Mensa’s new brand, and burger without tomatoes
D2C Insider Digest is curated by a team at D2C Insider. The weekly newsletter aims to bring you the tectonic shifts relevant in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) landscape.
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Welcome to the world of D2C Insider.
In D2C Insider Digest’s third edition, we explore Amazon India’s soaring export sales, with Mensa Brand’s bringing its home décor player to India, and you wouldn’t have to worry about tomatoes in your burger. Looks like McDonald’s is cutting back on the fruit in its food products amid soaring costs.
Oh, and have you been using WhatsApp to sell your products? Of course you have. You might want to check out the second last section.
You would only need to spare about 4-5 mins to be all caught up.
Also, D2C Insider Digest got more than 500 subscribers only in two weeks of launch, and that’s because of you—our readers. Thank you so so much.
Now, let’s dive in!
Mensa Brands now in home décor
After having 25 brands under its wing Mensa Brands launched Folkulture, a home décor brand it acquired in 2021, in the Indian market. The firm, which already sells across the US, Canada, and the UK through Amazon, operates in more than 30 categories selling 1,000 products.
Currently, Mensa has brands across fashion, accessories, electronics and home category, among others. In the last few months, home category is expected to bring out a few new direct-to-consumer (D2C) players. A wide space seems to have been recognised in the multi-functional furniture space, according to Ivy Chin, partner, Inflection Point Venture.
Amazon’s cumulative export to reach $8 billion by 2023
Amazon India’s export business is expected to reach $8 billion, in cumulative export sales, by 2023. Up until 2022, the global selling programme reached $5 billion in sales over the years, since its launch in 2015. This means by the end of this year, Amazon’s export arm would have done a business of $3 billion.
The export business is soaring past Amazon’s core ecommerce business in the country, as demand moderates after the pandemic-led online shopping boom.
Another digital-first brand enters Saudi Arabia. This time it is Rebel Foods
Rebel foods is trying to build another home in Saudi Arabia, a market it aims to grow to a $100 million food delivery business in the next 2-3 years. The firm, which runs food brands including Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story, and Faasos, plans to open at least 60 ‘internet restaurants’ within the next year.
In the last couple of years, Nykaa, India’s largest beauty ecommerce seller, forayed into Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) followed by digital-first skincare player Minimalist.
Softbank has trimmed holdings across India portfolio
Softbank, the most bullish investor in the world, is on a holdings shedding period across its portfolio companies globally. The investment conglomerate, which has suffered a staggering $39 billion loss in its Vision Fund, sold shares worth Rs 8,500 crore ($1.04 billion) in the last 18 months, according to The Arc.
Apart from PB Fintech, Policybazaar’s parent company, and logistics player Delhivery, Softbank has sold over 50 percent stake in its most valuable player Paytm, which is not having a good time on the stock market. The development comes at a time when many investment firms are in a judicious spending mode and a slowdown in late-stage dealmaking.
Guess where you wouldn’t find tomatoes anymore? In your burgers
McDonalds has stopped putting the red fruit in their burgers stating quality issues. But this development comes at a time when tomato prices have been soaring for the last few weeks due to incessant rains and hot weather.
In Uttarakhand, tomatoes are currently retailing for as high as Rs 250. Earlier this year, the fruit cost Rs 22 at the start of 2023. The fruit’s availability becomes lean in June and July, but this year’s extreme climate conditions have exaggerated the impact.
We wonder how other cloud kitchens and quick service restaurants are dealing with this shortage of such an imperative ingredient.
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Founder’s corner
Ghazal Alagh says building a business is a marathon and not a sprint.
“Should we look down on professionals/entrepreneurs who are having fun while they build strong business?” Alagh asked in a post.
“If you are in it for decades, you need to build while living a life you wanted,” she added.
Alagh talks about the stages of building a business just like there are stages in life:
Getting started
Finding product market fit
Getting a strong team in place
Building efficiencies in the business
Putting sustainable process in place
Community chatter
This week a few of our communities were active. But one of the founders had an interesting challenge on the social media front.
“Someone is running bots on our account and posting 100s of negative fake comments,” said the founder. The issue was resolved within the community.
Have you ever faced this kind of an issue? How much time did it take to get the situation resolved?
Deals of the week
Jewellery player GIVA raised Rs 200 crore, in Series B funding round, from Premji Invest. Existing players including A91 Partners, Aditya Birla Ventures, and Alteria Capital also participated in the round.
Freakins, a denim wear brand, raised $4 million from Blume Ventures and Matrix Partners India. This is also probably the first bet for Blume Ventures in the digital-first brand space.
Brand’s corner
This week, Me With a Pencil, a written services firm, caught our attention.
Run by Chetna Morkhade, the firm has been offering handwritten note service to digital-first brands, which helps in creating a distinct packaging experience for consumers. The decade-old firm also teaches calligraphy classes.
Also, men’s fashion brand, Snitch, turned three!
Snitch’s founder Siddharth Dungarwala celebrated in the community
Tip of the week
Using WhatsApp for customer acquisition cost (CAC) reduction, increasing retention
Almost every consumer brand uses WhatsApp to foster relationships with their users, which could lead to reduced CACs and increased retention.
Aniket Bajpai, co-founder of Limechat, which speacialises in WhatsApp commerce, suggests three new developments on the app and how to optimally utilise them.
“I decided to summarise the top 3 opportunities around WhatsApp from last quarter:
One major release from Meta was Click to WhatsApp ads, which can now be optimized for conversions. This has become one of the biggest strategies to reduce CAC.
At the end of May, WhatsApp hiked its price for marketing messages by 50% to reduce spamming. This has given rise to 2-way marketing, one of the biggest opportunities to drive retention.
Lastly, it is now possible to build a complete buying journey on WhatsApp - from browsing products to checkout and even payments,” Bajpai said in a post.
Read of the week
Remember Tiktok? The erstwhile Chinese app, which brought the short-video revolution and got banned in India?
Turns out its newly launched live shopping feature is giving Amazon a run for its money.Also, it looks like GenZ’s trust their friends much more than an influencer when it comes to purchases.
Is influencer marketing still relevant? Tell us in the comment section below.
That’s it for today, folks!
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