That’s it, guys, Yayvo, an eCommerce marketplace founded by the TCS group, which owns Pakistan’s largest logistics company, has chosen to cease operations forever, as first reported by Profit and several social media outlets.
According to insiders, the organization had limited finances for an eCommerce endeavor and could not afford the burn model strategy, which is the typical road to developing a successful marketplace.
Simply spending money to develop a marketplace is not enough, and companies like Yayvo demonstrate that even with the strong backing of a giant like TCS group, things may go wrong.
The group had spent over 2.5 billion rupees on the eCommerce venture through its subsidiary TCS eCom. The investment was made and shown in the form of loans to the eCommerce venture.
According to sources even though the news of the shutdown broke yesterday through numerous social media sources, such as the Next Geni Founder, Farzal Dojki, who commented about the venture’s demise on Facebook. According to company sources, the venture has been on hold for the previous two months.
The TCS Group has yet to issue an official remark regarding the matter. The company’s website is still operational and is slated to go offline on October 1st for routine maintenance, as stated on the Yayvo website.
So what does it mean for the eCommerce industry of Pakistan?
While the closure of Yayvo is not a surprise there arises a question now. What does it mean for other eCommerce players? As we approach the end of the third quarter, Pakistani startups have raised a total of $331 million, according to total funding figures for 2022.
As compared to 2021 Pakistani startups previously had raised a total sum of $340.4 million in the previous year. So, based on that, the financing levels are not far short of the 2021 target, and we still have a quarter to go.
Speaking about the funding in eCommerce in the year 2021. The Pakistani eCommerce startups have raised a total of $203 million in the fiscal year, as opposed to the 2022 eCommerce figure of $197.95 million, the point to be noticed here is that we are still closing in on the third quarter and one entire quarter is now left for the eCommerce industry to reveal its marvels.
There is little to no effect on the flow of funding even though this year we read about companies such as Airlift closing down. We are also noticing a trend where we are seeing companies who operate in a niche perform better as compared to eCommerce companies that are generalists.
We are also observing a trend of financing in the segments that would help build up the eCommerce infrastructure of Pakistan. In conclusion, the show for eCommerce in Pakistan is not over and we are going to see more considerate growth in the sector.
However, Founder Pakistan believes that further funding in eCommerce is going to be diverted towards players who are serving a niche. The show must go on for eCommerce in Pakistan.
Sources used: Pulse by Techshaw and Crunchbase.
