Pinboard (jerryking)
https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/public/
recent bookmarks from jerrykingMarc Lore Is Trying to Build the Amazon of Food Delivery2024-03-11T01:48:56+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/business/marc-lore-wonder-food-delivery.html
jerrykinge-commerce Marc_Lore moguls Wonderhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:fe84cbb42f0f/The Best Places to Buy Glasses Online | Reviews by Wirecutter2023-08-19T04:32:06+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-places-to-buy-glasses-online/
jerrykinge-commerce eyeglasseshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:22bc61b82eb4/Shopify Bulks Up Online Fulfillment Logistics Services2023-02-14T03:23:00+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shopify-bulks-up-online-fulfillment-logistics-services-11675891353?mod=hp_minor_pos13
jerrykingdelivery_services distribution_channels e-commerce fulfillment logistics Shopifyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b275a527bb2f/Retail trends include downsizing, outsourcing packing and shipping of online orders2022-11-03T01:53:13+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/industry-news/property-report/article-retail-trends-include-downsizing-outsourcing-packing-and-shipping-of/
jerryking>“It’s not about online or bricks and mortar,” he adds. “It’s how those things work together.”<<
]]>e-commerce fulfillment IKEA retailers small_formats third-party urban warehouses big-box bricks-and-mortar physical_retail small_spaces store_footprintshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:86598bad917b/Companies Used to Announce Products. Now They ‘Drop’ Them. - WSJ2022-08-28T17:11:36+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-used-to-announce-products-now-they-drop-them-11661572855
jerryking>Technology is changing the launch of everything from soap to sneakers<<
]]>bottlenecks brands Christopher_Mims digital_influencers e-commerce exclusivity Generation_Z limited_editions marketing millennials overexposure product_launches scarcity shopping_experience social_media supply_chains taxonomy TikTok trustworthiness young_peoplehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ca8e4e0b18fb/Amazon has a rest-of-the-world problem2022-07-04T18:35:16+00:00
https://www.economist.com/business/2022/06/16/amazon-has-a-rest-of-the-world-problem
jerryking>The Everything Store now has too much of everything<<
As every wartime quartermaster knows, it is only when things go really wrong [i.e. = "misfirings"] that you get noticed—or shot. The same is true in the logistics business. That is why it made news recently that Dave Clark, Amazon’s former logistician-in-chief, left the Seattle-based online giant to become C of Flexport, a shipping-software company. His departure comes just as Amazon is deluged with overcapacity in its vast warehousing and distribution business........Dave Clark is now propping up firms battling to get to grips with global supply chains. In doing so, Mr Clark leaves behind him a severe headache for Andy Jassy, Amazon’s boss. The titan of e-commerce is not just overbuilt and overstaffed. For the first time in its 28-year history it is in the midst of an inflationary whirlwind, which is playing havoc with its ability to predict the future. The situation is bad enough in Amazon’s American heartland. It is worse in its operations elsewhere. That makes it harder to fix..............When looking at Amazon, most attention is paid to its North American retail business—mainly the United States, but also Canada and Mexico. It accounts for the vast bulk of sales, almost 60% in the first quarter. The hinterland, which is to say its international business [i.e. = "ROTW"], includes dozens of countries, from Japan to India, parts of western Europe and elsewhere, that punch well below their weight........collectively they contribute just 25% of Amazon’s overall sales. Amazon Web Services, the fast-growing cloud business, makes up the rest.........Unsurprisingly, then, Amazon’s frenetic logistics drive in the past two years began at home. Since the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, the firm realized that lockdowns would fuel demand for online shopping. It threw caution to the wind and went on a domestic warehouse-building and hiring binge. In two years........Amazon created as much fulfilment square footage as Walmart, America’s ubiquitous supermarket giant, has built in half a century.......Its logistics business, started only in 2014, has leapfrogged FedEx and is catching up with ups. Amazon’s total workforce almost doubled after 2019, to 1.6m. The feat was a Herculean one—with Hydra-headed >>consequences<< when inflation and covid-19’s contagious Omicron variant hit. In round numbers, overbuilding, overstaffing and inflation each added $2bn to Amazon’s costs in the first quarter, year on year, driving it into the red.
The next epic task is to >>squeeze those costs out<<.
This is where the rest of the world becomes a big problem. For >>cost control<< may prove harder abroad than at home. Although Amazon says it will keep building American fulfilment centres, it plans to sublease some of the space until demand recovers. It also hopes to reduce staffing through attrition and allow third-party sellers to use some of the spare capacity. It assumes that domestic retail growth will pick up later this year. Prologis, the world’s largest warehouse operator (and a big supplier to Amazon), showed similar faith in the future on June 13th when it agreed to buy Duke Realty, an American rival, for $26bn.
Outside the United States, such optimism becomes harder to sustain. Amazon’s international business is, as in America, awash with overcapacity. But whereas North American sales grew by 8% year on year in the first quarter, in the rest of the world they shrank by 6%. Worse, in some big foreign markets, such as Britain and Germany, conditions may be deteriorating. ........ overall e-commerce penetration is shrinking in Britain and mainland Europe for the first time in years. Consumer confidence is plummeting. Europe’s woes may be exacerbated by its proximity to the war in Ukraine. They may also be a harbinger of trouble in America.
Deep-seated problems in these non-American markets were easy to make light of when business was booming, but loom larger now:
(1) The biggest is >>profitability<<. Amazon’s international operations are almost perennially loss-making, mainly because of the huge amounts of cash it is ploughing into expansion; the losses were particularly severe in the first three months of this year.
(2) >>Spending power<<.......Amazon sells $881-worth of stuff and services a year for every American. No other country comes close; the figure is $436 in Britain, $97 in Italy and $13 in Mexico.
(3) In the poorer regions where the company operates, such as India and Latin America, the >>infrastructure<< is shoddy and local competition intense. That makes it look like it is throwing good money after bad.
Amazon says it intends to continue its international expansion. It believes the slowdown in e-commerce penetration in Europe is partly a reaction to excessive dependence on online shopping during lockdowns. And whatever happens to the world economy, Amazon is confident that the structural shift from offline to online commerce is real and permanent.
Cutting down the Amazon
When Jeff Bezos was running the company he founded, few would have second-guessed such assumptions. But this is new leadership in turbulent times. Mr Jassy, who took the helm less than a year ago, is still on probation. If Amazon’s forecasts are correct, pretty soon the successor to Mr Clark will be building yet more warehouses and Amazon will be back to the races. If they are wrong, the newish CEO may have little choice but to consider reducing Amazon’s exposure to some of the more peripheral parts of its hinterland. Would he have the guts?
]]>Amazon Andy Jassy beyondtheU.S. challenges consequences cost-controls COVID-19 distribution e-commerce hiring infrastructure lockdown logistics North_America overbuilt overcapacity overstaffing pandemics profitability Prologis retailers ROTW spending_power supply_chains third-party Ukraine warehouses squeezing_out_costs fulfillment misfireshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:c0bb472cad36/Online Brands Try a Traditional Marketing Strategy: Physical Stores - The New York Times2022-03-25T17:03:42+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/business/direct-consumer-retail-stores.html
jerrykingbrands bricks-and-mortar direct-to-consumer e-commerce omnichannel retailershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:1d7fc7011be3/The Next Phase of the Retail Apocalypse: Stores Reborn as E-Commerce Warehouses - WSJ2022-02-14T06:17:02+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-phase-of-the-retail-apocalypse-stores-reborn-as-e-commerce-warehouses-11595044859?mod=article_inline
jerrykingChristopher_Mims e-commerce microwarehouses microfulfillmenthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:959a404f3823/TikTok isn’t silly. It’s serious2022-01-18T13:33:29+00:00
https://www.economist.com/business/2022/01/15/tiktok-isnt-silly-its-serious
jerryking>hyper-competitive<< social-media market, which makes Silicon Valley look staid by comparison. That gives TikTok hands-on commercial experience to draw on.
(1) advertising.
Google and Facebook pioneered the pay-per-click approach. TikTok is transforming it further, inviting brands to work with creators to make potentially viral content.
