e-Commerce and its second order effects

Alright, so today we’ve got:

• E-Commerce and its second order effects.

• Twitter is about to be sued.

• Commercial real estate is crumbling.

  Let’s do a scan.

The Big Picture

In the U.S., there are 9.2 million e-commerce websites, and Shopify is the e-commerce platform of choice for 28.51% of these sites, translating to about 2.6 million. The state with the highest number of Shopify users is California, boasting over 70,000 businesses. New York and Florida trail behind with approximately 31,000 and 27,000 Shopify-based businesses, respectively.

Shopify has grown from a 10.3% market share in 2021 to a 17% market share in 2023, compared to Amazon’s 45% market share in e-commerce US.

The rise of e-Commerce has also trickled down into the growth of the following markets:

DTC: Direct to consumer - Companies are directly selling to consumers online, not just via websites but also through social media.

Logistics and delivery services: Logistics companies, courier services, and last mile delivery startups have grown immensely.

Digital marketing has become far more sophisticated with search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing.

Fintech Companies - Online payment processing firms, digital wallets, and cryptocurrency payment services have seen growth due to increased online transactions.

Cybersecurity - With the increase in online transactions, the demand for services providing security for those transactions and customer data has also increased. IP analysis and fraud detection have seen an increased investment to protect merchants and customers from digital theft.

Other markets that have benefited include cloud computing, customer service relations/AI chatbots, and subscription services(subscription boxes for an array of products).

The market size of e-commerce in the United States is estimated to be worth USD 787.58 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 1.2 trillion by 2026.

Sector Sweep

Tech

• Music publishers representing songwriters ranging from Taylor Swift to Beyoncé are filing a lawsuit against Twitter, accusing it of copyright infringement. They believe that Twitter is profiting from the utilization of songs for which it has not paid the required licensing fees.

• AMD is unveiling a "superchip" that merges a central processor with a graphics processor and memory, and an artificial intelligence (AI) "accelerator" for data centers, directly challenging Nvidia in the rapidly growing field of generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT.

• Ichiro Kawanabe, chairman of Japan's largest taxi company, has strategically outflanked Uber, a major player in the ride-hailing industry, in the highly lucrative Japanese market. He advocated for ride-hailing apps to be exclusively linked with licensed Japanese taxis, then launched his own taxi-hailing app named 'Go' while allegedly encouraging other taxi operators to quit partnerships with Uber.

Automotive

• Akio Toyoda, the long-standing leader of Toyota, was re-elected to the board, despite opposition from certain U.S. and European investor groups concerning his electric vehicle policies.

Energy

• Shell's new CEO announced that the company would scale back on less profitable clean energy investments and ramp up fossil fuel production, aligning with recent investor preferences for cash influx generated by record profits, partially driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, over diversified climate initiatives.

Health

• A significant number of Americans looking to lose weight with drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, popularized by social media and celebrities, are finding that their employer-provided health plans are not covering these medications.

That’s all for today, folks. Do keep a lookout for our weekly email about stock deep dives and personal finance strategies this weekend.

BTW, do tell us how we did. Just hit us with a reply.

Cheers!

Memetic Universe

Wildfire.

The 50s were crazy.