JustGoEV online marketplace for EVs launches in UK

According to reports JustGoEV, an online marketplace for new and used EVs has launched in the UK.

The marketplace which was founded by automotive retail and ecommerce experts Jack Woodgate, Joe Worsfold and Ben Caspary is already home to more than 600 dealers and 6,000 listings.

“Our research shows us that the UK EV car parc is expected to top nine million vehicles by 2030 and that already 50% of car buyers are considering an EV of some description as their next purchase, so now is the perfect time to introduce the platform.
 
“Almost eight out of 10 car buyers say they do most of their car-buying research online, so if a consumer is looking to make the leap to an EV, we’re offering them a platform that filters out everything that’s irrelevant to them and helps with common ownership hurdles like installing a home charge point. Respectively, we are also giving dealers and EV manufacturers a direct means of reaching customers who are in the market for an EV as their next car.
 
“We’re aiming to offer a service that not only helps people buy an EV, but also helps them understand ownership.”
– Jack Woodgate, co-founder, JustGoEV

EVs have been gaining traction for a while now and slowly we are seeing more electric vehicles and hybrids on the roads. With more news on the impact global warming is having on our planet we are likely to see a bigger push and demand for sustainable commitments.

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Online retailers: Stop trying to beat Amazon

Kenny Small Contributor

Kenny Small is vice president SAP and Enterprise at Qualitest Group, the world’s leading AI-powered quality engineering company.

Brick-and-mortar stores forced to close due to pandemic lockdowns had to quickly pivot to an online-only model. Understandably, newcomers to the digital retail scene found themselves behind the curve in attracting online buyers, particularly in the face of popular established events like Amazon Prime Day. This year’s Prime Day, held June 21-22, was reportedly the biggest ever on the platform.

Online retailers that have opted to forge their own path to generate sales often wonder how they can compete with Amazon.

Amazon’s true unique selling proposition is its distribution network. Online retailers will not be able to compete on this point. Instead, it’s important to focus on areas where they can excel.

The reality is that Amazon’s true unique selling proposition is its distribution network. Online retailers will not be able to compete on this point because Amazon’s distribution network is so fast. Instead, it’s important to focus on areas where they can excel — without having to become a third-party seller on Amazon’s platform.

The following are seven key tips that are relevant for online retailers that want to attract and retain customers without having to partner with Amazon or to try to beat it at its own game.

Gain a 360-degree view of the customer

An online retailer needs to consider what kind of experience it wants to create; customers expect smooth processes on every step of their online shopping journey.

One idea is to implement a consumer data platform that will help the retailer gain the best insights into their customers: who they are and what they like, which websites they frequent and other relevant information. Retailers can use this data to then target customers with ads for products they’ll actually want to buy. Consumer data platforms can even help online retailers target consumers across platforms as well as in the store.

Ensure smooth and glitch-free pre-sale transactions

One of the biggest frustrations with online retailers is the performance of a website, from getting on the site through the closing of the sale. If something fails or glitches at any point in the process of searching for a product and paying for it, the customer will leave and not come back.

The solution to this problem involves a lot of testing of the user interface to ensure a good user experience. Tests should be done on all e-commerce segments on a site, including the basket and ad banners. By inserting tags along the customer journey, a retailer can track lost sales and see where problems happen on their website.

Offer a broad variety of payment options

As a payment option, PayPal recently experienced a record 36% year-on-year growth in payment volume between the third quarter of 2019 and Q3 2020. Despite PayPal’s popularity, Amazon does not accept it as a form of payment.

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India’s Supreme Court rules in favor of Amazon to stall $3.4B Future and Reliance deal

India’s apex court on Friday ruled in favor of Amazon to stall the sale of Future Group to Reliance Industries in a major victory for the American e-commerce giant in the key overseas market.

The Indian Supreme Court said the order by a Singapore arbitration court last year — which had ruled to stall the deal between the two Indian giants — is enforceable in India.

