Ecommerce majors Flipkart and Amazon, and new gamers like Meesho, had an eventful yr. Another huge improvement was the launch of the much-hyped Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
Here’s a glance again on the prime tales and developments that formed India’s ecommerce universe in 2022.
Flipkart vs Amazon and others
After a comparatively muted begin by way of consumer consumption within the first half of the yr, etailers like Flipkart and Amazon noticed an uptick in demand main as much as and through the festive gross sales.
Flipkart group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy advised ETtech about it throughout this interview. In the primary week itself demand throughout segments like electronics, grocery, private care, well being and pharma had been 40-60% increased in comparison with final yr.
Discover the tales of your curiosity
This set the stage for an intense battle among the many etailers
and so they weren’t disenchanted with shopper demand.
ETtechWalmart-owned Flipkart largely maintained its lead over Amazon India, in accordance with ETtech’s evaluation, primarily based on inputs from trade executives and studies. Meesho additionally mentioned it had seen its best-ever festive season sale, echoing Amazon India. The Tata Group and Reliance Industries didn’t make a critical dent in market share of the incumbents.
But there was extra that occurred exterior the festive season gross sales.
Flipkart, after making a number of M&A
investments final yr, largely focussed on scaling new business verticals like social commerce (by means of Shopsy) and journey (by means of Cleartrip), moreover grocery and at-home companies. Shopsy is a direct rival of Meesho.
Both Flipkart and Amazon additionally opened up their
logistics arms, Ekart and
Amazon Transportation Services, respectively, to serve exterior orders. They additionally made their most aggressive bets on dwell commerce but.
Read extra about it right here
Countdown begins: Flipkart, Amazon gear up for festive battle.
Amazon India 2022: For Amazon, this was a comparatively disruptive yr. While it continues to be bullish on India, the US etailer had fairly an fascinating yr.
It lastly shut down its main vendor Cloudtail after years of regulatory stress and mentioned it will do the identical for one more giant
vendor agency, Appario Retail, within the subsequent yr.
ETtechAmazon had stakes in each vendor corporations. This meant Amazon needed to make a number of adjustments to make sure its ecommerce operations ran as clean as potential.
Read ETtech’s evaluation right here on
how mini Cloudtails have surfaced on Amazon India.
Amazon’s progress in 2022 was flagged as unimpressive by Bernstein,
which mentioned it continued to face regulatory hurdles in India. The etailer has now spent 9 years right here. It determined to close a number of smaller companies right here like meals, edtech and others.
But its nation supervisor Manish Tiwary advised us it was solely shutting experiments that didn’t work and that the Seattle-based agency remained dedicated to one in every of is largest markets exterior the US.
Read out interview with Tiwary right here:
Amazon relooking experiments, not shutting companies
Amazon additionally acquired social commerce agency Glowroad whereas its India head
Amit Agarwal was given further accountability of the APAC market as effectively.
Meesho, FirstCry, Tata Neu others: SoftBank-backed challenger ecommerce agency Meesho was aggressively taking over larger rivals like Flipkart and Amazon however
needed to make essential adjustments in its spends because the funding winter took maintain.
Vertical etailer
FirstCry nearly finalised a $1 billion IPO plan however
needed to postpone it, citing market situations. We reported how it’s
engaged on a secondary share sale to deliver SoftBank’s shareholding to beneath 25% so it might probably revive its IPO plans within the new yr.
ETtechTata Digital lastly launched its ‘super app’ Neu however it’s been a bumpy experience for the Mumbai-based conglomerate in ecommerce – from
sluggish gross sales to fixed adjustments in its top-ranks. Egrocer BigBasket and epharmacy 1mg stay its key progress drivers.
Delhivery IPO, logistics shake up: If the topic is ecommerce, logistics can’t be far behind. Delhivery, regardless of the unstable market situations,
went forward with its IPO and had a profitable run on the bourses until a couple of months in the past when a steering on shipments volumes within the coming months led to an enormous drop in its share worth.
Logistics vs aggregators, consolidation:
ETtech broke a sequence of tales on how prime three third-party logistics gamers Delhivery, Ecom Express and Xpresbees concurrently elevated charges for orders coming from aggregators like Shiprocket and others.
As a outcome, consolidation was quickly underway. Shiprocket acquired smaller rival
Pickrr in a $200 million deal. The mud right here hasn’t totally settled and there is likely to be extra such motion in 2023.
ETtechEcom Express, Rivigo hearth sale and Shopee exit: Ecom Express, a rival to Delhivery and Xpressbees, had a troublesome yr and misplaced its number-two place within the ecommerce logistics area after a very long time.
ETtech Long Read:
Why Ecom Express is trailing its rivals within the logistics trade’s sport of thrones.
2022 additionally marked one of many largest firesales – that of logistics unicorn Rivigo.
It was in talks with a number of gamers together with Flipkart and Xpressbees for a sale however
Mahindra group lastly purchased its B2B specific biz for a mere Rs 225 crore.
Last however not least,
Singapore-based Shopee’s abrupt exit from India was a shock to many. That additionally added to Ecom Express’s worries because it was servicing a lot of deliveries for the agency.
Roll-up ecommerce: After again to again funding rounds in Thrasio clones like Mensa Brands and Globalbees final yr, the hype round this business mannequin appears to have settled throughout 2022.
ETtechNext yr could also be make-or-break for most of the operators within the area.
We reported how Thrasio was altering its plans for India because of turbulence in its dwelling market,
whereas a shakeup is imminent throughout the broader trade.
That’s all from us for now, however we’ve got extra in retailer for you in 2023.
(Graphics & illustrations by Rahul Awasthi)