(2) e-commerce.
Like other American social-media platforms, TikTok now enables viewers to buy goods directly by tapping a shopping tab on a video. It has teamed up with Shopify, an e-commerce platform, to bring more merchants to the site. So-called social commerce—including via live streaming—is far bigger in China than in America
(3), the creator economy.
It is not just that, according to Forbes magazine , TikTok’s seven highest-paid stars earned a total of $55.5m from work on and off the platform last year, triple the sum it counted in 2020. TikTok has also recently introduced ways for users to provide gifts and tips to favoured creators, boosting the incentive to produce fresh material and providing fees to TikTok.
]]>algorithms China content_creators creative_destruction creator_economy e-commerce Facebook Instagram pay-per-click platforms seductiveness social_commerce social_media TikTok web_video WhatsApp hypercompetitivehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:3a089096b5bc/SkipTheDishes building its own ‘dark stores’ across Canada to expand home delivery business - The Globe and Mail2021-12-14T20:53:48+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-skipthedishes-building-its-own-dark-stores-across-canada-to-expand/
jerrykinge-commerce groceries home-delivery supermarkets SkipTheDisheshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:56140b028484/How Chewy Harnessed the Pandemic Pet Boom | WSJ - YouTube2021-11-12T17:25:17+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-DskTF2nWk
jerrykingChewy demand_spikes e-commerce pandemics pets retailershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:01c2f7dbbdee/The Way Amazon Uses Tech to Squeeze Performance Out of Workers Deserves Its Own Name: Bezosism - WSJ2021-10-25T01:39:55+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-way-amazon-uses-tech-to-squeeze-performance-out-of-workers-deserves-its-own-name-bezosism-11631332821
jerrykingalgorithms Amazon Bezosism Christopher_Mims data_driven dystopian e-commerce fulfillment Jeff_Bezos manual_labor order_management_system organizational_culture productivity surveillance_profiteers warehouseshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:2482907a4199/Amazon Got Us Hooked on One-Day Delivery—Now Small Businesses Are Paying for It - WSJ2021-10-23T14:38:10+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-got-us-hooked-on-one-day-deliverynow-small-businesses-are-paying-for-it-11623470404
jerrykingAfrican-Americans Amazon Christopher_Mims delivery_services e-commerce family-owned_businesses family_business mom-and-pop rubs_sauces_marinades same-day small_businesshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:bf96c4330ce0/Amazon aggregators are walking into the dragon’s cave |2021-09-10T04:33:43+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/abbf6bc2-93f1-4cbc-b596-9a7e6f814cfb
jerryking>margin<< is my opportunity.”/"staying hungry"]
Amazon has many ways of **squeezing margins out of merchants** [i.e. = "supply chain squeeze"]. The ecommerce company entices as many sellers as possible on to its platform to sharpen price competition. It can modify its listing fees [i.e. = "fees & commissions"] or tweak its recommendation >>algorithms<< in unknowable ways to promote or demote sellers. It can spot emerging trends in its sales data and launch rival own-brand products.[i.e. ="private labels"]......in spite of these well-advertised dangers, billions of dollars have been pouring into specialist investment funds [i.e. = "buyouts"/"private equity"] to snap up some of the platform’s most popular small merchants....74 such roll-up funds have raised almost $9bn since April 2020, including Thrasio, Berlin Brands Group and Perch......Why are investors keen to swallow such glaring risks?........The sketchy answer tells us much about the rapidly evolving dynamics of online marketplaces as well as the desperation of footloose investors to dance in the digital economy. Some adaptable merchants have thrived in Amazon’s marketplace thanks to its immense reach and logistics infrastructure........If Amazon is in the business of profitably intermediating data flows [i.e. = "information flows"] then others can acquire useful data intelligence [i.e. = "market intelligence"] from its site, too. Savvy aggregator funds can snap up the best-selling small merchants and deepen their insights into Amazon’s algorithms [i.e. = "reverse_engineer"] . The Boston-based Thrasio, which has raised $1.8bn of funding, now owns 150 brands and a portfolio of 22,000 products. Its ambition is to become a consumer goods [i.e. = "CPG"] heavyweight, a new Procter & Gamble designed for the digital age........Thrasio’s director of acquisitions, is familiar with the risks of operating on Amazon’s platform: “You are building your house on someone else’s real estate. But you cannot ignore the fact that most business has moved on to their real estate.” That said, Thrasio argues it can still make money by boosting the sales and fattening the margins of the merchants it acquires by injecting capital, platform knowhow, marketing muscle and supply chain expertise.....By helping to “industrialize” Amazon’s fragmented merchant base and providing high-quality and reliable listings and services, Thrasio says it is delivering what Amazon wants, making it a valuable partner. Thrasio rejects the idea that any aggregators are yet big enough to change the power dynamics on Amazon’s marketplace. “We are little blemishes on the sun.”
As well as bulking up, merchants can devise other ways to reduce their vulnerability. One way, outlined in the HBR article, is for merchants to use Amazon as a shop window while building their own direct-to-consumer business through services, such as Shopify, which provides digital tools and infrastructure to more than 1m businesses. As Tobi Lütke, Shopify’s chief executive says: “Amazon is trying to build an empire. Shopify is trying to arm the rebels.” A more political route is to lobby increasingly activist regulators to help keep Amazon honest.[i.e. = "contra-Amazon"]
Many Amazon merchants might still conclude it is a great time to sell out to exuberant, cash-rich aggregator funds. For investors in some of those funds, however, the story could have a less happy ending. The smartest may make a good return by de-risking muscled-up merchants. But in so doing they will only further strengthen Amazon’s >> market dominance <<.
]]>aggregation Amazon COVID-19 e-commerce fees_&_commissions Jeff_Bezos platforms retailers roll_ups third-party Thrasio algorithms books brands buyouts CPG digital_economy information_flows investors power_dynamics private_equity private_labels recommendation_engines contra-Amazon direct-to-consumer domination lobbying lobbyists regulators Shopify vulnerabilities Tobias_Lütke fragmented_markets market_dominance staying_hungry margins market_intelligence reverse_engineering supply_chain_squeezehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:3289ff2c6a4e/Amazon ‘roll-up’ businesses raise billions in fight for ascendancy | Financial Times2021-09-04T17:32:20+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/ce4bae3b-4ec2-4590-af7d-dbdccafda545
jerrykingaggregation Amazon COVID-19 e-commerce platforms roll_ups third-party Thrasiohttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:c212c2c25816/Why algorithms are struggling to disrupt the world of fashion2021-08-31T01:01:18+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/5f2d6e2c-765c-47c2-b8aa-64a8ddfd7da6#comments-anchor
jerryking>subscription<< e-commerce. Stitch Fix stood out thanks to its emphasis on data. It appointed former Netflix data scientist Eric Colson as chief algorithms officer in 2012, making him perhaps the first person to hold such a title. The company came armed with buzzwords like network effect and proprietary algorithms. It promised to bring science to the art of fashion.......Amazon’s failure coupled with the pandemic-era boom in online shopping has been very good for Stitch Fix. Reluctant to go into stores and keen to find comfy clothes to wear while locked away, more users have turned to the site. In the three months to May, sales rose 44 per cent on the previous year. It is experimenting with allowing users to buy items directly. As it grows, Stitch Fix seems keen to emphasize the human element to the business as much as the magic of algorithms. In August, it got a new chief executive in Elizabeth Spaulding, who declared that stylists “play a very active role in training our machine learning models with our data science team”. Note that in a 2017 listing document the word algorithm featured 76 times. In a call with investors this summer it was mentioned just once. The number of human stylists has kept pace with user growth — doubling since 2017. The trouble with collecting multiple data points [i.e. = "data collection"]is ++knowing what to do with them++ [i.e. = business acumen"/"discernment"]......In deepest lockdown I ordered a Stitch Fix box, filling out the lengthy online style quiz about the shops and style I prefer. Paying a $20 styling fee, keeping the clothes I liked and sending the rest back seemed an efficient way of shopping. But what arrived was a disappointingly odd assortment of clothes, mostly from brands I had never heard of. I wanted Kate Moss at the office. I got a minor royal at a garden party.......Taste [i.e. = "aesthetically-pleasing"/"good taste"] is abstract and difficult to pin down — regardless of how much data you have. The image I have in my eye of a flowered shirt will not be the same as the shirt that you picture. Nor will it match up with the first result that Amazon, Google or Stitch Fix show.....Stitch Fix says that the more you order, the better the experience as both stylists and the algorithm get to know you. Who knows, perhaps the second or third box would be a much better fit. Then again, maybe there are some things that an algorithm just can’t do.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The digital guys all forget that the customer is analog.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Algorithms are binary and logical and humans are non binary and illogical.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reassuring that non-formulaic creatives may have job security for a while longer.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Two observations: a US Marine colonel whose specialty is logistics told me the toughest task he ever had (and failed to master) was uniforms for women; so many variables. Second observation from working at Saks in management years ago. Male buyers (buying women’s things) would say things such as “metallic was big last season, let’s double down on purple”. More successful buyers, usually women buying for women, had a sense of what looked fresh and interesting. Several times I watched as doubling down resulted in big loss making markdowns.
