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The startup offers website hosting and enables customers to build websites without having to code by using pre-built templates.

"We don't talk about the current valuation, it's still private," Mr Casalena said. "We've grown significantly since then."

Mr Casalena said Australia played an important part in Squarespace's growth with new commerce subscriptions which allow customers to sell goods up 75 per cent in Australia compared to the same time last year, monthly active sellers up 64 per cent and the total value of merchandise sold up 119 per cent.

"Alongside the United States market, really UK, Canada, and Australia are our next three biggest markets and 30 per cent of our customers come from outside the US and have for some time," he said. "[There are] a lot of great entrepreneurs in Australia, a lot of demand for what we're doing there."

He said despite the increasing dominance of social media networks websites were still important particularly for businesses which want to collect customer information and enable transactions.

"It's more important than ever, for people to maintain a place online that they own right," he said. "I think that people who just constrain themselves to one social presence, no matter what that network is are sort of at the whims of that provider when it comes to what they could put online."

Art marketplace Redbubble has announced Michael Ilczynski will take up the role of the business’ chief executive effective 27 January 2021.

Ilczynski formerly worked as CEO of employment site Seek, and will bring his years of experience turning that site into a global force to Redbubble.

“That track-record, including the successful development of his team, evolution of the product and scaling of the business, are the right combination to continue Redbubble’s transition from a niche to mainstream global consumer marketplace,” Redbubble chair Anne Ward said.

“Seek is one of the few companies in Australia to have been down this path before Redbubble, and we are delighted to be able to attract a proven, senior leader of Michael’s calibre to join Redbubble.”

Ilczynski said he is very thankful for having been given the opportunity, and that he sees opportunities to build on Redbubble’s three-sided marketplace offer.

Interim CEO and founder Martin Hosking said the appointment is the next milestone in Redbubble’s ambition to pursue the growing global e-commerce opportunity.

“As founder and as a director, like the rest of the board I was determined that our next CEO had the experience, skills and passion for growing our global community of independent artists and customers, plus the leadership track record and spark to inspire and develop our incredible global team,” Hosking said.

“Michael is that person.”

The search for a new CEO came about when former CEO Barry Newstead was ousted by the board in February, after it decided a change of leadership was necessary.

Amazon.com has launched an online pharmacy for delivering prescription medications in the US, increasing competition with drug retailers such as Walgreens, CVS Health and Walmart.

Called Amazon Pharmacy, the new store lets customers price-compare as they buy drugs on the company’s website or app. Shoppers can toggle at checkout between their co-pay and a non-insurance option, heavily discounted for members of its loyalty club Prime.

The move builds on the web retailer’s 2018 acquisition of PillPack, which Amazon said will remain separate for customers needing pre-sorted doses of multiple drugs.

Shares of pharmacy chains, drug wholesalers and grocers fell in afternoon trading. Amazon’s shares were up nearly 1 per cent.

Over the past two years, Amazon has worked to secure more state licenses for shipping prescriptions across the country, which had been an obstacle to its expansion into the drug supply chain, according to analyst notes from Jefferies Equity Research.

The company founded as an online bookseller has disrupted industries including retail, computing and now potentially pharmaceuticals, drawing criticism of its size and power from labor groups and lawmakers along the way.

TJ Parker, PillPack’s CEO and vice president of Amazon Pharmacy, said in a statement the retailer aimed to bring “customer obsession to an industry that can be inconvenient and confusing.”

The company faces entrenched competition from Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, CVS Health, Walmart, Rite Aid, Kroger and others. Take-up of online ordering of drugs has been low, according to market research from JD Power.

“Amazon’s launch of an online pharmacy is a meaningful threat to brick and mortar pharmacies,” Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management professor Craig Garthwaite said.

“These retail pharmacies must now offer more than just easy access to a prescription.”

Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Rite Aid and CVS tumbled between 8 and 15 per cent, while those of drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen were down 3 to 7 per cent.

