In the 1940s, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter proposed the idea of “creative destruction” to describe the collapse of an established order and the innovation and entrepreneurship that replaced it with something new. That was well before the internet existed, but the idea is an apt framing for the way e-commerce and companies such as Amazon have changed retail. Under a wave of bankruptcies and store closures, the old world of retail is crumbling, supplanted by one that’s increasingly digital as well as physical. The consequences are more significant than just which company’s quarterly sales are up or who has a hot stock. How we shop is changing, and that’s affecting how we work.

Publication: Quartz India

Date: February 11, 2020

Cooking for ways to express herself, Akanksha Deo Sharma dropped out of studying Commerce after the first year to join the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi. It was here that her association with the world’s largest furniture retailer Ikea, where she is the only Indian designer, started. Soon after her graduation in 2016, a 10-month internship at the mothership in Sweden was followed by a job offer. Deo Sharma joined in 2017. Today, working in Gurugram, she brings forth a Scandinavian aesthetic rooted in Indian culture, combining her knowledge of Indian textile history, handicrafts and construction techniques to develop products that are minimal, clean and playful.

Publication: Forbes India

Date: February 10, 2020

Pidilite Industries, the makers of popular homegrown adhesive brand Fevicol, has led a $40 million funding round in online furniture retailer Pepperfry, as it looks to make strategic bets in new-age companies to complement its core product offering. In December, Pidilite co-invested $30 million in online interior design company Home Lane. Globally and in India, companies such as Pidilite are betting on startups to access newer customers, products, markets, technologies and trends. Coca Cola, Unilever, Danone, Godrej Consumer and Marico have made such long-term and typically strategic investments. “With the pace of transformation currently under way, investing in disruptors gives established players a shorter route to market,” said Utkarsh Sinha, managing director, Bexley Advisors.

Publication: The Economic Times

Date: ...Pepperfry

Today, the term “conversion rate optimization” (or CRO) is the talk of the town (though that town is probably just inhabited by marketers). Indeed, the practice of modifying elements on a website and then testing it has proved its utility in the marketer’s toolset. “Does a green button perform better than a red button?” asks one marketer to another. “Well, let’s find out!” bursts the other. That’s the start of CRO. Nowadays, a lot of e-commerce businesses are solely obsessed with paid customer acquisition on Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat and other channels. What most of them are forgetting is that you can double your sales by either driving twice more traffic or by turning more existing visitors into buyers through ...E-commerce optimization

India is rapidly moving towards becoming one of the largest startup ecosystems in the world, as per statistics. It is ever-evolving, with the launch of more than 49,000 start-ups that have raised a combined total of more than $51 billion from 2008 to 2018. Research from Tracxn shows that Indian startups have raised $14.5 billion in 2019, breaking the previous record of $10.6 billion. Ranging from backgrounds like e-commerce and fintech to logistics and consumer services, these start-ups have already created a value of over $130 billion. With 26 “unicorns” – $1+ billion valued startups cumulatively worth more than $73 billion – and 31 “Soonicorns” – companies on the path to becoming unicorns by 2020– startups are redefining the Indian ...E-commerceSoonicornsStartups