I saw this Instagram post from official Mark Levine and thought, “How much are the Amazon lobbyists paying our officials?” NYC continually over taxes our indie businesses and fines them—but we’ll build six marinas for Amazon? (Mark said three marinas, but it’s actually six marinas.) The main culprits behind this: Mayor Adams and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world. Jeff Bezos, the founder,...
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How Amazon privatizes public spaces for its own profit
February 14, 2024
This is a daily sight on 8th St. in the East Village of New York City, a spot historically chockablock with indie, brick-and-mortar shops. This is an Amazon truck and freelancers who have taken over the street (it’s a no standing zone) and sidewalk as their own. This is one way Amazon sells things for less: it turns public streets and sidewalks into its “warehouses” and “stores.” Imagine you’re a local business with a roof and rent. You can’t compete ...
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It’s hard to believe that MEPRA’s sophisticated technicolor collection FANTASIA is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year because its incandescent chromatic complexion is as fresh today as its 1989 debut.
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The brilliantly-hued fantasia comes from the Italian silversmiths Mepra, post-war business founded in 1947 by the Prandelli family, four generations fashioning flatware in the industrial Lumezzane Valley, about 90 minutes east of Milan. ...
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Amazon and third-party delivery services have setup a “warehouse” outside the Astor Place USPS office. This is not a truck parking for five minutes. This a day-long, everyday occurrence. I’ve seen this same scene on a daily basis all around the city for the last three years.
This hurts local retailers. While the local businesses pay extra taxes to operate a store in southern Manhattan, it costs Amazon much less to park a delivery truck (permanently?), put ...
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I see this situation all over the city. Amazon shipping companies are “warehousing” our public space. They put up cones and are permanently setup and conducting business. They use public space for private commercial use.
They’re like a pop-up store in a public parking spot. But unlike a physical store that is in a private building and pays commercial storefront taxes, these trucks don’t pay those retailer taxes. (Each year businesses in lower ...
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EMON MAASHO, CEO AND PRESIDENT OF ORREFORS, NORTH AMERICA, is representative of the exciting trajectory in this 125-year operation. The über-exec joined the New Wave Group in 2013, a time when Orrefors and Kosta Boda (OKB) were underperforming assets in the portfolio. "Our crystal brands are national treasures and a part of Swedish history," Maasho affirms. And he wanted a front row seat in their revitalization. Maasho was placed in charge of the new hotel and restaurant division ...
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I have a stack of virtual news clippings that either struck my fancy, taught me something new, or just made me shake my head in bemusement. On their own, they may not be enough for me to make a point, but together they have a thought-provoking synergy (and I'm sure I'll figure out what that is by the end of this column).
Our industry has been negatively affected by the loss of American manufacturing after we entered a long stretch of automation and outsourcing in the late 1970s; every ...
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How a company's sales and growth can be affected by the message it conveys to customers.
July 18, 2023
Allbirds stock is down 95% since its November 2021 initial public offering. People may say the company launched the wrong products (did you buy one of their puffer jackets?) or tried to grow too quickly. I believe there is a larger reason: you can’t scale a company by leading with an environmental message—which is Allbirds’s pitch. Consumers rank saving the planet as one of their least pressing concerns when making a purchase. The leading factors consumers look for when ...
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Susan Gravely – alongside her sister, Frances, and mother, Lee – founded VIETRI 40 years ago after a serendipitous vacation where they discovered the charms of Italian ceramics. Gravely’s new book, Italy on a Plate, equal parts travelogue/cookbook/memoir, is a culinary delight celebrating four decades of bringing the best of Italy’s tableware to an adoring fan base.
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You and I go back almost to the start of VIETRI in 1983. [Editor&rsquo...
