Arigato! Wasabi KitKats🍫​

Brewed clothes, spiced beer and shopping with AR.

Hey there!

Welcome to mid-week D2C Pulse: A bite-sized newsletter where we cover:

🌎 Exciting products from budding e-commerce markets of the world

🗞 Developments in online marketplaces globally

📊 Fun facts about D2C ecosystem

Let’s get to it…

🌎 Global To Local: Japan🇯🇵

Japan has the third-largest eCommerce market in the world with revenue valued at USD 178 bn (2019), just behind China and the U.S. There are tailwinds for the growth of e-comm space in Japan including very high internet and social media penetration.

Here’s are a few interesting products native to Japan that caught our attention this week (we focused more on FMCG products than gadgets & electronics):

👕 Brewed Clothes: While we are still getting used to the idea of plant-based meat, Japan-based Spiber is replacing animal-based textiles like wool/cashmere with "Brewed" Protein textiles. It is using microbial fermentation to ”brew” new polymers to make substitutes for animal fabrics.

🥤​ Iced-coffee, literally: For diet coke fans who are tired of carrying their coke cans around, Coca-Cola Japan has the perfect solution: freeze-dried ingredient cubes for coffee, barley tea, and green tea. When added to water, they dissolve into an instant beverage. Other than convenience, these cubes lead to less paper and plastic waste.

🌶️ Chili, not chilled beer: Breweries across Japan have been getting crafty with their beers. Nagano brewery is getting in on the action with their new Beer containing Shichimi Togarashi - a “seven-flavor chili pepper”, containing Japanese pepper, red chili pepper, sesame, ginger, perilla, hemp seed, and roasted orange peel. This beer has been getting rave reviews online since its summer release.

🍫 Wasabi Kitties: Among the "Japan-only" flavors that Nestle has created for its Kit Kat Minis, here is one that stands out: The Kit Kat Mini Tamaruya Wasabi -with real wasabi paste! Sweet and spicy, me likey.

🌿 Don't smoke.. diffuse: In marijuana-strict Japan, CBD products have surprisingly experienced traction in recent years. Japone Sound offers CBD-infused bath salt incorporating CBD crystal powder and organic mugwort. This bath salt claims to help with insomnia, skin problems, and stress.

🍴 Eco-cutlery: Wasara offers a range of designer tableware made from natural, compostable materials: fast-growing sugarcane pulp that would otherwise be discarded. Similarly, Wara offers all-natural drinking straws made from pesticide-free wheat.

🍜 Solid Soup: For when we simply can't finish our ramen meal and end up with leftover broth, pouring it down a sink can lead to drain clogging. In response to such concerns, Nissin Cup Noodle offers a special powder that hardens leftover broth into a solid for super quick and environmentally friendly disposal.

🗞 Global Marketplace Updates

• Amazon is launching ‘Alexa Together’ subscription aimed at people wanting to care for their elderly family living independently. Other than emergency support, the Remote Assist allows a family member to manage reminders, add contacts, check shopping lists for the elderly, etc.

• Twitter now lets users listen to recorded Spaces. This provides one more channel to influencers to store their creative databank, other than Youtube and Instagram.

• Serve Robotics, the autonomous sidewalk delivery company (known as an Uber spinout), is building little robots that make deliveries in urban areas. Can sidewalk robot delivery aid the already heated '15 minute delivery' market?

• Breaking the monotony of Sephora, UK-based Sid Baveja has started Humanery. It is a male-centric grooming and personal care marketplace with products concerning skin, beard/shave, bath/body, fragrance, wellbeing, and makeup. Humanery also offers a content play called The Humans of Humanery to help explain some of its products.

📊 Graph-iti Of The Day

Last week, we wrote about Shopping on Snap via its immersive Augmented Reality (AR) experience. That got us thinking: Social commerce brought the new wave of growth for brands, next lever has got to be Shopping with AR on Social Media, more so with platforms like Facebook now focusing on Metaverse. AR shopping can help brands deepen customer engagement and personalize their shopping experience.

While shopping with AR is far from mainstream, consumers are steadily warming up to the idea👇

That’s all for today! We hope you enjoyed this mid-week treat. If you liked it, give us a ❤️ below, if you hated it send an angry message. Either way, don’t just leave us on ‘read’!

Also, if there is any specific country you want us to cover next week, do let us know in the comments section. We have a bad habit of checking it every 2 hours, hoping to get some attention.