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Some predictions for 2018. Some retail startups to watch. Luxury "e-tail" is where its at. And luxury brands got a boost by a new ruling in Europe's top court, which ruled in favorof cosmetic maker Coty's efforts to prevent the sale of its products on third-party sites like Amazon or Ebay. Retail, it seems, is finally starting to learn to throw some elbows.
The ubiquitous Uber-for-X designation doesn't seem so ubiquitous anymore. That's because a lot of those companies have failed or are failing. Take Shyp, for instance, an on-demand logistics/shipping service where couriers came to your home, packaged your wares (Ebay anyone?) and shipped them for you. "Came" being the operative word. The company announced that it's retrenching back to SF, abandoning service in Chicago/LA/NYC. Choice quote (after getting $50mm in venture capital from Kleiner Perkins), "'Investors are looking to put capital into businesses that are cash-flow positive." Funny how that works. With so much "tourist capital" (read: sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, Fidelity Investments in the case of Snapchat ($SNAP)) flowing through venture capital, expect a lot more coverage of "busted tech" to come.
Hey look! The fastest rising commerce apps are all platforms. Shocker. Offerup is a local marketplace for used goods. Letgo is a, uh, local marketplace for used goods. Wish is a, hmmm, marketplace for used goods. Flipp is a platform linking brick-and-mortar ad circulars to end user consumers and Venmo is, obvi, a payment platform that you should've heard of by now (and owned by Ebay). If you're a restructuring professional and you don't yet understand the implications of platforms on retail, you might want to do some homework.
We recommend you start with: "Modern Monopolies" by Alex Moazed and Nicholas L. Johnson. You can get it here.
