End of Week Update 11/20
Pinduoduo announces a significant fundraise months after it announced new service focused on Grocery Delivery - Pyments and Fool
Pinduoduo is the third largest Chinese E-Commerce company (behind Alibaba and JD.com) that offers products direct from the Merchant to Buyers at a discount through group buying. In the 3rd Quarter, Pinduoduo announced that they had 634M monthly active users - almost twice the number of the entire population of the United States. Last year it sold $19.3 Billion of Fresh Produce alone - and it expects this number to double in 2020. Their CEO, Lei Chen, noted that the current supply chain infrastructure could not easily handle direct shipments of these items and “many packages sustained some damage from heat and poor handling.” That’s where last week’s $5.6 Billion fundraise announcement comes in. Pinduoduo plans to use this new capital “to invest in agricultural logistics infrastructure and responsive manufacturing as consumer behavioral changes accelerate the online migration of retail.” It will be important to see how and where Pinduoduo invests this money as it could act as a blueprint for farmers and fresh produce companies in the US to potentially duplicate to deliver products directly to consumers.
Best Buy launches same day delivery on Instacart - MarketWatch
Instacart launching with a Retailer that is outside of their “Bread & Butter” signals that they are not willing to let their competitors like Postmates take a significant share of the non-food market. Amazon and Walmart will almost certainly take note of this service as well, as same day delivery has a limited assortment on these platforms. With the announcement, Instacart also rolls out a “Certified Delivery” feature that enables shoppers to track the delivery of high value items. Albeit a smaller market, but this service could also be used to delivery high priced wine and spirits that were not likely to be purchased through this service before.
eMarketer releases research on 2020 Online Grocery Shopping - eMarketer
Some highlights from the must read report:
-US Online Grocery Sales to grow by 53% in 2020 to nearly $90 Billion
-US Online Grocery Buyers to increase 42% to 131 Million buyers
-90% of people shopping for groceries online delivered their purchase to their home or work
Links to research completed by a number of other firms include:
-Buyers using curbside pickup increased from 7% to 22% from February to June of this year
-The Pandemic fueled trial of the curbside pickup (43% of internet users)
Food Boss launches Direct Delivery from Restaurants - TechCrunch
Food Boss, the Kayak for Restaurant Delivery, helps consumers to find the cheapest rates for their food and delivery from the many new options that are popping up to serve home bound would-be restaurant goers. Until this week however the service only supported 3rd party delivery like UberEats which meant that restaurants were unable to learn more about who their consumers were and where else they might be ordering their food. The new direct support for restaurants means that restaurants will be able to deliver directly to consumers and ultimately save money on marketing costs that are going to driving consumers to the individual services. Only challenge here will be if restaurants will be able to compete on delivery costs that these 3rd party services are providing and ultimately be more expensive to the consumer pushing them to remain loyal to services like Postmates.
Google Maps Trends for the Holiday Season - Google
Google released a ton of research from Google Maps user data that will help consumers to avoid busy public places and properly social distance.
Stay-at-home orders that will most likely be issued in the coming weeks as COVID cases rise may throw a wrench in consumers going out - however if you are planning to travel you should definitely check this data out.
Hope you all enjoy a safe Thanksgiving this week!
