🌀Mirakl got €100m credit facility. What will the M&A targets be?

🛒 Mass merchant marketplaces

• 🇺🇸 Amazon Prime Air struggles and loses key employees. Amazon has lost two executives key to the company’s drone delivery operations. The staffers helped oversee tests of Amazon Prime Air’s drones, which experienced a crash in late June. The departures come as the service has struggled to expand beyond testing in two small U.S. markets. Deep dive → CNBC

• 🇺🇸 Walmart introduced Restored Premium to expand Walmart Restored offering. For brands and authorized refurbishers, this offers a new way to distinguish premium restored products. Items that fall under the Walmart Restored Premium category are like new, showing no signs of cosmetic damage, and they come with a one-year warranty and 30-day (or more) free returns. Deep dive → Walmart

• 🇪🇺 Amazon extension of the wait time for proceeds in the UK and Europe could force some small firms to go bust. Due to a change in reserve policy, Amazon will no longer credit their accounts as soon as a sale is made online but will do so a week after an item has been delivered. Deep dive → Guardian

• 🇪🇺 Amazon kills the small & light program in Europe, after its discontinuation in the US. It will be replaced by low-priced FBA rates. The actual FBA fees for products falling under the price threshold also depend on their weight and dimensions. Deep dive → ValueAddedResource | Onlinehaender

• 🇬🇧 Tiktok launched Fulfilled By TikTok (FBT) in UK. TikTok’s logistics offering in the UK, will store, pick, pack, and ship merchant goods to the end customer, freeing up brands to concentrate on manufacturing and sourcing stock and producing compelling content on TikTok to market their products. Deep dive → TikTok

👗 Fashion marketplaces

• 🌎 Farfetch to shut down its beauty business. Just over a year after launching its beauty business, Farfetch is exiting the category and will stop selling beauty products on 31 August. This could be part of broader restructure, as Farfetch is also making redundancies across its London and New York teams. Deep dive → VougeBusiness | RetailGazette

• 🌎 Amazon cut dozens of in-house fashion brands in its private-label business. Over the past year, the company has decided to eliminate 27 out of 30 clothing brands alone, including private labels such as Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual, and Goodthreads. As the brands phase out, only Amazon Essentials, Amazon Collection, and Amazon Aware will remain in the clothing sector. Deep dive → Entrepreneur

• 🇺🇸 ThredUp and The RealReal narrowed their annual losses. Both focus more on consignment and explore other, higher-margin revenue streams. At ThredUp, most prominent is resale-as-a-service. The RealReal is quickly scaling an advertising program launched in early July. Deep dive → RetailDive

• 🇪🇺 Zalando to unveil a luxury boutique-style space later this year. According to Lena-Sophie Roeper (Zalando's director for designer and luxury), it will be similar to a designer floor in a department store. Deep dive → Yahoo

• 🇪🇺 Asos, H&M back Zoa software to incorporate rental on retail websites. Zoa’s integrated rental technology solution claims to be the first of its kind to empower consumers to either rent or purchase items to keep while browsing through retailers’ websites. Deep dive → JustStyle

🍔 Food marketplaces

• 🇺🇸 Uber Eats partnered with Kroger on sushi and floral delivery. New service builds on earlier deployments of DoorDash floral and sushi delivery and Olo Rails order management. Deep dive → SuperMarketPerimeter

• 🇺🇸 Gopuff looks to boost membership via discounts. The quick delivery company is offering 30% off for more than 100 everyday essentials like milk and eggs for $7.99 subscribtion. Deep dive → CSA

• 🇬🇧 Ocado ramps up same-day delivery options as the turnaround continues. Currently, the online grocer offers same-day delivery options in most locations across the UK, but availability is limited to a few thousand each week. Ocado will focus on getting shoppers to order larger deliveries for same-day slots, rather than just last-minute ingredients, which are typically sold on delivery apps. Deep dive → Grocery Gazette

• 🇸🇦 Talabat launches a new credit card. The delivery app has teamed up with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) to launch a series of food-themed cards. Customers can choose their card aesthetic from a collection of food-themed designs, including hummus, popcorn and avocado. Deep dive → Zawya

• 🇿🇦 Bolt is preparing to introduce the Bolt Market in South Africa. Food delivery service look to transform into an online marketplace. Deep dive → ITWeb

• 🇮🇳 Swiggy introduces ‘Menu Score Tool’ for restaurant partners. It covers menu categories, dishes, images, add-ons, and combos, providing actionable recommendations to drive better conversions. It provides actionable recommendations to restaurant partners for menu improvement and better conversions. Deep dive → Gadgetsnow

📦Various marketplaces

• 🌎 Revolut moves closer to super-app status by adding tour and travel experience bookings. Users in Europe and the UK can now book activities like sightseeing and food tours, outdoor experiences, and museum visits directly in the app, a function the fintech is calling Revolut Experiences. The company says there are over 300k experiences that users can book through the app. Deep dive → Sifted

• 🇪🇺 MediaMarkt prioritizes retail media and the marketplace. Ceconomy (MediaMarkt owner) CEO Karsten Wildberger listed those as most important in the future. The Marketplace is currently live in Germany, Austria and Spain and was able to achieve sales growth of 121 percent there in the third quarter. Next, the Marketplace will be rolled out in the Netherlands and Italy. The Marketplace offer for customers is also growing: At the end of July 2023, there were around 1,060 resellers with a total of almost 1.2 million products on the platform. Deep dive → CeMarkt | eMerce

• 🌎 Etsy launches new gift registries. Etsy gift registry allows customers to share list with friends and family, and Etsy baby registry is for anyone expecting a child. The two new registries follow May’s relaunch of its wedding registry that was first launched in 2012. Deep dive → ecommerceBytes

• 🇺🇸 Wayfair suppliers are ‘reverting to normal’. Wayfair’s supply base is beginning to look like its pre-pandemic normal in terms of stock levels, product flows, and new releases. A substantial number of the suppliers are now bringing in large new product introductions for the first time in three years. Deep dive → RetailDive

🌟Funding/new marketplaces

• 🇮🇳 Goro (Fractional-ownership marketplace) raises $1M in pre-seed funding. Goro enables people to invest in high-yielding assets and to quickly sell their properties. Goro serves users from more than 20 countries, and its user base has been expanding by 15% per week since its establishment earlier this year. Deep dive → Incubees

• 🇬🇧 Alto (cloud-based property management software) launches Alto Marketplace to allow agents to select proptech partners. Deep dive → PropertyIndustryEye