Amazon injects a new look and feel into a space that has been dominated by a few large mail order pharmacies like CVS, Cigna and UnitedHealth’s Optum, analysts from brokerage Evercore ISI said in a note.

“New entrants to the highly competitive pharmacy market come as no surprise to us,” CVS Health said in a statement. “While pharmacy is a core component of our business, CVS Health is so much more than your corner drug store.”

Walgreens said in a statement it already provides a full and growing range of pharmacy, health and wellness solutions to its customers and patients, and offers free same-day and next-day delivery options.

Should Prime members prefer buying in person, Amazon said its discounts on non-insurance purchases apply at more than 50,000 brick-and-mortar pharmacies – including those run by rivals. Inside Rx, a subsidiary of Cigna’s Evernorth, administers that benefit, Amazon said.

Still, the pandemic may help bring drug orders online. E-commerce has surged this year as governments told people to stay home to stave off infections of Covid-19, and Prime members – more than 150 million globally – may be receptive to buying medication online now that it’s from Amazon.

The company said Prime subscribers get up to 80 per cent off generic and up to 40 per cent off brand drugs when they pay without insurance, as well as two-day delivery.

Amazon’s online pharmacy is not yet available in Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Hawaii, a spokeswoman said.

In a little over a decade, Gen Z will be taking over the economy.

Gen Z currently earns $US7 trillion across its 2.5 billion-person cohort, according to a Bank of America Research primer on the generation, called “OK Zoomer.” By 2025, that income will grow to $US17 trillion, and by 2030, it will reach $US33 trillion, representing 27% of the world’s income and surpassing that of millennials the following year.

The report defines Gen Z as those born between 1996 and 2016. The oldest of Gen Z turn 23 in 2020, and the oldest millennials turn 39 this year. The youngest generation has the fastest-growing income, per the report, led by the US, closely followed by China.

This earnings growth is short of what it would be without the pandemic, of course. Gen Z students could lose $US10 trillion of lifecycle earnings due to Covid lockdowns, the World Bank has estimated.

Repeating millennials’ rocky career paths

American Gen Zers and millennials have been financially hardest hit in the coronavirus recession, suffering from unemployment rates greater than those during the peak of the Great Recession. But Gen Z is repeating the same rocky start to their careers as the oldest millennials: graduating into a recession.

Stanford research shows that recession graduates typically see stagnant wages, lasting for up to 15 years. The author behind this research, Hannes Schwandt, assistant professor at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy, previously told Business Insider that this the delay in wealth accumulation isn’t necessarily due to lack of jobs, but that recession graduates typically start at “lower quality” jobs.

A potential upside to this, Schwandt said, is that graduates job-hop to play financial catch-up, which can make them more flexible and help advance their career.

“Over time, what you see in these cohorts is a higher degree of mobility from one employer to the next,” Schwandt said. “It helps them climb up the quality ladder.”

Gen Z may want to look to millennials for an idea of what’s to come, as the so-called “job-hopping generation” graduated into the 2008 financial crisis, then entered the 2020 recession before their oldest members turned 40 years old. Now, before the economy has even recovered from the effects of the pandemic, millennials have just another decade left as the major driving force of the economy.

Since the IPO four years ago, Kogan and Shafer have trousered more than $350 million selling their shares in the company. Why the hell should shareholders be diluted to hand them even more?

All three proxy houses – ISS, CGI Glass Lewis and Ownership Matters – are recommending shareholders vote against the resolution to approve the options package. Kogan and Shafer cannot vote their shares.

It is so telling that Kogan himself, not Kogan.com’s chairman, conducted this 11th hour round of investor engagement. That Rusty even deemed it necessary suggests the proxy votes have been tracking badly for him.

