Excerpts:
- A report produced by groups seeking to block it pointed out that the number of Amazon facilities in New Jersey grew to 49 from one between 2013 and 2020, helping to nearly triple the number of warehouse workers in the state, to about 70,000.
- The Port Authority revealed the proposed lease with Amazon in August, the day its board voted to authorize the deal.
- Under the proposed deal, Amazon tentatively committed to investing $125 million in renovating two buildings ...
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Do you love a great deal on a t-shirt or TV? Sure, we all do. Yet, sometimes when we shop, the lower the price we pay, the less we pay: people. People that make the goods (factory workers) and people that sell the goods (aka indie store owners) are the victims in the discount-pricing rush.
Today’s Times shares that making a bathing suit in Sir Lanka costs about $4 per unit while in Portugal it may cost $16. In NYC, the minimum wage is $15/hour—making production in NYC ...
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Today’s WSJ article made me think:
1. We need to reserve a ticker symbol for Bridge, like BRDG.
2. Meta should use the ticker DATA or THEFT, as that’s the business they’re in. They are in the business of using your personal data—whether via Facebook or in the metaverse, often without us being aware. To see a web page on Facebook or Instagram often requires logging in. Don’t want to log in? Too bad, that’s the only way to see the content. ...
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In the past, we’ve used spin classes and gyms as inspiration for Bridge. We see them as metaphors for helping retail business owners. The founders of SoulCycle, Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice, must have been eavesdropping on us: they are expanding their spinning approach to another sphere. The Times reports they have started Peoplehood, a business that seeks to help people via self-help (group-help?) sessions. It’s SoulCycle for the soul&...
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This week's Times shares that brides are increasingly asking for cash gifts. This trend pulls back the curtain on the underbelly of wedding gifts. Over the last 20 years, a trend emerged where a bride would ask for a traditional gift (i.e. a crystal champagne flute set, a fine china plate, etc.) but then redeem the credit for a television or vacuum. The stores that were especially adept at this were the big-box stores with a wide variety of offerings like Macy's and Target. They would use ...
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NYT: Amazon claims to not be responsible for what it sells
Amazon sells you an item, gets it from its warehouse, and delivers it to you—but says that it is not a seller, shares Moira Weigel in this past weekend’s Times. This shields it from accountability to customers that receive harmful goods. Amazon is using a similar excuse that Facebook and social media platforms use regarding harmful content: don’t hold us accountable; blame our users, even if we provide the service ...
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"Today, virtually the entire publishing industry is rooting for Barnes & Noble — including most independent booksellers. Its unique role in the book ecosystem, where it helps readers discover new titles and publishers stay invested in physical stores, makes it an essential anchor in a world upended by online sales and a much larger player: Amazon."
An article in today’s Times cites the high cost of acquiring customers, which ranges from $100 to $800. Excerpt:
“Estimates of an often-cited retail metric known as customer acquisition costs range from $100 to more than $800 per customer, said Daniel McCarthy, a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business, who has done extensive research in the field.”
Physical retail is one of the most expensive ways to acquire customers. An online ...
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In a recent NY Times article about working out, the author Christie Aschwanden gives readers tips on how to make working out more enjoyable. (Read the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/well/move/habits-motivation-exercise.html). In reading this, I saw many parallels between working out and helping our stores get their websites ‘in shape.’ The author encourages readers to not think of working out as exercise and instead think of it as "hanging out with friends...
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Peloton’s new CEO, Barry McCarthy, was recently interviewed in the New York Times (Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/business/dealbook/barry-mccarthy-interview-peloton.html). The authors asked Mr. McCarthy if he thought that everyone who needs a workout bike already had one. They questioned where else a company making stationary exercise bikes can go (…an ironic question for a bike product that literally can’t move). The Times wanted to know what ...
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I think that Zola, an online provider of gift registries, may be harming local stores. Zola allows brides to pick things from any site, such as an indie store’s gift registry. Zola may then encourage the registrant to bypass that local store and use those gift funds with Zola. This is an issue because Zola has handled more than 650,000 registries, and its revenue is estimated to be $130m. Millions of dollars may have been diverted away from indie, brick-and-mortar stores to Zola&rsquo...
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In today’s Times, we learn that Amazon is raising and lowering the prices of items millions of times a day. We also learn that it has displayed different prices for the same item based on who you are. Imagine going in to a store and the paper towels are $3 for the person next to you but $4 for you.
I can attest to Amazon changing prices multiple times a day because Amazon crawls my retailers’ websites multiple times a day. It’s as if they have spies coming in our...
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A new trend in retail is vacant shops in urban neighborhoods being converted to small warehouses. In the East Village on 10th Street, we see on the left the new warehouse model; on the right we see a traditional retailer. For the ‘store’ on the left, the customer orders via their mobile phone and then does a pickup or gets a delivery.
I’m seeing more of these ‘zombie stores’ around the city. Just in the East Village, I’ve seen four: ...
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This past weekend on the way to Florida to visit my brothers, I read about Squarespace’s advertising history. (Read the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/13/business/how-did-squarespace-know-podcasts-would-get-this-big.html). In 2009, Anthony Casalena, the founder of Squarespace, paid $20,000 to advertise on a tech podcast. While that was a lot for a small, young company (Casalena had started his business just six years earlier in a dorm room in 2003), Casalena said the ...
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Today’s Times shares that Amazon Prime members often spend twice as much compared to those that aren’t members. This led to me ponder: What if a first step to reducing Amazon’s monopolies is just canceling a $119/year ‘membership’? Prime may be Amazon’s strength—as well as its achilles. If we can find a way to undermine it, I believe one can save money and our communities.