Like investing, past performance is no guarantee for success. It’s all about feeling >>zeitgeist<< and guessing what will be next. Masses of data on the past won’t work here. Or at least where fashion is concerned. It may work for more commodity buying, but not trends, where you cash in being a leader, not a follower.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
]]>zeitgeist aesthetics algorithms anti-formulaic apparel artificial_intelligence brands clothing data data_collection data_driven e-commerce fashion good_taste human_factor machine_learning mail-order merchandising personalization personal_stylists recommendation_engines Stitch_Fix stylish analog curation subscriptions business_acumen discernmenthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:db5bd94d2145/The Englishman trying to save American bookstores from Amazon | Financial Times2021-06-04T17:05:09+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/b943e6c1-f899-4fa4-b0d4-1b60cf51e5d0
jerrykingAmazon booksellers bookshops bookstores cost-cutting Daunt_Books decline determination distribution_channels downsizing e-books Elliott_Management founders layoffs mantras nerds pandemics reading ruthlessness shareholder_activism social_contract tough-mindedness turnarounds visual_cues Waterstones Barnes_&_Noble books contra-Amazon e-commerce James_Daunt private_equity publishing retailershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:1759e5557c80/Shopify’s side hustle: Ottawa giant books windfall gains investing in partner companies - The Globe and Mail2021-05-13T12:43:31+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-shopifys-side-hustle-ottawa-giant-books-windfall-gains-investing-in/
jerrykinge-commerce partnerships Shopify side_hustleshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:7cf74b42e244/Walmart vs Amazon: the battle to dominate grocery2021-05-12T01:02:46+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/9ab41b9e-a294-430f-951d-49cfc3415460
jerrykingAmazon e-commerce future grocery supermarkets trends Wal-Marthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d03e7d2c6f52/Essentials Re-designed With You in Mind2021-05-05T09:39:02+00:00
https://shopthousandmiles.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwhMmEBhBwEiwAXwFoEe_u41UlVI8724delIKglUl7wZTDJfpIJwpFKmxq4An72MXPHvwjLBoCVHQQAvD_BwE
jerrykingapparel e-commerce exercise fitnesshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:8b275c1c7ccd/Scarcity reminds us of what we take for granted | Financial Times2021-03-20T17:29:15+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/5a443bbd-1c27-4419-9492-3806507e5718
jerryking>bottlenecks<< and >>depletion<<. Most of the problems facing rich countries are temporary. Eventually, new drugs factories will come online and produce more vaccines; Texan refineries will reopen, easing the components shortage; and shipping containers will find their way back to the right ports. The problem is not how to produce enough per se, but producing enough to satisfy all demand right now...... A bigger concern is that the pandemic is a test run for how our societies will respond to a changing climate and a damaged environment. Depleting the world’s natural resources creates a scarcity that time will not alleviate: once a rainforest or endangered species is gone, it is gone for good.
.
This could include shortages of basic commodities we mostly never think about. The UN is warning that the world is running out of the sand that is vital for construction. Urbanization in Africa and Asia is depleting the reserves in quarries, coastlines and riverbeds faster than they can be placed; abundant desert sand, eroded by the wind, is too small and round to use in construction.......Only water is used more in the global economy than sand. Here, too, shortages have already made themselves felt .....Of all the lessons taught by the pandemic, perhaps the most important is how much we take for granted. There are plenty of other things we will miss if they disappear.
]]>behavioural_economics bottlenecks climate_change Covid-19 depletion developed_countries developing_countries disruption e-commerce editorials globalization lockdown pandemics PPE sand scarcity shifting_tastes shortages supply_chains urbanization vaccine_nationalism water natural_resources take_for_granted rising_demand global_economy shipping_containers supply_chain_squeeze commoditieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:57ebeac0bfbd/Stores still matter when it comes to online groceries | Financial Times2021-03-11T20:41:48+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/ce6aa47e-9096-4952-933b-08385609a581
jerrykinge-commerce e-grocery grocery supermarketshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:42221363b9a5/Q&A with Farhan Siddiqi: Grocery retail catches up to tech2021-02-21T03:54:33+00:00
https://ing.ft.com/content/QA-with-Farhan-Siddiqi-Grocery-retail-catches-up-to-tech/
jerrykingdigital_strategies e-commerce grocery retailers sponsored_content supermarketshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:3425f459926d/The pandemic tech boom is reshaping our cities2021-01-12T21:47:51+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/40c3a928-6faf-4746-903d-3a114aac3878
jerrykingAmazon automation commercial_kitchens couriers dark_stores Deliveroo delivery_services DoorDash dotcom e-commerce food home-delivery infrastructure last_mile lockdown logistics Ocado on-demand restaurants Uber Uber_Eats warehouses virtual_restaurants freelancing fulfillment capital-intensity precarious cities parking electric_carshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ca692fd4adc2/Covid didn’t kill Topshop: a lack of creativity did2020-12-08T15:37:41+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/f8bd6c9e-7b91-4fe3-af3a-d35d7fc617b5#comments-anchor
jerryking>zeitgeist<<. Its finger was not simply on the pulse — it generated the pulse. The key to that was the creative vision of brand director Jane Shepherdson and her team. She fostered a culture of experimentation, passion and ambition. .... Her departure in 2006 was a blow from which Topshop never really recovered. She understood that how we live is also how we buy, which is how to sell. Then she left, the numbers and systems people got over-involved, and the creative voices were stifled and sidelined. Topshop became a cookie cutter volume store, sticking to the formula that once made it great but didn’t evolve to meet the changing demands of younger shoppers. It was a copy-and-paste approach, not a creative vision, and look where that took it. The retailers who are winning today have vision. They create brands that people feel a part of — buying into, rather than mindlessly buying from. Millennial beauty giant Glossier achieved unicorn status by creating a two-way dialogue with its community. Patagonia’s clothes aren’t worn just because of how they look, but also the environmental and social commitments they embody. Ikea has straddled physical and digital [i.e. = "cyberphysical"] retail by challenging itself to innovate while remaining razor focused on its core ideal — great design at affordable prices. Primark’s success is nothing to do with digital but with understanding >>customers’ needs<< — price, breadth of offer, availability — and then serving them. The list goes on.
Creativity isn’t about apparitions from above. It’s about your thinking, your strategy and your willingness to innovate.
Today’s market leaders know that they must offer something that cannot be captured in system-driven online shopping. US toy retailer Camp has in-store playgrounds and many staff who are former actors. House of Vans has indoor skate parks, while Universal Standard has a clubhouse in its New York flagship store. In Amsterdam, car brand Lynk & Co has opened a co-working space instead of a car dealership. These retailers straddle both digital and physical retail [i.e. = "cyberphysical"]. One is not exclusive to the other. I suspect they are also led by people who allow the numbers people to work with the creatives, not stifle them. Creativity comes in many forms. It just needs corporate cultural oxygen to flourish.