If the resolution is defeated, this will be a genuine test for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Section 211 of the Corporations Act deals with paying “reasonable remuneration” to executives without shareholder approval. Why is the statutory provision even there if a board can hand their CEO and CFO the equivalent of two years’ earnings after investors have expressly repudiated the proposal? We can only hope ASIC dusts off its rule book rather than being another study in inaction.

Uber’s pandemic recovery isn’t happening as quickly as investors would like.

The ride-hailing giant on Thursday revealed third-quarter financials that fell below analyst expectations and sent shares lower in late trading.

Overall losses for the quarter ended Sept. 31 totaled $US1.09 billion, on adjusted revenues of $US2.81 billion. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected an adjusted net loss of $US876 million on revenues of $US2.82 billion. Losses not including taxes and depreciation were smaller than last quarter, but greater than a year ago.

Uber’s stock price sank as much as 5% following the announcement, paring sharp gains from earlier in the week after the company got a pivotal victory in California. Voters there approved Prop. 22 on Tuesday, a controversial measure that allows gig-work companies to classify workers as contractors rather than employees, while also guaranteeing some benefits like minimum earnings and healthcare stipends.

“Despite an uneven pandemic response and broader economic uncertainty, our global scope, diversification, and the team’s tireless execution delivered steadily improving results,” chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a press release.

Deliveries continue to be a bright spot for Uber during the pandemic, with revenues from that segment more than doubling compared to last year.

Uber has yet to turn a profit in its more than 10-year history, though executives have said it will be able to in 2021 on an adjusted basis despite the pandemic, though that milestone was not included in Thursday’s release. Executives are likely to be pushed for clarification on that timeline during a conference call with investors later Thursday.

“Rome was not built in a day … and neither will the ridesharing recovery,” Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, told clients earlier this week. “The overall environment is starting to considerably improve for Uber over the coming quarters with 2Q marking a clear trough in volumes and fundamentals in our opinion.”

Lyft, Uber’s largest competitor, will report results next week.

The company was on the hunt for $56 million via a placement of new shares.

Canaccord Genuity – which was at hand for Marley Spoon's raising in May and helped float it in 2018 – was lead manager and underwriter on the deal, while Wilsons was chipping in as co-manager.

The placement was priced at $3.22 a share, which represented a 5 per cent discount to Marley Spoon's one-day volume weighted average price.

The capital raising coincided with the release of Marley Spoon's results for the September quarter.

Market darlings in the home delivery and retail space such as Temple & Webster, Kogan, Redbubble, Breville, and Marley Spoon all added to recent losses, as investors bet the worst of Australia's movement restrictions were over.

"It's unlikely we'll see another lockdown in Australia," said Mr Clark. "Never say never, but the market looks a year or two forward, and what it's saying is that in 2021 and 2022 these trends we've seen in the last six months are going to normalise.

On Tuesday it was announced NSW residents can travel to Tasmania without quarantine from November 6. Quarantine-free travel between South Australia and other states (except Victoria) has been allowed since October 24.

"What we're seeing is the fundies and maybe the long-short funds starting to look at getting out of the 'COVID winners' and pick up stocks that've been hammered by COVID," Mr Clark said.

"So I think there's more of a rotation going on. We're getting close to vaccine announcements, and that's probably going to be the catalyst for that trade to keep going."

IPO rush

After an initial public offer (IPO) priced at $6.75 and listing last Thursday, online-only retailer Adore Beauty has swung between a low of $5.51 and a high of $7.42 over four volatile trading days.

Another e-commerce retailer that listed last week, MyDeal, plunged 13.7 per cent to $1.33 on Tuesday, after posting an intra-day high of $2.20 on its October 22 ASX debut.

Dean Fergie, a portfolio manager at Cyan Investment Management, questioned Adore's $635 million valuation on 181 times estimated profits, when an omni-channel retailer trades on 10 to 20 times estimated profits.

