Glossier Millennial Catnip, Bezos Master Plan, Self Checkout Woes, Ipsy's $500M Revenue, eSports Facilities, YouTube Incubating Menswear Designers, Used Car Glut, Uniqlo's Free Samples
Covering commerce daily from Amazon to Zulily
How Emily Weiss’s Glossier Grew From Millennial Catnip to Billion-Dollar Juggernaut
Five years ago, the prescient founder created a beauty start-up for the ages. Specifically one age: millennials. With Glossier hitting a $1.2 billion valuation alongside legions of fans—not to mention a crush of competitors—Weiss is playing the long game.
“The fact of the matter is, the majority of women today make a beauty purchasing decision based on a stranger on the internet’s content.” She stops short of taking any credit, but I catch a hint of a knowing smile.
More prescient, by crowdsourcing imagery from its 2 million followers—regramming selfies of cute 20-somethings in face masks or Glitter Gelée, part of the experimental makeup collection called Glossier Play—the brand has elevated its eager fan base to the (unpaid) position of campaign star.
What the Amazon founder and CEO wants for his empire and himself, and what that means for the rest of us.
After it earned derision for the alleged treatment of its workers—some warehouse employees reported feeling pressured to forgo bathroom breaks to meet productivity targets, to cite just one example—it unilaterally raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour in the U.S., then attempted to shame competitors that didn’t follow suit.
Performance reviews at Amazon ask employees to name their “superpower.” An employer probably shouldn’t create the expectation that its staff members possess qualities that extend beyond mortal reach, but I’m guessing Bezos would answer by pointing to his ability to think into the future.
Yes, Self-Checkout Machines Encourage Shoplifting. Here's Why Stores Love Them Anyway
A a recent review of shoplifting offenders, 72% said that self-checkout made theft easy to very easy; only 8% answered it made shoplifting more difficult. “A kiosk doesn’t create community or connections,” marketing vice president Heather Snavely told local radio station KIRO .
AI-enabled video allows the company to flag any price switching or fake scanning and offer customer assistance, says Malay Kundu founder of the StopLift, which was acquired by NCR Corporation, the largest manufacturer of self-checkouts, last year.
Inside Ipsy's new 'Discover Yourself' marketing push – Glossy
Ipsy clocked in $500 million in revenue last year, and is currently the largest beauty subscription company and the No. 2 ranked subscription business overall after Dollar Shave Club.
“Awareness is a lot more emotional.” Habayeb would not disclose the cost of the “Discover Yourself” campaign, but said that Ipsy is not decreasing Facebook or Instagram social media spend but is instead upping investments in all tactics.
Rather than Ipsy being a mouthpiece for itself, the aforementioned ambassadors are an attempt to remind the beauty landscape that inclusion and diversity efforts need to push past ethnicity, explained Habayeb.
Politicians want to rein in the retail giant. But Jeff Bezos, the master of cutthroat capitalism, is ready to fight back. (A typical tweet was “Just in: Jeff Bezos’ dick pic reveals he has balls of steel.”) Meanwhile, reporting by the Wall Street Journal and other outlets offered a simpler explanation for the hacking: the purloined messages had come from Lauren Sanchez’s brother, Michael, a reality-television talent agent.
In June, after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on television that Bezos’s wealth is “predicated on paying people starvation wages and stripping them of their ability to access health care,” Amazon’s communications and policy chief, Jay Carney, went on the attack, tweeting, “All our employees get top-tier benefits.
Nerd Street Gamers raises $12 million for building esports facilities
Nerd Street Gamers has raised $12 million in funding from Philadelphia retailer Five Below (and others) to build esports team Localhost facilities.
Nerd Street Gamers has raised $12 million in funding from Philadelphia discount retailer Five Below (and others) to build esports Localhost facilities that house leagues, training camps, tournaments, and showcases.
“This round of funding led by Five Below and the opportunity of Localhost locations connected to Five Below stores empowers our vision of a world where esports is accessible and inclusive for everyone,” said John Fazio, the CEO of Nerd Street Gamers, in a statement.
The Next Generation of Menswear Designers Might Be On YouTube
A handful of video content creators are launching their own clothing brands and collections. Like the men behind #menswear , the movement birthed on the blogosphere that peaked in popularity in the early 2010s, these YouTube "creators" are often friends IRL, appearing in each other's videos to compare notes on their latest cops or pal around the local flea market looking for covetable vintage finds.
When Magnus Ronning set about launching his eponymous label, he saw his collection as an organic extension of his wardrobe: well-made, approachable basics with a twist, like a denim jacket in a green paisley print, or twill work pants in a dusty pink hue.
Used-car price tumble spells trouble for the US auto market
Falling used-car prices last month were a major contributor to subdued inflation for the U.S. economy. Auto analysts warn this could be a lasting trend with major negative implications for new-vehicle demand.
The decline in used-car prices is explained in part by rising returns of vehicles that have reached the end of consumer leases, according to Charlie Chesbrough, Cox Automotive’s senior economist.
Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley’s auto analyst, wrote in a report last week that his team has “tried to call the top of the used car market (incorrectly) for much of the past five years.”
With new sampling program, Uniqlo takes page from DTC brands | Modern Retail
Uniqlo just announced a new promotion, giving away 100,000 free samples. The retailer’s US business has been flagging, and this seems like a way to try to regenerate interest.
Amazon too has its own sample program; it works with select brands, who are able to leverage the e-commerce giant’s data, to send out free products to customers they think they could convert.
As Axios reported last January, this was one new way for Amazon to show off its targeting abilities — as well as a tactic brands could use to gain wider recognition.
Amazon Has Added Three Million Sellers Since 2017
3.3 million new third-party sellers have joined Amazon marketplaces worldwide since January 1st, 2017; over a million of which joined the Amazon.com marketplace in the US. Three million equals to 3,317 new sellers every day for the last one thousand days, or 138 every hour, or even two new sellers every minute.
After launching in Singapore on Monday , Amazon now runs sixteen marketplaces worldwide: US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, Japan, Australia, China, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, UAE, and Singapore.
25,000 sellers eclipsed $1 million in sales on Amazon’s marketplaces worldwide in 2018; the number grew by 25% from 20,000 in 2017.
Driver shortages paired with holiday shopping prep fueled a surprise September employment situation star.
"The perfect storm of low unemployment, high turnover rates, and negative perceptions of the job work together to make hiring and keeping qualified workers an uphill battle," it said.
"This economy is not just still on its feet, but still moving forward," he wrote, but "with manufacturing weak and the labor market only modestly in positive territory, much depends on consumer spending and the Fed's reaction function."
Americans and Digital Knowledge
A majority of U.S. adults can answer fewer than half the questions correctly on a digital knowledge quiz, and many struggle with certain cybersecurity and privacy questions
Additionally, 48% of adults correctly answered that a privacy policy is a contract between websites and users regarding how their data will be used, while 45% know that net neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers should treat all traffic on their networks equally.
(This involves confirming individuals are who they claim to be in at least two of the following ways: inputting information only the user knows, like a password; using an outside source they possess, like a phone number or token key; or through something like a fingerprint.)
Apple's smart glasses will arrive in the first half of 2020, top analyst says
TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple will launch new iPad Pros, an augmented reality (AR) headset, new MacBooks and a cheaper iPhone in the second quarter of next year.
Apple has put a lot of investment into augmented reality, which already works on most iPhones and iPads launched in the last few years.
Companies like Microsoft , Google and the start-up Magic Leap have all released AR glasses over the years, but none have gained massive consumer adoption.