So don’t fall for the line that digital was Topshop’s enemy. The pandemic didn’t kill the brand either; it just struck the final blow. Mr Green’s fatal error was that he didn’t understand how critical creativity is. He thought it could be bought. It can’t. Creativity creates cultural relevance and that’s something you instinctively feel. It was true of J Crew, until Jenna Lyons left in 2017. As important as the bottom line is, creativity in all its confounding, >>unquantifiable<< [i.e. = "hard to measure"] glory is also what will pull businesses through this pandemic. For that to happen, the person at the top must embody creative qualities, or recognize others that do and enable them. Of course there is a central need for data and numbers. But for 30 years, that’s been the driving force in retail, and now we see that it isn’t enough. Companies succeeding now are disrupters and visionaries — not those that put creatives in charge but then crush them.
]]>bankruptcies brands bricks-and-mortar Covid-19 creativity cultural_relevance data e-commerce entrepreneur experiential_marketing Glossier pandemics Patagonia Philip_Green Primark retailers Topshop under_appreciated United_Kingdom unquantifiable visionaries zeitgeist imagination hard_to_measure consumer_needs customers’_needs cyberphysical out-of-touchhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:bd04695ddb43/Michael Moritz named chairman of Swedish fintech Klarna2020-12-01T16:00:19+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/b831b08c-2c5d-4903-819b-6b4dffcf7ac2
jerrykingbanks e-commerce fin-tech financial_services Klarna Michael_Moritz start_ups retailers Sequoia Swedishhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:25b5bb6133ed/Ant’s rocky road holds lessons for business in a digital age2020-11-04T21:13:18+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/45e82516-872b-4ee2-b4ca-db0dcaacb7b3#comments-anchor
jerryking>customer need<< and moved fast to build a massive new financial business. Ant spun out of Alibaba in 2011 and Alipay now has 711m active users.
Almost accidentally, by holding its users’ money in escrow until its online merchants had delivered their orders, Alibaba created Yu’e Bao, now one of the world’s biggest money market funds with $173bn of assets. Ant expanded that business and moved into lending, investment and insurance, too. Most western companies consider themselves either business-to-business or business-to-consumer companies. But as Ming Zeng, Alibaba’s chief strategy officer, explains in his book Smart Business, the Chinese internet giant operates as a consumer-to-business company. Network connections and intelligence make it easier to anticipate and respond rapidly to >>consumer demand<<.
(2) it is often easier to build something new than repurpose something old. …….Part of the reason that China leads the world in digital payments is because it lacked many legacy institutions……..Rather than replicating what traditional banks had built, Ant anticipated what customers would want and has built its business off a super app. …..Ironically, that may be one of the very reasons why Ant has now incurred the wrath of regulators. It may now have to act more like a bank, keeping more loans on its balance sheet.
Ant’s IPO prospectus contains 60 pages of risk factors covering the Covid-19 pandemic, the global economic slowdown, US-China tensions, cyber crime and regulatory risks. But, tellingly, the first it highlights are whether Ant can continue to maintain the trust of consumers and innovate successfully. Regulatory limits on its ability to innovate could seriously harm the business.
(3) All tech companies need a political as well as a social licence to operate and it is folly to forget it no matter how powerful they become. Regulators in the US and Europe are now sprinting to catch up with runaway tech giants. China’s rulers have always kept their internet platform companies under far tighter control and have now given Ant a further tug on the leash. In creating such a successful company, Ant may have been built back to front and upside down. Yet, in spite of its impressive flexibility, it can never wriggle out of China’s political straitjacket. Ant has now promised to “embrace regulation”.
]]>Alibaba Alipay Ant_Group China Chinese_Communist_Party books data_driven digital_economy digital_payments e-commerce IPOs Jack_Ma Jeff_Bezos lessons_learned platforms prospectuses regulators risk_factors speed spin-offs mobile_payments COVID-19 fin-tech consumer_needs customers’_needs customer_centricity work-back_schedules consumer_demandhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b6455228621d/TikTok moves into social ecommerce with Shopify deal2020-10-28T10:11:36+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/f11fe4a8-84ea-4f11-aa94-79fe8ed0688e
jerrykingbrands digital_influencers direct-to-consumer e-commerce online_video partnerships personal_branding Shopify short-form social_ecommerce social_media TikTok visual_culture WeChathttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9f06b9c20888/Under the covers: Taschen’s colourful future2020-10-21T05:34:08+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/aaa45bff-4f42-452c-89c0-e96d0ce4abc2
jerryking360-degree anniversaries art art_books books brands CEOs coffee-table collectibles cookbooks cultural_signifiers digital_strategies diversification documentaries e-commerce erotica exclusivity films game_changers family_business German kinky pandemics photography political_correctness privately_held_companies publishing quirky retailers storytelling women production_values through_line unifying_principle centers_of_gravityhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:cb89e5b5cd2d/With Amazon’s power comes great responsibility2020-10-16T03:23:44+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/6bc0edb6-7446-4f80-a469-c02aaccc17df
jerrykingAmazon Amazon_Prime backlash Big_Tech COVID-19 e-commerce economic_clout lockdown op-ed pairs pandemics political_power taxes third-party mom-and-pop retailers social_responsibilityhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:e49f32e6532f/Covid-19 has exposed the world’s fragile, complex food supply chains2020-10-05T03:45:20+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/65ad7504-b7de-4df4-8747-f669a2e541fe
jerrykingbooks Brexit climate_change Covid-19 e-commerce deforestation disease food fragility grains grocery pandemics pulses small_business start_ups supermarkets supply_chains United_Kingdom zoonotichttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:99492208d933/How to survive the Covid-19 retail apocalypse2020-09-20T23:29:47+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/013e6518-06c8-419b-a9eb-4368533228ab
jerrykinganalytics apparel bankruptcies brands bricks-and-mortar cost-cutting COVID-19 crisis data deal-making digital_strategies direct-to-consumer e-commerce Generation_Z geographic_ingredient_branding howto landlords leasing leisurewear lessons_learned local luck Made_in_America millennials opportunities post-coronavirus_era pricing purpose Rana_Foroohar retailers risk-sharing Robert_Shiller shopping_malls subscriptions survival_strategies sustainability young_people Brooks_Brothers end_of_ownership J.Crew American_Giant mobile-first apocalypses digital-firsthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:e615c97ccd0b/7 Ways the Pandemic Has Changed How We Shop for Food - The New York Times2020-09-13T03:39:03+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/dining/grocery-shopping-coronavirus.html
jerryking10x accelerated_lifecycles Amazon_Prime BOPIS cashierless choices COVID-19 dark_stores e-commerce e-grocery economic_indicators economic_insecurity farming fresh_produce frozen_foods grocery habits kitchens Kroger lists pandemics private_labels Publix pulses rapid_change reconfiguration self-checkout shopping_experience shopping_habits store_footprints supermarkets supply_chains trends trend_spotting Wal-Mart Whole_Foodshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:a89b32db1fa8/Why Does Walmart Want to Buy TikTok? - The New York Times2020-08-28T19:45:14+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/technology/tiktok-walmart-ecommerce.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
jerrykinge-commerce TikTok Wal-Marthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:836e08add2ef/Is this the end for America’s mom-and-pop stores? | Financial Times2020-08-28T03:13:47+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/92427a94-ee5e-486c-9f6b-9e11e8362f41
jerryking>under pressure<< for decades, first from the rise of “big-box” stores such as Walmart, and, more recently, from the almighty Amazon. Now economists fear that the economic shock of coronavirus will prove ruinous for tens of thousands of mom-and-pops, with dire consequences for not only the businesses affected but also the independent, entrepreneurial streak that is hard-wired into the nation’s psyche.......Marshalls, a chain of cut-price department stores that has an outlet nearby, sells some of the same toys at the price she pays her wholesalers. Amazon — which is “killing everybody”, according to Owen — is even cheaper. Lego, a must-have product line for any toy shop, cut her off abruptly in 2017 because she could not order $15,000 worth of its items a year, forcing her to turn to a more expensive third-party distributor. Lego confirmed it had a “>>minimum annual order requirement<< of $15,000” for retailers to qualify as a direct purchaser but said “small, independent toy dealers continue to be hugely important”....Plenty of other mom-and-pop stores are likely to suffer a similar fate. According to recent data from Yelp, the reviews site, more than 70,000 businesses have closed permanently since March.......84 % of businesses that received loans under the government’s $660bn Paycheck Protection Program — one of the main vehicles for funnelling coronavirus stimulus cash to companies — said they were on track to exhaust the funding by the first week of this month......Good’s of Evanston, a custom framing shop in a suburb of Chicago that is closing permanently next month after more than a century in business.....The economic shock of the pandemic hastened Chinsky’s decision to close the store......He cites the opening of an Amazon warehouse in neighbouring Skokie last year, which has enabled the e-commerce giant to slash delivery times for shoppers living in the Chicago suburbs. Amazon offers many products that Good’s also sells, such as photo frames and albums.....“I don’t see Amazon as the great evil,” he adds. “I think that serving >>customers’ needs<< best is what we all have to try to do. But when they have subsidies . . . it’s not a level playing field.”