"It was crazy, you've got a business making 1 million or 2 million bucks," Mr Cyan said of Adore. "[It's] selling third-party cosmetics through a website. There's no large barriers to entry for that. No way. You've got reputation, customer experience, brand, but they're reselling products.

"MyDeal we thought was a second-rate Kogan and it started trading at a 100 per cent premium, again with no profitability.

"There's starting to be a reality check. Investors are like, maybe we don't need a portfolio full of these things on ridiculous valuations. We've had a good time of it, maybe it's time to take a few chips off the table."

Mr Fergie noted, though, that some IPOs had impressed, including Credit Clear and protective equipment manufacturer CleanSpace. Last week CleanSpace raised $131.4 million at an IPO price of $4.41 and traded at $6.90 on Tuesday.

The lockdown-leveraged buy now, pay later sector also plunged on Tuesday. Market leader Afterpay shed 4.3 per cent and Zip Co fell 6 per cent to $5.99 – its lowest since September 25.

When the ship steadies from the coronavirus pandemic and we start returning to some semblance of normality, retail is one of the sectors which will change permanently.

The advent of lockdowns and social distancing saw Australians accelerate a long trend toward e-commerce and online retail. According to research by Deloitte, Australia enjoyed a $4 billion e-commerce boom during the pandemic, with online small businesses seeing a boon from the country’s supercharged online spending habits.

Of course, it’s not the small business strivers who end up emblazoned on the glossy pages of The Australian Financial Review’s 2020 Rich List.

The Rich List, which lands in full on Friday, has seen big gains for Australia’s e-commerce barons, who have profited off the coronavirus bump.

Ruslan Kogan, founder and CEO of Kogan, has reentered the Rich List after falling off it in 2019 thanks to a low share price at the time. Following vigorous growth as entertainment-starved, locked down Australians turned to online retailers to get their fix – Kogan’s sales were up 39.3% compared to the 2019 financial year – Ruslan’s net wealth currently sits at $575 million.

Similar boons went to Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey, who saw his wealth surge by 35% to $2.57 billion. Though Harvey Norman is best known as a bricks-and-mortar retailer, it too capitalised on e-commerce when its stores shut down nationally, and then again in Melbourne.

The company reported a 7.6% increase in total revenue and a 19.4% jump in net profit, which Harvey said was the best results he’d seen in over 60 years of retailing. Of course, the famously ornery executive was quick to dismiss the role of e-commerce, despite not breaking it out in the company results.

“People get out there and talk about how [online is] going to take over all the sales, and it’s going to be 70 per cent of refrigerator sales or something, and I said that’s a con, and I still maintain it’s a con,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Either way, he’s done well for himself out of the pandemic – a fact which got him in social media hot water back in March when he celebrated that fact while dismissing the seriousness of the virus.

The middlemen of the e-commerce world also saw big gains. Afterpay founder Nick Molnar – who became Australia’s youngest self-made billionaire after the buy now, pay later company’s remarkable share rally – now sits at number 50 on the Rich List with a net worth of $1.86 billion.

Competitor Zip also saw its co-founder Larry Diamond debut at with an estimated fortune of $552 million.

Expect to see more online sellers worm their way onto the Rich List in the coming years.

"We have invested significantly in our Victorian operations this year to ensure we can continue to improve delivery promises to customers in the state," said Amazon Australia's director of operations, Craig Fuller.

The new Melbourne facility will be built at the Horizon 3023 estate in Ravenhall which is owned by Dexus along with the wholesale property fund it manages and Dexus' partner, GIC, in a logistics trust.

The 127-hectare site will ultimately be home to as much as 400,000 sq m of commercial and industrial property, worth around $500 million as it is built out over the next five to seven years.

The Amazon lease takes commitments at Horizon 3023 to around 100,000sq m. The estate's first tenant,  food manufacturer and distributor Scalzo Foods, was secured last year and its 35,300sq m purpose-built facility is due for completion in December. Meal-kit company Hello Fresh has also signed up as a tenant.