Reliance Retail said a year ago it had reached an agreement with Future Group to acquire the latter’s retail and wholesaler business, as well as its logistics and warehousing business, for $3.4 billion.

Amazon, which had invested in one of Future Group’s units, accused the Indian firm of violating its contract and reached the Singapore arbitrator to halt the deal.

Amazon’s deal with Future Retail had given the American e-commerce giant the first right to refusal on purchase of more stakes in Future Retail, Amazon argued.

The Indian firms had argued at the time that a Singapore’s court order wasn’t valid in the South Asian market. India’s watchdog Competition Commission of India last year approved the deal between the Indian firms.

Shares of Future Retail, which operates 1,700 retail stores across 400 Indian cities, dropped 6% on the order, while Reliance Industries — the conglomerate that runs Reliance Retail — were down 1.3%.

Amazon, Walmart’s Flipkart and Ambani’s Reliance Industries, the most valuable firm in India, are locked in an intense battle to command the Indian retail market.

With e-commerce commanding only between 3 -7% of all retail sales in India — and Reliance Retail launching its own e-commerce business to fight Amazon and Flipkart — Amazon’s reported future deal with Reliance Retail is already seen by many industry analysts as crucial for the American e-commerce firm’s future in India.

Amazon, which kickstarted its journey in India eight years ago, has invested more than $6.5 billion in its local business in the country.

Founded in 2006, Reliance Retail serves more than 3.5 million customers each week (as of early this year) through its nearly 12,000 physical stores in more than 6,500 cities and towns in the country.

The retail chain, run by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, raised over $7 billion last year. Ambani’s other venture, Jio Platforms, also raised over $20 billion from more than a dozen marquee investors, including Google and Facebook last year.

More to follow…

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BigCommerce partners with By Now Pay Later solution Sezzle

BigCommerce has partnered with Sezzle Inc a buy now, pay later solution. With almost a fifth of the UK’s population having used Buy now, pay later to purchase a product online, retailers are increasingly adopting these solutions in response to customer demand.

Small and mid-market BigCommerce merchants will now have the ability to offer interest-free payment plans that support smart, risk-free shopping for consumers, including high-risk borrowers and younger shoppers looking to build credit and buy with a purpose.

Sezzle is also dedicated to financially empowering younger consumers through credit building and financial education, and was recently certified as a B Corp for its ethical business model.

With Sezzle natively integrated as a payment gateway in the BigCommerce Control Panel, merchants can enable the BNPL option with a single click to display a Sezzle widget at checkout. Sezzle then collects 25% of the order price from the consumer at time of purchase, followed by three additional automated 25% installments over the course of six weeks. Key benefits include:

• Risk-free selling. Merchants receive full payment upfront less a minimal fee, assuming no credit or fraud risk on purchases.

• Alternative payment options. By providing a new payment alternative alongside other payment methods, merchants give buyers the financial flexibility to purchase with or without a credit card.

• Attract new buyers. More than 45 million people ages 14 and older in the U.S. will use BNPL services this year, giving merchants the opportunity to appeal to a new generation of buyers seeking to try a new payment method to overcome limitations such as cash flow or credit.

“The majority of our users are shoppers who don’t have access to or have avoided using traditional credit cards, but are still looking for a budget-friendly way to make purchases. Partnering with BigCommerce will provide this buying power for our customers, helping them build their credit while they get the products they need.”
– Veronica Katz, chief revenue officer at Sezzle Inc.

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Bluecore lands $125M Series E on $1B valuation as e-commerce personalization grows

During the pandemic, especially when we were in lock down, just about every retailer had to build its online presence and do it quickly. As people move to shop online in larger numbers, being able to personalize that experience has become more crucial. That made the pandemic a pivotal moment for Bluecore, an e-commerce personalization platform, and today the company announced a $125 million Series E on a $1 billion valuation.

Existing investor Georgian led the round with participation from other existing investors FirstMark and Norwest along with new investor Silver Lake Waterman. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $225 million, according to the company.

