 Our new Live Interview Series, Venturing In VC, premiers next week on January 4, 2022. Venturing in VC is a live interview series where our host, Landon Campbell, interviews investors about how they broke into VC, their daily routines, views on the future, and lessons learned along the way. Who’s our first guest? None other than Turner Novak, Founder of Banana Capital - a founder-focused fund that invests anywhere from Pre-Seed to Pre-IPO with an average initial check size of $150,000-$300,000.
Save your free seat to learn how Turner views the world and shares lessons he’s learned along his journey. Inside.com/vivc Venturing in VC is sponsored by SeedInvest - Fundraising isn’t easy, but it just got easier. Apply to start your raise on SeedInvest, or browse highly vetted startups to invest in. | |  Jigney |  |
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 Amazon benefitted greatly from a surge in e-commerce sales last year but saw revenue growth slow down in 2021 as the U.S. economy re-opened. In Q3, Amazon's e-commerce revenue grew by 3% YoY to $49.9B, down from 37% growth in the same quarter last year. Amazon shares increased by 76% in 2020 but are only up 4.3% year-to-date. Other major events: - In July, Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO, with AWS chief Andy Jassy becoming his successor.
- Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against creating the company's first U.S. union in a nearly two-to-one vote.
- Last month, the National Labor Relations Board said Amazon engaged in anti-union tactics and ordered a new election set for next year.
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 Chinese President Xi Jinping The Chinese government ramped up its crackdown on the e-commerce industry in 2021. Alibaba and food delivery giant Meituan were fined $2.8B and ~$530M for antitrust violations after they forced merchants to enter exclusivity agreements that prevented them from operating on rival platforms. More: - Alibaba and Pinduoduo have pledged to donate $15.5B and $1.5B to support multiple government initiatives, including the agriculture industry, as part of President Xi Jinping's "common prosperity" initiative, which calls for wealthy individuals and corporations to redistribute their wealth to combat inequality.
- In July, the government introduced new rules for the food delivery industry mandating they provide workers with a minimum wage.
- The government said livestream shopping influencers must speak Mandarin and be objective as part of new rules announced in August.
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Buy now, pay later adoption (BNPL) continued to soar in 2021, after it gained popularity last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. BNPL purchases will grow from $24B in 2020 to $100B this year. More: - PayPal acquired Japanese BNPL firm Paidy for $2.7B, and Square bought Afterpay for $29B.
- Klarna reached 20 million U.S. users in August, just two months after it raised $639M at a $45.6B valuation.
- Affirm raised $1.2B at a $23B valuation during its January IPO.
- In August, Affirm became Amazon's first BNPL partner in the U.S.
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched an investigation into the BNPL industry this month.
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U.S. e-commerce prices went up in the first 11 months of this year due to e-commerce demand and the global supply chain crisis causing product shortages. In November, online inflation was up 3.5% YoY, the biggest annual jump since Adobe began tracking its performance in 2014. It was also the 18th straight month that online prices increased. More: - Before the COVID-19 pandemic, online prices declined by an average of 3.9% between 2015-2019.
- Even Amazon hasn't been immune, as inflation on its platform rose by 7.5% between Oct. 2020 and Oct. 2021.
- Offline prices have also been impacted as inflation rose by 6.8% YoY in November, the largest increase since June 1982.
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U.S. online sales increased by 32.4% YoY in 2020 to $790.7B; however, growth began to slow in 2021. E-commerce growth was expected to slow down in 2021 as vaccination rates increased and consumers resumed in-person shopping. More: - Cyber Week sales fell by 1.4% YoY to $33.9B, after they grew by 20.7% YoY in 2020.
- While Adobe projects online sales in the holidays to rise by 10% YoY to a record $207B, this is down from last year's growth of 32.2%.
- The phenomenon wasn't limited to the U.S., as Alibaba's GMV growth on Singles' Day was 8.5%, down from 26% in 2020 and the lowest since the event's inception in 2009.
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 Warby Parker Direct Listing Multiple DTC companies, including Warby Parker and Allbirds, went public. Warby went public in September via a direct listing at a $6B valuation. Allbirds raised $300M at a $4.1B valuation in November. Both companies are unprofitable. More e-commerce IPOs - ThredUp went public in March via an IPO, raising $168M at a $1.3B valuation.
- Poshmark raised $277M at a $7B valuation in its January IPO.
- Rent the Runway raised $357M during its October IPO at a $1.5B valuation.
- Coupang's shares rose by 41% on its first trading day in March, raising $4.6B at an $84.5B valuation.
- Last month, Casper Sleep announced it would be taken private.
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Grocery delivery startups raised $10B in H1, up from $7B in all of 2020, according to PitchBook. Instacart raised $265M at a $39B valuation in March. Gopuff's valuation could reach $40B following its $1.5B funding round earlier this month. Turkish firm Getir has raised $1.1B this year and was last valued at $7.5B. More: - As startups raised record funds, there was also increased consolidation, as Getir acquired its Spanish and British counterparts Blok and Weezy.
- Gopuff acquired its British delivery firms Dija and Fancy.
- Deals for Amazon and Gopuff to acquire Flink fell apart before the company raised $750M at a $2.85B valuation in a round led by DoorDash.
- U.S. online grocery sales will grow from $66.5B in 2020 to $243.7B in 2025.
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As the U.S. economy began to re-open this year after last year's COVID-19 related lockdowns, retailers such as Amazon and Walmart had to increase spending on wages and benefits to attract workers in a tight labor market. In the summer, both Amazon and Walmart announced they would invest between $1B-$1.2B to cover 100% of tuition fees for their U.S. frontline workers. More: - Walmart and Amazon are the largest private employers in the U.S., with 1.6 million and 950,000 employees, respectively.
- The U.S economy added 330,000 retail jobs in November; however, this was 20,000 less than it normally would when adjusted for seasonality.
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An increasing number of retailers led by Walmart increased adoption of livestream shopping to boost e-commerce sales. In March, Walmart held a spring-themed livestream shopping event on TikTok. In November, Walmart partnered with Twitter to hold the first-ever livestream shopping event on the social media site. Throughout the holiday season, Walmart hosted 30 livestream shopping events on eight different platforms. More: - Livestream shopping sales in the U.S. grew from $6B in 2020 to $11B in 2021.
- In August, Walmart said its e-commerce sales would reach $75B this year, but the business remains unprofitable.
- China is the world's largest livestream shopping market, with sales projected to have grown from $150B in 2020 to $300B this year.
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Social media companies introduced new e-commerce capabilities as they looked for new revenue streams beyond advertising. In August, TikTok announced Shopify merchants can add product links within posts designed to facilitate in-app purchases. More: - U.S. social commerce sales are projected to have reached $36B in 2021, up from $26.7B last year.
- Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter rolled out livestream shopping capabilities.
- In March, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted there are over 1 million merchants on Facebook Shops, which has over 250 million monthly users.
- In July, Twitter began testing its Shop module, which lets retailers list products in their accounts so consumers can make in-app purchases.
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 |  | Jigney Pathak is a Business Researcher at Inside who loves technology, finance & sports. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration with a finance specialization & has previously worked at Salesforce. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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