Three notes:

• “Target Corp. posted the strongest quarterly growth in its history, including a near tripling of digital sales, as coronavirus concerns fueled demand for services that let shoppers pick up goods in parking lots or skip trips to the store. Like rival Walmart Inc., Target has benefited from being able to stay open throughout the pandemic as well as selling groceries and other household staples. Online comparable sales rose 195% from a year ago, driven by same-day pickup and delivery services”, writes Wall Street Journal.
• Some of the biggest retailers are cashing in as the pandemic fuels a surge in at-home purchases. Target just posted its strongest quarterly growth in its history as its digital sales nearly tripled. Walmart meanwhile recorded its biggest ever climb in online sales, with its U.S. e-commerce sales rising nearly 97%. As customers spend more on their food and homes without entering physical stores, big chains such as Target, Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon are among the biggest beneficiaries, notes The Wall Street Journal (LinkedIn notes).
• Amazon is adding 3,500 corporate jobs and expanding offices in six major cities. The roles will be based in offices in New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Detroit and Dallas. Amazon has purchased a New York City Fifth Avenue building from WeWork for more than $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal says, citing anonymous sources; it’s set to open as an office in 2023. Amazon’s Workforce Development VP recently said the company “expects much of its staff to one day return back to its offices.” (LinkedIn)

Looking at these three notes, we can conclude one thing: online sales in the developed economies have reached an inflection point. And if nothing changes in the next six months, physical sales are going to make way, permanently. The African economies which could have benefited from this redesign of commerce are hampered by infrastructural challenges which continue to stymie the ability to deepen logistics, necessary to unlock ecommerce and broad online sales. Notwithstanding, online sales is no more the “future”, it has come right now. Prepare your e-store, no matter what you do, because the future of commerce is online.

SpaceX has raised $1.9 billion in new funding to add to the 2020 records of Elon Musk. Interest in SpaceX rockets has surged since the successful trip of the Dragon Crew to space, and the company now has oversubscription of nearly $2 billion.

Bloomberg reported the funding earlier, citing sources familiar with the matter. The new funding put SpaceX valuation at $46 billion.

Fidelity Investments, a brokerage company was reported by Bloomberg as the one of the biggest participants in the latest funding.

The development followed the multi-billion military space contract the company co-won with United Launch Alliance (ULA), early in the month. CNBC reported that the US Air Force awarded the rocket builders ULA and SpaceX contracts to launch national security missions for five years starting in 2022.

SpaceX and Tesla have been winning against other giants in space and automobile business, and Elon Musk is basking on the glory. Musk recently became the fifth richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $86.5 billion, according to Forbes.

However, it’s Tesla that recorded the surge that pushed Musk up the ladder of world billionaires amidst the growth recorded in the space business. Apart from the space shuttle, Musk has been shooting up internet satellites through the Starlink, and that too, has ignited a lot of interest.

CNBC reported that there are over 700,000 people demanding the Starlink satellite broadband service in the US alone. “SpaceX seeks to increase the number of fixed earth stations authorized under this blanket license from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000,” the company said in an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). 

SpaceX was awarded the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) contract with Boeing, worth $2.6 billion and $4.2 billion respectively, to build a new spaceflight for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), back in 2010.

But now, as Forbes noted, Musk isn’t the only one in the space business. The world richest man, Jeff Bezos has joined the race for satellite internet network with the recent launch of Amazon’s satellite broadband.

While the satellite internet is heating up between the two entrepreneurs, Musk is stepping ahead with SpaceX’s commercial space trips that are designed to offer transport services at about $50 million per passenger.

Analysts said the progress in the space businesses will instigate investors’ interest in the space economy.

“Led by a string of remarkable feats by SpaceX, we are fielding a pace of incoming investor interest in the space economy on a level that may even exceed the autonomous car frenzy of 2016/2017,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a recent note.

SpaceX is working on a bigger spacecraft, the starship to accommodate more people in the future. The Starship vehicle is expected to accommodate up to 100 passengers.

The company is planning to add it to two other vehicles in its Artemis program billed to commence Moon trips in 2024. And as part of its contract with NASA, SpaceX will continue to deliver astronauts to the ISS, increasing the number of passengers up to four in coming months.

According to Forbes, the global space economy is expected to be worth at least $1.1 trillion in 2040, if the current trend is sustained.