Up until fairly recently, Bluecore CEO and co-founder Fayez Mohamood says that retail outreach was mostly about driving traffic to brick and mortar stores or to the company website, but as more business gets conducted online, it has changed how brands have to interact with their customers.

“We believe in that shift, and Bluecore is a retail-specific, multi-channel personalization platform, and we combine basically three types of data. First is customer identity. Second is shopper behavior. And then thirdly and most importantly, the product catalog of a retailer, and using that we drive personalized experiences on various channels,” Mohamood explained.

The company was founded in 2013, and has been able to evolve the notion of personalization since then in a significant way. Mohamood says the pandemic really pushed things into the digital realm where his company’s strength lies and that’s one of the primary reasons they are taking on this funding.

“Personalization has always been important, but I think the value retailers can derive from it has dramatically accelerated as digital became a bigger and bigger portion of everybody’s revenue stream. And over the last year, that became even more critical,” he said.

Boost ROI with intent data and personalized multichannel marketing campaigns

As the company’s growth has accelerated so has the hiring. In May 2020 Bluecore had 236 employees, today it has over 300 and it’s shooting to be over 400 by the end of the year. He says that as he grows the company, diversity and inclusion is a crucial component to have the employee base reflect the diversity of the customers they serve.

“It starts with the executive team, so I’m extremely proud of the fact that on our executive team close to half our team is female. We have a committee that is represented by the core employees that is a diversity, equity and inclusion committee where we have thoughts and ideas and most most importantly actions on how we can build a better diverse, inclusive workplace. And that translates it into OKRs,” he said.

As a Series E company with a billion dollar valuation, Mohamood can see becoming a public company at some point, but it is not an immediate goal as he pursues growth over profitability. “The way we think about it is we have this brand that’s going to help us invest in our product capabilities, our leadership capabilities, and our go-to-market capabilities to build something that has the ability to [be a public company some day]. Having said that, we’re pursuing growth and if that’s the goal, we find that staying private helps us do that,” he said. And with $125 million of runway, the company plenty of freedom to take its time.

Bluecore raises $50M for its first-party, AI-based marketing automation tools

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Elude raises $2.1M to show spontaneous travelers the best destinations for their budgets

As more people dust off their luggage and passports after stowing them away during the global pandemic, Elude aims to show travelers a new way to take spontaneous trips.

The Los Angeles-based startup launched its travel discovery mobile app Thursday, a budget-first search engine that shows people how far their money will take them. The platform’s personalized onboarding experience customizes trip packages and offers future travel suggestions based on those preferences.

The idea for the company came three years ago from Alex Simon, CEO, and Frankie Scerbo, CMO, who met in college and bonded over their love of traveling and would do so together any time they had a long weekend. One New Year’s they tried planning a trip, but everything was too expensive. Not being able to find something on their budget, they came up with the idea for Elude.

Rather than searching by destination, Elude gathers information like budget, time frame and trip preferences (think beach versus mountains), then presents users with flight and hotel results for destinations they may never have thought existed or could be traveled to on their budgets.

The company taps into the same flight and hotel databases that all online travel companies use that store hundreds of thousands of flights and hotels and only suggests hotels with 3.5 stars and above.

Elude app

The co-founders have now raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by a group of investors including Mucker Capital, Unicorn Ventures, Upfront Scout Fund, StartupO, Grayson Capital and Flight VC.

When Erik Rannala, co-founder and managing partner at Mucker Capital, initially invested in Elude, it was before the global pandemic. However, he sees travel getting back to normal, though with flights now more expensive than before, more people are looking for travel deals, something that wasn’t being addressed until Elude came along.

Travel is “a massive category,” with most people in either “look mode” or “book mode,” with the money only being made in book mode, Rannala said. By taking a budget-first approach, Elude is bridging people from look mode to book mode more quickly.

“The way they have done it is to help people discover something new based on their budget that is available to book right now,” he added. “It’s a unique way to solve the problem and to give people a good deal.”

