips
Virtual influencers could work out better than human creators but only in some cases as of now. According to this report, using rational language rather than emotional language would be more effective if you have a virtual influencer.
That’s it for today, folks. Tell us what you thought about our first edition in the comment section.
You could also drop us an email (content@d2cinsider.com) with your tips and suggestions on the topics you’d want us to cover.
Also, do join us for our upcoming summits in Delhi on 26th August, 9th September in Mumbai and 23rd September in namma Bengaluru.
Brilliant start!