In 2020, the global shift toward ecommerce went into hyperdrive, accomplishing multiple years of growth in just a few months.

Despite this growth, we’re still in the early days of ecommerce. Most people are excited that ecommerce now represents 20% of commerce, and that number excites us too. But we’re asking a different question — what does the remaining 80% look like?

In today’s ecommerce, Amazon is the online parallel to Walmart. You can find anything you want, and can always expect satisfactory prices, fast delivery times, and good customer support. In order to achieve these fundamentals, Amazon built a massive infrastructure network, which now acts as its moat: hundreds of warehouses, thousands of merchant partners, and millions of employees.

As a result of Amazon’s infrastructure, they’ve become the ultimate shopping utility, letting you purchase anything you can think of. More than half of ecommerce searches now start on Amazon.

But despite all of this, we’re sitting at an ecommerce penetration rate of just 20%. That means consumers are still shopping offline by a factor of five. Ecommerce as a utility only goes so far, and consumers are looking for more.

On the other half side of the world, the Chinese ecommerce scene gives a glimpse of how we might reach the remaining 80%.

In China, the infrastructure moat that Amazon built does not exist. The ability to generate supply — to offer huge product selection, to ship fast — is a given. Any ecommerce company can offer what Amazon does. As a result, Chinese ecommerce companies are one step ahead. Rather that worrying about how to get 2-day delivery, companies are focused on innovation — how to create entertainment, interactivity, and fun in shopping experiences.

Our aim is to bring this to the rest of the world. By building world-class physical and software infrastructure, we will democratize ecommerce infrastructure and empower companies of any size to compete against the giants in ecommerce today.