With millenials spending over $200 billion annually on travel, Elude’s goal is to reduce the hours of scrolling in search of a trip and more time actively booking vacations. Whereas competitors may show flights only or hotels only, Elude produces flight and hotel packages.

“In just a few clicks, we can show you, for example, that you could go to Barcelona for the same price as Miami,” Scerbo told TechCrunch. “If you knew that kind of information, you would take a better trip. This opens doors to taking a trip every few months instead of the one or two trips a year most people take.”

Prior to today, Elude was in private beta mode where the company had amassed some 40,000 people on the waitlist. Simon said.

Elude plans to use the funding to advance technology, marketing function, operations and customer support.

Even amid the pandemic, this newly funded travel startup is tackling the stodgy timeshare market

 

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Plant-based cereal startup OffLimits pours $2.3M into new products

For Emily Elyse Miller, founder and CEO of OffLimits, launching during a global pandemic was “interesting to navigate,” but in the end, worked out.

“Unfortunately, ‘fun cereal’ is associated with being unhealthy, and I wanted people to have fun with their food again, but in a healthy way,” Miller told TechCrunch. “There are a few startups in the space tackling the healthy side of cereal, but I wanted to take on the culture of breakfast.”

She split her time between fashion and food, attending the Fashion Institute of Technology before getting into the trends and forecasting space. It was there that she started writing about food and design, traveling all over the world. She said she “became obsessed with morning rituals” and worked with chefs to open their doors for breakfast. She even wrote a book on breakfast.

Miller launched OffLimits in 2020 out of Science Inc.’s startup studio. OffLimits uses whole ingredients, and its flavors are organic, vegan, gluten-free and lightly-sweetened with organic cane sugar. Since its launch, OffLimits’ two cereals Dash (turns your milk into cold brew coffee) and Zombie (Pandan-flavored, similar to vanilla and green) were picked up in stores like Intelligentsia and are available online. The cereals retail for $8.50 per box.

She is now announcing a $2.3 million round of funding that encompasses friends and family, pre-seed and seed financing. The backing comes from Science Inc., Crosslink, Canaan, DBC Creative CEO Dana Cowin, Surface Magazine CEO Marc Lotenberg, TikTok executive Nick Tran and NTWRK president Moksha Fitzgibbons.

Miller said the breakfast market was valued at $16 billion in the U.S. and $30 billion globally. Building a cereal brand is capital-intensive and difficult to produce, so the new funding will go toward scaling into retail, hiring new talent and building up inventory.

Over the past few years, new brands like OffLimits have popped up, offering legacy brands a chance to pivot to new audiences, but largely they have not, she added.

“There is definitely room to grow and with the Gen Z mindset of questioning legacy brands, we want to support what is new,” Miller said. “We are one of the few that are all plant-based, which was both a disturbing and surprising fact to find out. It was really important that OffLimits had an extremely clean panel. We want something all chefs can be excited about.”

In addition to the funding, the company released new flavors, including Spark (strawberry flavor with antioxidants) and Flex, which has a cinnamon flavor and is targeted toward a health and workout-oriented audience. To commemorate the company’s first year in business, it is offering a “birthday pack” so that customers can try all four flavors. Miller heard from customers that they like mixing cereal flavors, so the pack will encourage personalization. There is also an edible glitter product launching in September that Miller said “turns the cereal bowl into a disco party.”

Products sold out twice already and the company is now on its third production, with plans to offer mini boxes, where the milk can be poured directly in, and optimizing the supply chain for future growth.

Aside from the flavors, Miller wanted a focus on the boxes themselves and the mascots for each one. The cereal mascots all have profiles on the website and include a female pink bunny for Dash and a zombie that eats cereal all day.

“We don’t want to impart anything on the characters, and want to keep them open to be molded into different things,” Miller added. “We want to appeal to counter-cultures in whatever sense that is.”

IoT and data science will boost foodtech in the post-pandemic era

 

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