]]>COVID-19 e-commerce entrepreneur entrepreneurship food_trucks Lego lockdown mom-and-pop pandemics retailers small_business store_closings Wal-Mart Yelp Amazon big-box black-owned Brookings family-owned_businesses consumer_needs customers’_needs minimum_order_requirements under_pressurehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:df8e5eed75ab/America’s largest shopping mall owner gets a new tenant: itself2020-08-18T17:22:15+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/f25ff5aa-e1b8-4296-903a-3fa3f85ecb44
jerrykinganchor_tenants bricks-and-mortar core_businesses department_stores economic_downturn e-commerce foot_traffic investors JCPenney landlords lockdown occupancy_rates opportunistic pandemics REITs shopping_malls store_closings bankruptcies brands Brookfield commercial_real_estate COVID-19 dealmakers diversification Neiman_Marcus physical_retail private_equity recessions retailers Simon_Property deal-making distressed_assets fallen_angels orphan_brandshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:2ca714415913/We All Make Mistakes. Not Everybody Fixes Them - Friday Forward (#238)2020-07-24T16:14:35+00:00
https://www.robertglazer.com/friday-forward/two-tails/
jerrykingcustomer_experience customer_service Maine no_excuses organizational_culture restaurants root_cause solutions wait_times omnichannel mistakes BOPIS e-commerce in-person seafood pandora’s_boxhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:3fdb7f471479/Surviving Disruption2020-07-23T20:19:56+00:00
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lop4InozqawJ:https://hbr.org/2012/12/surviving-disruption+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
jerrykingClayton_Christensen defensive_tactics disruption e-commerce e-grocery grocery Krogers supermarketshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:76b518fe0e3b/Opinion | It’s 2022. What Does Life Look Like?2020-07-10T17:39:51+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-economy-two-years.html
jerryking>baseline scenario<<: a vaccine will arrive sometime in 2021-- Until then, the world endures waves of sickness, death and uncertainty....Many things will not change. That’s one of history’s lessons. The financial crisis of 2007-9 didn’t cause Americans to sour on stocks, and it didn’t lead to an overhaul of Wall Street. The election of the first Black president didn’t usher in an era of racial conciliation. The 9/11 attacks didn’t make Americans unwilling to fly. The Vietnam War didn’t bring an end to extended foreign wars without a clear mission.....
** Weak companies will die -- Local newspapers will be one casualty. Traditional department stores another.... the virus has interrupted in-person shopping and caused many consumers to shift even more business online, to Amazon, Target and Walmart.....Higher education......The virus is exacerbating almost every problem that colleges faced......Cuts to higher-education budgets could make it even harder for poor and middle-class students to graduate....
** Habits will change --remote learning during the pandemic — from preschool through college --was disappointing. On the other hand, white-collar workers' experiences with videoconferencing doesn’t replace the richness of in-person conversations, but many meetings work perfectly well over Zoom, FaceTime or Google Meet..... several major companies don't expect to use as much Manhattan office space as they did before the pandemic.....In-person meetings and conferences will continue to happen. But the threshold for what requires travel, and the time, cost and fatigue it brings, will rise........The larger theme is that crises can force or accelerate behavior changes. Some of the old behavior will revert when the pandemic ends. But not all of it will. In some cases, people will realize that they were sticking to old habits out of inertia and prefer their new habits
** Politics will shape the economy -- The biggest source of uncertainty about the post-virus American economy is political. Past crises have transformed the economy, but almost always because of government policy.....The Civil War allowed Abraham Lincoln and his allies to create a transcontinental railroad and a national network of public universities. The Great Depression led to a raft of federal laws that reduced inequality. The housing crisis that began in 2007 helped elect a Democratic president and Congress that extended health insurance to millions of people........One of the key post-virus implications could be further consolidation in many industries, with big companies becoming even bigger......Consolidation, in turn, tends to increase income and wealth inequality,.....A big Trump loss, amid a pandemic and recession, could jolt the Republican Party into being more open to government action. ....A progressive agenda is shaping up to have two defining features. The first is reducing inequality — through higher taxes on the rich, greater scrutiny of big companies, new efforts to reduce racial injustice and more investments and programs for the middle class and poor, including health care, education and paid leave. The second is acting on climate change, which could cause even more global misery than the coronavirus.
.............Biden may not seem like a history-altering figure, certainly like less of one than Barack Obama did. But he could wind up presiding over a larger scale of political change than Mr. Obama did, for reasons largely independent of the two men themselves.........“Although you had this crisis, you didn’t have the ideas that were ready to go,” ..... progressives are better positioned to pass sweeping change in 2021 than they were in 2009, after the financial crisis. ...... progressives have spent years working through the details of plans on climate change, high-end tax increases, antitrust policy and more........In less than 15 years, the United States has suffered the biggest two economic crises since the Great Depression, the worst pandemic in more than a century and the election of two presidents unlike any before them — and diametrically unlike each other. If there is a single lesson of the current era of American politics, it’s that change can happen more quickly than we imagined (i.e. punctuated equilibrium).
