In Part 1 – and in Podcast 90 (Can Dingdong Win in Groceries and Specialty Ecommerce?), I teed up questions about how specialty ecommerce companies win and lose. It’s a really useful strategy question to think about. Here’s why. Imagine a small ecommerce company emerges and gets some traction with a clever product. Or in […]
Dingdong is a Chinese specialty ecommerce player focused on fresh groceries. It has gone public while still operating profit negative, but brings to mind a similar situation with Meituan at IPO. Jeffrey Towson argues that Dingdong’s success will depend on its ability to build a strong logistics network and scale its operations.
Softbank-backed Dingdong and Tencent-backed Missfresh have both gone public, to minimal investor enthusiasm. Both companies were launched: To solve the difficulties of selling perishable and difficult to transport groceries online. To tackle some of the pain points for both Chinese families and farmers. To capture a massive opportunity. And to get to operating profitability. They […]
Take-Away 1: With reports of +1,000 new products being added to Shein every day, there is a lot of speculation that this is a newer, faster version of fast fashion. That may be true in the future. But today, Shein’s growth appears to be mostly from offering really low-priced apparel to Gen Z women on […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses the rise of Shein, a Chinese fast fashion retailer that has become one of the most popular online apparel brands in the world. He argues that Shein’s success is due to its low prices, its use of algorithms to design and market its products, and its rapid shipping times. He concludes that Shein is a disruptive force in the fashion industry and that its success could have implications for other retailers.
Shein, a cross-border online DTC retailer, is transforming the fashion industry with its agile digital marketing and real-time fashion strategies. Founded by Chris Xu in 2008, Shein has grown to become a dominant player in the US fashion market, with its business model drawing significant attention. This article provides a comprehensive look into how Shein has upgraded fast fashion and its impact on the fashion industry.
I wrote about Alibaba’s 11 growth strategies in the fall of 2020. At their investors day, management laid them out in pretty good detail. You can see my write-up at: Dissecting Alibaba’s 11 Growth Strategies. From Investor Day 2020 (pt 1 of 2). (Jeff’s Asia Tech Class – Daily Lesson / Update) This is my […]
Sea Limited is rocking and rolling. Jumping from gaming to ecommerce. Then to payment and financial services. And now to Mexico. There is a growing public consensus that the Sea management team is extraordinarily effective. That’s cool. But it would have been much better to know that two years ago, when the stock was much […]
Last week, I attended a media event at JD Central in Bangkok. And I interviewed CEO Vincent Yang. This is JD’s joint venture with Central Retail, one of Thailand largest retailers. Note: This is one of JD’s two initiatives in Southeast Asia. The other is in Indonesia. It was a pretty interesting experience for a […]
Luxury marketplace platform Farfetch has had a long courtship with JD, Alibaba and Chinese consumers. In the next update, I’ll go into my thoughts on Farfetch as a stand-alone company (basically, not good). But the more interesting questions for investors are: Is Farfetch going to get bought? What is the private market value to Chinese […]