""As it turns out, as human beings, we all really enjoy experiential retail," said Gupta. "When you walk into any sort of retail location, mall or otherwise, that's doing well today, they have a lot of pop-up shops and fun arcades... So, I think some of that explains the pullback.""
""What's happening with e-commerce funding, in short, is the destination side is down, enabling technology is up," said Gupta. "If you were a founder and you went to a VC today saying 'I build email marketing for Shopify'... There's no funding for that. But if you're solving supply chain sell-through for the enterprise, there's lots of funding for that, because your underlying market is just enormous.""
Holiday retail spending is forecast to surpass $1 trillion in 2025 while e-commerce-related startup funding has plummeted from a 2021 peak above $94 billion to roughly $7.3 billion in 2025. The 2021 surge aligned with ZIRP and pandemic-driven behavior changes; some practices like curbside pickup persisted, but many temporary shifts reversed as consumers returned to experiential in-person retail with pop-ups and attractions. Investment has moved away from consumer-facing e-commerce storefronts toward backend technologies, supply-chain solutions and enterprise infrastructure where larger addressable markets exist.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]