Great for Facebook. Bad for every other retailer. Temu is single-handedly making DTC CAC more expensive.

TikTok Shop is at $300 million/month, going to hit $5b+ run rate by the end of 2024. Beauty products and Women's clothing are half of that.

Amazon wants to become 'daily habit.'

'Sellers are making a lot more money selling on Amazon than they could on their own,' said Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. Wild statement to make.

Amazon and Walmart rushed to introduce AI assistants this year. Walmart in Jan, Amazon in Feb (limited beta). Both feel like solutions looking for a problem. Thoughts?

Alibaba is about to light money on fire to fight Temu.

'Shein hit a record of more than $2bn in profits for 2023 and recorded roughly $45bn in GMV.'

'The reason an identical outfit is $30 on SHEIN versus $180 on Jaded London has little to do with the quality or workmanship involved. You’re often paying for the brand story, customer service, and the time and effort associated with curation.'

Shein 'The perfect way to address shoppers with short attention spans is to develop products with fleeting lifespans that are disposable and cheap. This ensures product obsolescence and affordability, creating space for them to react to their next impulse.'hbr.org/2024/02/the-li…

Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea area reduced traffic through the Suez Canal and a severe drought at the Panama Canal has forced authorities to impose restrictions. This led to record trade volume going around the Cape of Good Hope.

Why does Western Europe refuse to shop online?

When is Temu of India launching? Temu integrates suppliers at the source, enabling consumer-to-manufacturer to the West. Cheap prices for shoppers, easy for merchants; works because Temu handles the supply chain. But Temu is for buying from China. The model should work elsewhere.

Shein about to launch manufacturing-on-demand as a service.

Amazon is paying less attention to Walmart and Target and focusing instead on Temu and Shein, the two e-commerce disruptors from China who are doing what Amazon cannot do.

Alibaba brings 5-day delivery on AliExpress to US. It failed to crack the US market and is now seeing Temu flourish, which sells essentially the same goods. But they continue to build out global logistics and play a long-term game.

Temu was Facebook's biggest advertiser in 2023.

Biggest Amazon aggregator consolidation deal: Razor Group (raised $1.1b eq+debt) is buying Perch (raised $900m eq+debt) to form probably the largest operator in this space.