]]>baselines climate_change Colleges_&_Universities crisis cruise_ships department_stores e-commerce economic_downturn future habits ideas in-person income_inequality Joe_Biden lessons_learned new_normal Obama pandemics post-coronavirus_era punctuated_equilibrium restaurants seminal_moments shopping_malls store_closings the_Great_Depression theme_parks think_tanks vaccines viruses WWII health_insurance rapid_change historical_lessons progressivism local_journalism scientific_breakthroughshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:24e4c58c1ce0/Robots from Estonia boost supermarket spirits during pandemic2020-05-30T11:08:56+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/f2875a4c-943b-11ea-899a-f62a20d54625
jerrykingartificial_intelligence automation BOPIS Cleveron Covid-19 delivery_services Estonia e-commerce e-grocery grocery home-delivery last_mile logistics Ocado pandemics retailers robotics shifting_tastes shopping_habits smart_lockers software Starship supermarkets Tesco touch-free trial_&_error warehouses fulfillment behind-the-scenes eye-catchinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:299076866a3a/The Coronavirus Pandemic Helped Topple J. Crew and Neiman Marcus. So Did Private Equity. - The New York Times2020-05-17T21:55:11+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/business/coronavirus-retail-bankruptcies-private-equity.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
jerrykingbankruptcies e-commerce pandemics private_equity retailers Neiman_Marcus Vanessa_Friedmanhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:cf765023bbe6/Brookfield to provide $5-billion to cash-strapped retailers for stake in business -2020-05-08T02:06:30+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-brookfield-to-provide-5-billion-to-cash-strapped-retailers-for-stake/
jerrykingBrookfield economic_downturn e-commerce investors lockdown opportunistic pandemics private_equity recessions retailers shopping_malls anchor_tenants bankruptcies cash-strapped commercial_real_estate COVID-19 funding landlords physical_retail store_closingshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b921318416d1/Yale Economist K. Sudhir on How Retailers Survive a Recession2020-05-07T04:36:51+00:00
https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/yale-economist-k-sudhir-on-the-future-of-work-and-how-retailers-survive-a-recession?fbadid=6186383194667&https%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.shopify.com%2525252Fenterprise%2525252Fyale-economist-k-sudhir-on-the-future-of-work-and-how-retailers-survive-a-recession%2525253Futm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1QxSFYQVMhhyIuyg93jSZaoihjmk8wnUF47PdKecHPzyFMYjvQ6YFJAWc
jerrykingCostco COVID-19 crisis debt e-commerce economists epidemiology gig_economy grocery howto post-coronavirus_era recessions retailers SOM Spanish_flu supermarkets universal_basic_income viruses Yale survival_strategieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:cf9c098c27fd/Sysco goes direct to consumers with new online grocery service - The Globe and Mail2020-04-21T06:07:03+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-sysco-goes-direct-to-consumers-with-new-online-grocery-service/
jerrykinge-commerce e-grocery grocery Susan_Krashinsky Syscohttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b2576184e9dd/Tiny Digital Businesses Play Key Role in Local Economies, Study Says - The New York Times2020-04-08T15:01:13+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/technology/tiny-digital-businesses-play-key-role-in-local-economies-study-says.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Technology
jerrykinge-commerce Instagram jewelry small_business Steve_Lohrhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:be75f9ca63a5/Online Grocers Are Getting a Preview of Their Future;2020-03-27T18:44:39+00:00
https://notes.pinboard.in/u:jerryking/3ca95b1a1e8c6cf08e63
jerrykingCOVID-19 crisis e-commerce e-grocery fulfillment grocery home-delivery retailers supermarketshttps://notes.pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:de850c001945/Prime Power: How Amazon Squeezes the Businesses Behind Its Store - The New York Times2019-12-22T20:11:14+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/technology/amazon-sellers.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Technology
jerrykingAmazon Amazon_Prime antitrust e-commerce fulfillment Jeff_Bezos logistics monopoly_power one-stop_shop retailers supply_chain_squeeze unpredictability warehouseshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:f6b79f8e31df/Chasing Amazon, Retailers Are in a Never-Ending Arms Race2019-11-26T21:06:30+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/business/macys-kohls-nordstrom-problems.html
jerrykingAmazon Amazon_Prime apparel e-commerce Kohl’s Nordstrom product_returns retailers same-day start_ups supply_chain_squeeze arms_race department_stores contra-Amazon Macy'shttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:02c80a8238e7/How FleetOptic’s data analytics smooth the last mile of a parcel’s journey2019-11-05T16:28:55+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/rob-magazine/article-how-fleetoptics-data-analytics-smooth-the-last-mile-of-a-parcels/
jerrykinganalytics data data_driven delivery distribution e-commerce last_mile logistics retailers delivery_networks delivery_services distribution_centres FleetOptics fulfillment package_delivery same-day start_ups shipping third-party traceability tracking trucking warehouseshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:128e726d94f3/Retailers must innovate and adapt to thrive in the age of Amazon - The Globe and Mail2019-10-17T17:48:14+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/retailers-must-innovate-and-adapt-to-thrive-in-the-age-of-amazon/article35447169/
jerrykingAmazon books book_reviews Doug_Stephens e-commerce experiential_marketing Harvey_Schachter retailershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:79705d22ed0e/McKinsey to start selling underwear and make-up2019-09-26T15:55:55+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/ecac8728-df3c-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc
jerrykingAmazon brands clicks-to-bricks contra-Amazon crypto-currencies data e-commerce management_consulting McKinsey Microsoft retailers shopping_malls ThirdLove shopping_experience shopping_habitshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ab3d157e9db6/A ‘Grass Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon’s Biggest Rivals - WSJ2019-09-21T00:17:34+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-grassroots-campaign-to-take-down-amazon-is-funded-by-amazons-biggest-rivals-11568989838?mod=hp_lead_pos5
jerryking>political operative<< who has worked as a top aide to prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and on Hillary Clinton ’s 2008 presidential campaign.
In a statement, Mr. Singer defended the group. “FFMI is not obligated to disclose its donors and it does not,” Mr. Singer said.
Marathon initially asked for a fee of $250,000 per company to fund the anti-Amazon group, according to a person at one of the companies approached. Among those invited to fund the group but declined were a trade association that includes members who compete with Amazon, and International Business Machines Corp. , according to people familiar with the contacts. IBM, which declined to comment, previously was a client of Marathon.
In a statement, Amazon said, “The Free & Fair Markets Initiative appears to be little more than a well-oiled front group run by a high-priced public affairs firm and funded by self-interested parties with the sole objective of spreading misinformation about Amazon.”
Simon Property, the world’s largest mall landlord, declined to comment. Simon does not have any brick-and-mortar Amazon stores in its roughly 200 malls, outlets and open-air centers in the U.S., whereas its peers with smaller portfolios count multiple Amazon stores in theirs. The Indianapolis-based landlord recently launched its own online shopping platform, Shoppremiumoutlets.com.
Walmart funds the organization indirectly by paying an intermediary that pays for Free and Fair Markets, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. Walmart is a client of Marathon.
Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said, “We are not financial supporters of the FFMI but we share concerns about issues they have raised.” Mr. Hargrove declined to comment further.
The group’s aim is to sully Amazon’s image on competition, data-security and workplace issues, while creating a sense of grass-roots support for increased government regulatory and antitrust enforcement, according to people familiar with the campaign.
Free and Fair Markets has lobbied the government for legislation and investigations of Amazon, sent dozens of letters and reports to Congress and staff, according to congressional staffers, published scores of op-eds in local and online media and tweeted hundreds of social media posts blasting Amazon.
Over the past year, many of the actions advocated by the group have gained traction. Amazon has come under increasing antitrust scrutiny from the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, states attorneys general and the European Union. In New York, Amazon backed out of plans to open a second headquarters in Long Island City after facing political opposition. Free and Fair Markets campaigned against government subsidies to support the site and tweeted more than 300 times on the topic.
Oracle provided financial support as part of an all-out strategy to stop Amazon from getting a $10 billion mega-contract to handle cloud computing for the Defense Department. The Pentagon eliminated Oracle as a bidder in the first round. Kenneth Glueck, who runs Oracle’s office in Washington, confirmed that the computer technology firm has contributed to the effort.
A goal of the organization was achieved in July when President Trump said he wanted to conduct a review of the contract. In August, the secretary of defense said he was investigating conflict-of-interest allegations surrounding the $10 billion contract known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. At the urging of President Trump, the bid award has been put on hold during the review.
Mr. Trump, a frequent critic of Amazon, cited complaints about the project from several of Amazon’s competitors, which in addition to Oracle included IBM and Microsoft Corp. , saying he had heard the contract “wasn’t competitively bid.” The contract has not been awarded and Microsoft remains one of the two remaining bidders.
Though Free and Fair Markets has contacted members of Congress and the administration, it has not registered as a lobbying organization. Such groups are required to file with Congress if more than 20% of their work involves lobbying. Marathon said it complies with lobby disclosure rules.
None of the articles notes that Mr. Engel’s group is funded by rivals of Amazon.
A spokeswoman for The Hill said the publication was unaware of the funding sources and failure to disclose such payments violates a standard written agreement all op-ed writers are required to sign.
Sandy Shea, managing editor of opinion for the Inquirer’s parent company, the Philadelphia Media Network, said, “We aren’t equipped to investigate the makeup or structure of a nonprofit that submits a piece.”
Bill Zeiser, RealClearPolicy editor, said RealClearMedia publishes “commentary on politics and public policy from a wide array of sources. These submissions are assessed on their editorial merits.”
Representatives of the Post-Gazette and Chronicle did not respond to emails.
In an interview earlier this year, Mr. Engel said the motive of the group was not to promote the views of Amazon’s rivals. He said Amazon has been the only target because its business tactics run counter to the group’s goal of free and fair markets. “The one organization that feels it stands above that is Amazon,” Mr. Engel said.
Marathon did not make Mr. Engel available for comment a second time after the Journal determined that rivals were funding the group.
Mr. Engel and his group have been quoted in publications, including once each in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. None said who funded the group.
