E-Commerce is a Bear

Looking at the ~$3T value creation in e-commerce over the last two decades, one might feel that the best of e-commerce is behind us. However, in Amazon lingo, I believe we are still on Day 1. Current penetration is still low (~17% in US). New categories are coming online such as grocery and pharmacy.

And then eBay started pitting sellers against each other, as you're trying to please buyers more. And as they went down this path of optimizing for getting rid of friction, they killed what made the place so uniquely magical. And eBay's still around, obviously, but it is not on the pulse of commerce like it used to be. So that was a model of sellin... See more

If ecommerce is blowing up, why are there so few big DTC exits?

The window of opportunity has largely closed, however, this is far from being the case for B2B marketplaces. Whilst consumers are able to order just about anything online, most businesses have not even started transacting online... That being said, I suspect that this category is where the next generation of outliers will be built.

If commerce is a transaction between buyer and seller, the face of the seller is evolving with new tools for discovery and purchase that allow for a personal relationship between creator and customer. Beyond a corporation or mass retailer, the seller is now frequently a person or small business. We are seeing a new long-tail retailer learning how t... See more

I’m not sure anyone ever seriously expected Facebook, Google, or eBay to be a buyer of these types of businesses, but they haven’t been. Amazon and Walmart haven’t been active, either. Target has been focused on launching new private-label brands. Nike hasn’t done a DTC roll-up. Shopify, which now powers almost 2 million e-commerce merchants, hasn’... See more

Beyond an erroneous belief that e-commerce was unprofitable which kept them from investing in e-commerce, brick and mortar retailers struggled online for cultural reasons.