Expectations: other retailers

Inditex

Bricks & mortar fashion retailing was one of the worst impacted categories from Covid. Inditex and H&M were both impacted, but Inditex seems to have bounced back faster. Inditex is already selling above the 2019 levels, whereas H&M is still below them.

Online has also picked up pace inside Inditex. the interesting question to follow this quarter is if the growth of Inditex is going to take up even faster as the societies open up? Can H&M match the growth of Inditex?

Zalando

As fashion stores suffered in the pandemic, Zalando showed that clothes can be sold even during the pandemic, but they have to be sold online.

Zalando hasn't seen similar slow down as some other pandemic success stories. In fact Zalando has grown more rapidly in 2021 than the 20+% growth in 2020. Will this continue as the fashion stores on the high streets are opening up?

Another notable topic about Zalando is the profitability. For years discussion around the company was that with the 50 % return rates they can't become profitable. Yet Zalando has been EBIt positive since Q1/2020.

Shopify

The meteoric rise with of Shopify seems to have no slowing down in sight. The company has grown its General Merhcandise Value (GMV) rapidly and for last 12 months it eclipsed already $150 billion. Amazon GMV is $300+ billion, but not growing nearly as fast as Shopify's.

The biug question of course is will Shopify keep on growing fast?

Shopify is ideally placed to be an Amazon challenger. It has a robust strategy focusing on something that Amazon won't focus on: the seller. Amazon has it's priorities in the consumers, it is fundamentally a B2C company, whereas Shopify is a B2B company.

Pinduoduo

Pinduoduo has been the hot retailer/marketplace in China for about a year. Their rapid growth in the Active monthly users was so fast that I started to threaten Alibaba's status as the biggest marketplace in China. However, during 2021 the growth has started to show signs of slowing down. Pinduoduo does have already 80 % of the Active monthly users of Alibaba. A feat achieved in only five short years.

For the coming quarters gthe question will be if the user base starts growing again or 750 million users is their normal level?

HelloFresh

HelloFresh was one of the bright stars of 2020 as it kept on growing by more 100 % per quarter for four straight quarters. Also in Q2/2021 they grew by 60 %, which is not bad taken into account that they huge growth period as the comparative quarter from 2020. This goes to suggest that the subscription based mdoel of the meal kit retailer is more sticky in terms of customer loyalty than the traditional online grocery retailing.

Another big difference to traditional grocery retailing is the profitability level that HelloFresh has been able to achieve. During the last five quarters their AEBITDA margin has been north of 10 %, which very good for a grocery retailer, especiually selling online.

Third interesting thing to follow is the rollout of traditional online grocery from the company. HelloFresh has introduced in some markets the ability for customers to buy also grocery ingredients to be delivered with the meal kit. This is a very interesting development where HelloFresh tries extend from an efficient niche player to an efficient, but more broadly serving grocery retailer.