One article about Free and Fair Markets was commissioned by Marathon.
Last October, an Iowa writer and consultant, Jeff Patch, published an article on RealClearPolicy.com, a news website known for political coverage, about a report by Free and Fair Markets critical of Amazon’s record of hiring and firing women. “Many [women] were fired after Amazon concocted pretexts for their terminations,” Mr. Patch wrote.
Mr. Patch, who has worked as a journalist and a staffer for a Republican congressman and conservative think tanks, did not disclose in his article at the time that he was a paid contractor for Marathon.
Bank statements and invoices reviewed by the Journal show that Mr. Patch billed Marathon, and was paid thousands of dollars for promoting a variety of Marathon projects. One line item on Mr. Patch’s spreadsheet of outstanding invoices noted $1,175 for placing an article, subject: “Amazon piece.”
Mr. Patch said the documents referred to by the Journal were “unrecognizable” and said “I have been the target of an ongoing misinformation campaign.” He did not address directly the question of whether he was paid by Marathon.
Marathon said it has “engaged Mr. Patch for editorial and research services in the past.”
RealClearMedia Group executive editor Carl Cannon said the article was an unpaid guest op-ed. The editors who published the piece are no longer with RealClearPolicy and Mr. Zeiser, the current editor, said his predecessors “were unaware that the author was being paid by Amazon’s business competitors.”
Free and Fair Markets has tweeted more than 1,060 times and produced glossy videos, some of which it has circulated through thousands of dollars in paid advertising, according to Pathmatics, an independent company that tracks social-media ads. A review of the tweets shows that aside from four tweets about FoxConn Technology Group, which assembles Amazon’s smart speakers, all of the tweets are about Amazon or an Amazon-related issue. The tweets have attacked Amazon on several fronts, including antitrust, worker rights, data privacy, soliciting subsidies from local governments for its second headquarters and its bid for the Pentagon cloud contract.
Marathon officials said the group will expand to address other companies’ abuses. “The organization has started looking at FoxConn and is preparing to scrutinize other tech giants,” Marathon’s statement read. Taiwan-based FoxConn, a major supplier also to Apple Inc., got $4 billion in public support to locate some of its operations in Wisconsin.
More than two dozen tweets are particularly critical of Amazon’s bid for the cloud-computing JEDI contract.
One tweet said, “As if $1.5 billion in state and local corporate welfare wasn’t enough, @amazon wants $10 billion more from American taxpayers to host the @DeptofDefense most sensitive data,” and then linked to a list of stories that recounted the complaints of a primary opponent for the contract, Oracle—mainly that the technical specifications in the JEDI request for bids had been “rigged in favor of a single provider: Amazon.” Oracle sued in an attempt to block the Pentagon from awarding the contract, but a federal judge ruled in July that the bid could proceed.
Amazon has previously said that Oracle’s claims are “meritless and a desperate attempt to distort the facts”
None of the members listed by Free and Fair Markets on its website seemed to have an obvious issue with the cloud-computing contract or several other of the group’s issues. When the Journal began inquiring with the members about their reasons for being listed—some did not know their names were posted on the website—the group took them down.
Marathon said, “The names of the groups listed on the site were removed at their request after we heard complaints about some receiving harassing phone calls” from journalists.
One listed member, Aubrey Stone, was founder and head of the California Black Chamber of Commerce. He died in September 2018. His name remained listed as member until at least June and wasn’t removed until the Journal contacted the group.
Maria Gillette, a member of the largely inactive Carbondale Tea Party outside of Scranton, Pa., is listed as an advisory member of Free and Fair Markets. Ms. Gillette, known in her small community for appearing in national media in 1974 after seeing an unidentified flying object, said she thought the group was about free trade—not Amazon.
The New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association is listed as a member, and Jonathan Shaer, executive director, said the group is aligned with its stated principles but does not share the anti-Amazon animus. Mr. Shaer said his association “hasn’t had any active involvement in any of the Initiative’s activities.”
Benyamin Lichtenstein, a business professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said he was contacted out of the blue by a Boston corporate public relations firm last year about signing his name to an op-ed opposed to Boston’s bid for Amazon’s second headquarters. The firm sent a draft of the op-ed that called on Boston politicians to “reject an Amazon headquarters for the sake of small businesses.” The PR official wrote in an email to Mr. Lichtenstein, “If you are happy with the draft we can submit it as is,” according to a copy of the email reviewed by the Journal. The article was pitched to Boston newspapers and was eventually published in DigBoston.com.
Chris Faraone, editor-in-chief of DigBoston, said Mr. Lichtenstein first submitted the article, but that DigBoston didn’t publish it until receiving an email from the same public-relations representative who had initially contacted the professor.
“As for whether Lichtenstein wrote the piece himself, we assumed that was the case, but if it wasn’t, we assure you that we’re no more surprised to hear that than we are when politicians or celebrities use ghostwriters,” Mr. Faraone said.
Mr. Lichtenstein said he agreed to sign his name to the article, to which he made some changes and checked citations, because he believes in advocating for small businesses.
Told he was listed online as a member of the group, Mr. Lichtenstein said, “Wow. I had no idea.” He said the group had inflated his role.
Marathon Strategies, the firm behind Free and Fair Markets Initiative, said union official Gilda Valdez had signed an agreement to join the group, top. The union said she didn’t, and provided the bottom image as an example of her signature.
In a statement, Marathon said, “All of the individuals and groups that we work with have full editorial control and input on any materials they put their names on. In fact, those who play a more formal role with the group sign agreements that clearly spell out the mission and vision of the group.”
Mr. Singer provided the Journal a copy of Mr. Lichtenstein’s signed agreement.
Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents more than 95,000 workers in Southern California, was named as a member without permission, said Coral Itzcalli, communications director. “We have zero involvement with that organization,” she said. After being contacted by the Journal, the union’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding the removal of the union from the list of members. A few days later, it was.
Asked for comment, Marathon emailed to the Journal a membership agreement that the agency said had been signed by Gilda Valdez, the chief of staff for the union local, dated July 23, 2018. The firm also provided a statement from Juan Carlos Mendez, president of Churches In Action, a Christian community group in South Gate, Calif., stating that he had asked Ms. Valdez to join the group and had “secured her signature of FFMI’s consent form.”
But Ms. Valdez said that the signature on the documents provided by Marathon was not hers.
“I did not sign on with this group,” she said. “Their real motive for listing us as supporters remains unknown to us.”
—Sarah Nassauer, Esther Fung and Jay Greene contributed to this article.]]>Amazon contra-Amazon grass-roots nonprofit Oracle Wal-Mart clandestine countermeasures counternarratives dark_side e-commerce sophisticated lobbying lobbyists opposition_research Simon_Property misinformation coalitions public_relations strategic_communications political_operativeshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d8e4986165c1/E-Commerce Made Warehouses Hot. Trade War Could Cool Them Down. - WSJ2019-09-17T18:30:38+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/e-commerce-made-warehouses-hot-trade-war-could-cool-them-down-11568718000?mod=hp_major_pos6
jerrykinge-commerce trade_wars warehouses fulfillmenthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:6422a59d2cff/Physical stores fight Amazon with tech makeover2019-08-22T20:48:27+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/56129116-c37d-11e9-a8e9-296ca66511c9
jerrykingAmazon b8ta bricks-and-mortar differentiation e-commerce experiential_marketing Faire foot_traffic Forerunner future Hero insights in-store iPad Kirsten_Green LVMH mobile_applications Nike personal_shoppers personalization physical_retail retailers start_ups tools experience_economy contra-Amazonhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:625f8eba9880/Now bigger than eBay, Shopify sets its sights on Amazon2019-08-20T07:17:35+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/c72ae0f0-c036-11e9-b350-db00d509634e
jerrykingAmazon e-commerce logistics retailers Shopify Tobias_Lütke fulfillmenthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d92cffc7efd0/How small business can still make waves online - The Globe and Mail2019-08-12T14:11:49+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-how-small-business-can-still-make-waves-online/
jerrykingsmall_business e-commerce social_media buyer_choice_rejection digital_influencers LinkedIn roadmaps strategy TikTok Twitch grass-roots SMEs business_planning digital_strategies referrals strategic_planninghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:c4c46766ca44/How real-estate barons have ridden the tech boom - Schumpeter2019-08-10T20:37:29+00:00
https://www.economist.com/business/2019/05/09/how-real-estate-barons-have-ridden-the-tech-boom
jerrykingAmazon commercial_real_estate e-commerce real_estate REITShttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:626671bf66b8/For Sephora, the store is core to its beauty2019-07-25T14:22:34+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/530db1bc-ae06-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2
jerryking>untapped<< potential in haircare and wellness), and from the way in which brands reach consumers. He sees opportunities in areas like voice-activated ordering through home assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, and social commerce through platforms like China’s WeChat.
