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🇦🇺 Afterpay to Expand Into Asia by Acquiring EmpatKali
Australia’s Afterpay has announced its plans to expand its Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service to at least three continents — including Asia — to ride the waves of online shopping triggered by the pandemic.
The company plans to make a move by buying Singapore-based (but operates in Indonesia) BNPL company, EmpatKali.
In addition to Asia, Afterpay was also launched in Canada and has plans to enter Spain, France, Italy, and possibly Portugal plus Germany. For its European expansion, the company will acquire Spain’s Pagantis.
What is the buy now, pay later scheme?
The BNPL service essentially allows shoppers to opt for a financing plan and pay for their purchases in installments rather than paying the entire cost upfront.
Extremely popular with millennial shoppers, the BNPL has emerged as a major player in the booming payments industry.
Who offers this scheme?
There are plenty of fintech companies that offer this solution as it gains popularity:
Sweden’s Klarna is one of the biggest players in BNPL. Or, at least, one of the most popular. The company has added 1 million new consumers in the U.S. in the summer of 2020 and saw a 44% increase in gross merchandise volume (amounting to $22 billion) in the first half of 2020.
Paypal, too, has thrown its name into the BNPL hat with its new interest-free installment solution — Pay in 4. Pay in 4 will be available to consumers in the U.S. in early Q4.
China’s Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, offers the service for purchases made via Alibaba’s website.
Grab has various pay later services including Shop Now Pay Later – Smartphone, PayLater Instalments, and PayLater Postpaid.
🇰🇷 South Koreans Splurge to Bring Vacation Spots Into their Home
Unable to get to vacation spots, South Koreans are bringing vacation spots right into their homes.
As flights are canceled, borders are closed, and vacations are put on the backburner, South Koreans have come up with a creative — and somewhat extreme — form of staycation: transforming their home into vacation spots.
Sounds like a fun little DIY idea for the weekends, right? Well, not quite.
Take Yoon Seok-min and his wife Kim Hyo-jung, for instance. The couple shelled out at least 80 million won (US$67,464) to bring Bali into their bedroom and Hawaii into their living room.
Maybe the couple just really likes Bali/Hawaii…?
Well, maybe. But, they certainly aren’t the only ones spending a ton of cash for this makeshift makeover.
In fact, many South Koreans have taken this up several notches by participating in “home-camping”. It’s exactly as its sounds — you pitch tents and set up camping gears right in your home. And, yes, barbecue will be making an appearance, too.
Just look at Che Min-hee and Lee Seung-yoon. The couple had plans to visit New York this summer but the pandemic has made this impossible. So, the couple redirected their Big Apple budget and spent it on camping gears instead — all 10 million won (US$8,405) of it.
And, with many South Koreans also desperate to transform their homes during the pandemic, the home improvement industry is thriving:
Hanssem Co Ltd, South Korea’s largest home furnishing company, reported a 172% jump in its consolidated operating profit.
According to the country’s retail giant, E-Mart Inc, the sales of camping equipment from April – mid-July jumped 51.6% year on year.
Che and Lee had to wait two to three months for their tents, folding tables, and stove.
Zooming out…
Interestingly, this is just one of the many instances where cabin fever spurs creative travel solutions/alternatives during the pandemic. Get a load of this:
Airbnb has seen a rise in longer-term bookings — from weeks-long to even months.
In England, people are shunning hotels and the likes. Instead, camping, glamping, and vacations in caravans are all the hype.
Remote tourism is a thing now. For example, Denmark’s Faroe Islands offered hour-long virtual walking tours.
BRB, adding a couple of tents and BBQ grills to my cart right now.
🇮🇳 India’s Reliance Retail is Set to Acquire Future Group’s units for US$3.4 Billion
If you can’t beat them, buy them — that’s Reliance Retail’s new mantra.
India’s largest retail chain, Reliance Retail plans to strengthen its hold in the market with one simple strategy: by buying the second-largest brick-and-mortar retailer.
The retail giant is set to acquire the retail, wholesale, logistics, and warehousing units of India’s Future Group for US$3.4 billion.
If successful, this deal will mean that Reliance Retail will command one-third of the brick-and-mortar stores of India’s retail sector — a sector that is estimated to be worth US$1.3 trillion by 2025, according to a study by Boston Consulting Group and Retailers’ Association India.
Who are the players?
Reliance Retail
The company is India’s largest retailer by number of stores. A true jack of all trades, its outlets offer basically everything: food, groceries, apparel, home improvement, electronic goods, travel services, and even educational services.
Reliance Retail is also a subsidiary of Reliance Industries — which, in turn, is controlled by Mukesh Ambani. A.K.A India’s richest man.
After taking India’s telecom sector by storm, Ambani is turning to brick-and-mortar retail and eCommerce. Last year, his telecom venture — Jio Platforms — and Reliance Retail launched JioMart. So far, Ambani has secured about US$20 Billion from various Big Tech including Facebook and Google.
Future Group
The Group started as a humble stonewashed-fabric seller in the 1980s. Today, it serves millions of customers in more than 400 cities.
This deal with Reliance Retail will help the group to pay down its debt. The Group owes about 7.5 billion (about US$2.3 billion), and 433.4 million rupees (about US$5.9 million) of that hefty bill arrived just two days after Reliance Retail’s announcement.
This Reliance Retail x Future Group deal also complicates Amazon and Walmart’s expansion in India. Both retailers have invested billions in Future Group — hoping to gain some ground in the country.
What’s the expression, again? Oh, right, it’s all is fair in love and retail.
🍿 The Bite-sized Pieces 🍿
This shouldn’t be news to you but just in case: Apple is opening a new store in Singapore that looks like a floating orb — or a magic crystal ball. Either way, we can already foresee that we’ll spend a fortune at the store.
Pizza Hut and KFC operator, Yum China, is batting for both sides as the US-China tension reaches an all-time high. The company has filed for a secondary listing in Hong Kong but expects that the NYSE will remain its primary listing.
Xiaomi will mass produce smartphones with under-display cameras in 2021. That is, if it can overcome the various stumbling blocks like degraded image quality.
Wagyu is out, ostrich is in. This low-fat, eco-friendly delicacy is gaining popularity in Japan during the pandemic courtesy of a farm-to-table app.
Even IKEA wants in on the Animal Crossing craze. IKEA Taiwan gets creative and gives its 2021 catalog an Animal-Crossing-focused makeover.
🛍️ #Add2Cart #NotSponsored 🛍️
maus_haus is Claudia’s gorgeous-looking side hustle. I refer to her as if we were friends because well…I can wish, can’t I? Check out her wonderfully curated feed of illustrations and and tell me you don’t want to know her! She has a 9-5 “career hustle” as she calls it and works on maus haus as a means to unwind. My idea of unwinding involves shoving fistful of cheetos into my mouth while downing questionable amounts of expired apple cider. Ugh, overachievers! If you fancy a print, get ready to wait because most of them are sold out for now. #crymeariver
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Tell us more about you - your thoughts on the stories we’ve covered, what you want to read next and would you ever try camping at home? Tell us all about it at thecrisp@substack.com, until then crunch on!