But despite such technological developments, for Mr de Lapuente, the store has a robust future.
At La Défense, customers are returning to work with Sephora’s distinctive striped bags modelled on the black and white stripes of Italy’s Siena Cathedral. “Is physical retail alive or dead?” mused Mr de Lapuente among the throng of shoppers. “It looks pretty alive to me. The store is where the magic happens.”
]]>Amazon beauty brands bricks-and-mortar customer_experience cosmetics digital_influencers e-commerce experimentation experiential_marketing high-end in-store incubators innovation LVMH makeup millennials omnichannel refurbished renovations Sephora women social_ecommerce WeChat untappedhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:80e94a7b7296/Sushee Perumal: ‘Risk needs to be carefully evaluated’ - The Globe and Mail2019-07-08T19:19:18+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/article-sushee-perumal-risk-needs-to-be-carefully-evaluated/
jerrykingauctions e-commerce entrepreneur risk-assessment start_upshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:fc9d8a39f14c/Founder Tobias Lütke on Shopify’s lack of profits, Canada’s ‘go-for-bronze’ mentality and life as a multibillionaire2019-06-26T13:22:46+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/rob-magazine/article-shopify-founder-tobias-lutke-dishes-on-his-companys-lack-of-profits/
jerrykingCEOs founders SaaS Shopify Tobias_Lütke e-commerce go-for-bronze mediocrityhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9811c0793e73/Shopify to launch warehouse network for merchant clients2019-06-19T23:09:02+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-shopify-to-launch-warehouse-network-for-merchant-clients/
jerrykingwarehouses Shopify fulfillment shippers Amazon e-commercehttps://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:1bc02387af24/Retail: how bookshops survived the Amazon onslaught2019-06-12T18:02:35+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/cfa4813a-8b5e-11e9-a24d-b42f641eca37
jerrykingAmazon Barnes_&_Noble books booksellers bookstores contra-Amazon e-commerce publishing retailers shareholder_activism Waterstoneshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:29b626e25f81/Walmart Hires Global Tech Chief to Compete With Amazon2019-05-29T11:35:36+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/walmart-hires-global-tech-chief-to-compete-with-amazon-11559061604?mod=hp_major_pos17
jerryking>ad revenue<<. The bulk of Walmart’s revenues and profits came from around 4,600 U.S. stores as of the most recent quarter......Walmart’s current chief information officer, Clay Johson, and all unit CTOs will report to Mr. Kumar. Marc Lore, Walmart’s head of U.S. e-commerce, will continue to report to Mr. McMillon directly,]]>Amazon appointments CTOs digital_strategies hiring retailers technology Wal-Mart e-commerce start_ups C-suite ad_revenuehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:21adfe9b3ba3/Amazon’s Freight Push Rattles Logistics Sector - WSJ2019-05-01T19:08:03+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-freight-push-rattles-logistics-sector-11556656885?mod=hp_minor_pos13
jerrykingAmazon e-commerce logistics same-day truckinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b04faef0d887/America’s Biggest Supermarket Company Struggles With Online Grocery Upheaval2019-04-23T15:56:17+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-biggest-supermarket-company-struggles-with-online-grocery-upheaval-11555877123?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=5
jerrykingAmazon bricks-and-mortar BOPIS CDO cultural_clash delivery_services disruption e-commerce e-grocery grocery IBM Instacart Jet Kroger Microsoft Ocado Oracle pilot_programs retailers same-day Shipt start_ups supermarkets Vitacost Wal-Mart Whole_Foods digital_strategies millennials post-deal_integrationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:f28fd18be5e1/Jumia becomes first African start-up to list in New York2019-04-13T17:34:06+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/8b5024e0-5d1d-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a#comments-anchor
jerrykingAfrica Alibaba Amazon e-commerce IPOs Jumia Nigeria Nigerians NYSE start_ups unicorns mass_marketshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:6c530d9748a0/Amazon (sub)prime - Part II2019-04-03T22:45:30+00:00
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon--sub-prime---Part-II/
jerrykingAmazon Amazon_Prime barcodes commingling contamination counterfeits customer_satisfaction dark_side delivery_times e-commerce fulfillment knockoffs logistics on-demand quality retailers risks rogue_actors shipping speed supply_chains third-party vulnerabilities warehouses product_returns product_reviews inventorieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:de9a0b4f283e/Amazon (sub)Prime? - Part I2019-04-03T22:20:26+00:00
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon--sub-Prime-/
jerrykingAmazon Amazon_Prime barcodes commingling counterfeits customer_satisfaction dark_side delivery_times e-commerce fulfillment logistics on-demand retailers risks rogue_actors shipping speed supply_chains third-party vulnerabilities warehouses quality knockoffs contamination inventorieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:e39b67a1a021/Supercharging retail sales through geospatial analytics2019-03-18T01:45:15+00:00
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/supercharging-retail-sales-through-geospatial-analytics
jerryking>cross-channel<< impact of their stores. They rely on gut feel or on high-level analysis of aggregated sales data to gauge how their offline and online channels interact.....there’s a way for retailers (and other omnichannel businesses) to quantify cross-channel effects, thus taking the guesswork out of network optimization. Through advanced geospatial analytics and machine learning, a retailer can now generate a detailed quantitative picture of how each of its >>customer touchpoints<<—including owned stores and websites, wholesale doors, and partner e-commerce sites—affects sales at all its other touchpoints within a micromarket......US retail sales are on an upward trajectory.....despite the growth of e-commerce, the vast majority of these purchases still happened in >>brick-and-mortar<< stores. .....So why have US retailers closed thousands of stores in the past year, with thousands more closures to come?....Because the **consumer journey** is changing!!......Consumers are transacting in different channels....engaging across multiple channels, often simultaneously rather than sequentially. It’s critical for omnichannel retailers to have a detailed understanding of the interplay between online and offline touchpoints, and between owned and partner networks.
Quantifying cross-channel effects
the starting point is data......from a wide range of internal and external sources. Inputs into a geospatial model would ideally include not just transaction and >>customer data<< but also store-specific details such as store size and product mix; site-specific information such as foot traffic and retail intensity; >>environmental data<<, including local-area demographics; and anonymized mobile-phone location data.......A simulation model can then quantify the sales effect of each of the retailer’s customer touchpoints on its other channels within a local market. The model must be sophisticated enough to simulate the upward or downward revenue impact of adding or removing a particular touchpoint.
Geospatial analysis reveals that the consistency and magnitude of cross-channel effects vary significantly across channel types and markets. ]]>analytics bricks-and-mortar cross-channel customer_journey data e-commerce foot_traffic geospatial location_based_services McKinsey omnichannel privacy retailers store_closings security_consciousness site_selection gut_feelings moments_of_truth customer_touchpoints orders-of-magnitude location_data predictive_modeling customer_data mobile_data transaction_data environmental_datahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:f30b7a401f4b/Amazon to Launch New Grocery-Store Business2019-03-04T10:28:20+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-launch-new-grocery-store-business-sources-say-11551461887?mod=hp_lead_pos4
jerrykingAmazon food grocery new_businesses rollouts supermarkets BOPIS bricks-and-mortar cashierless e-commerce home-delivery in-store Kroger physical_retail Wal-Mart Whole_Foodshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:13e9aa3e1278/