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MARIPOSA HAS ADDED A NEW CATEGORY WITH THE CLEVERLY TITLED TRAYCHIC, A COLLECTION OF 50 STYLISH HEAT-SAFE TRAYS COMPOSED FROM A STATE-OF-THE-ART RESIN COMPOUND APPROVED FOR FOOD AND SAFE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
MARIPOSA – the Massachusetts brand launched almost 40 years ago by Livia Cowan, who had a vision that tableware could be created from 100% recycled glass and aluminum – brings that same sustainability agenda to a new category, TrayChic! (exclamation point all theirs). “...
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How we can celebrate indie stores and promote sales by hosting a Save Local event.
February 23, 2023
When one thinks of shopping locally, some consider it an act of charity. One may pay more and get less selection. That’s not a recipe for success. In contrast, the world’s most successful retailers, Walmart and Amazon, operate on just the opposite principles: low prices and massive selection. When I’m in Walmart's Panama City Beach location, it’s so massive I feel like I’m in the Giants' stadium. Amazon sells 12m items on its website (350m if you count the third-...
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While drinking Athletic, a non-alcoholic (fake!) beer, I noticed that its box proclaims that it gives back 2% to local trails. I love walking trails, and I thought: the next time I venture to have a sober night, I’ll pick up another box of Athletic. (Thanks, Athletic, for giving out $2.5m in trail grants.) Warby Parker gives a pair of eyeglasses for each pair bought (they've given 10m pairs!), while Bombas does this for socks. Bookshop.org gives a percent back to small ...
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In the early 2000s, the board game Cranium became a hit. The game combined elements of Scrabble and Pictionary with the goal of helping more people enjoy playing a game. Richard Tait, who created Cranium and sold it to Hasbro in 2008 for $77.5m, passed away in July. Like Mr. Tait, I had been a paperboy, but he went beyond what I ever offered: he came up with a new service that sold breakfast sandwiches along his newspaper route. He increased profits and made customers happier. ...
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Last week, Amazon bought iRobot, the company that makes Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner, for $1.7b. Why? Yes, their 'Rosie from the Jetsons' has AI and is in your home (which is where Amazon wants to be), but the reason Amazon wants it is because customers want it. Which leads us to ask: Why do customers want Roomba? Because it does something that humans find annoying and hate doing: cleaning. Roomba has spotted the value that robots bring to the world and it's not simply being ...
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An East Village Artist’s Death Prompts a Reflection on the State of Indie Retailers Today
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While thumbing through the Times, I noticed a smiling young woman’s picture in the obituaries. In the black and white photograph, she's standing on a fire escape with a historic building and a bridge in the distance. I was initially attracted to Ronni Solbert’s 1959 picture, yet I was even more drawn in by what I noticed next to her photo: a children&...
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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.
Last February e-commerce company Shopify Inc. replaced the “Ottawa, Canada” dateline that began its press releases and earnings reports with a strange new one: “Internet, Everywhere.” The geographical shift came at the insistence of Shopify’s founder and chief executive officer, Tobi Lütke, who tends to view such matters through the prism of cold, hard logic. In May 2020, only a few months into the pandemic, he’d made the early, seemingly rash decision to...
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Upon boarding my flight to Mexico last week, did I eagerly wait the arrival of the bar cart? Maybe, but not before cracking open the book Great by Choice by Jim Collins. I recommend the book because it provides new approaches to success. One takeaway in the book is not new: we’ve got to work each day. Just like the anecdote in the book’s introduction about Norwegian explorer Amundsen, we have to put in miles each day. In a race to the South Pole, Amundsen's unprepared ...
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Thanks to all those industry professionals that helped make Dallas so welcoming including Sonny Melder, Diana Duffy, Rich Ryan, Kerry Smith, Laura May, Andy Bjork, and Matt Hullfish.
PS-This truck display is inspiring: imagine it with an iMac where those candles are and it painted Bridge green ;)
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I noticed this ad for Big Ass Fans and was struck by the word “destroyer.” That’s a strong, powerful, memorable word. I wondered what wording we’d use if we were to run a full-page ad.
Large, well-funded entities are constantly seeking to swipe indie business—that’s aggression. We’re giving indies figurative swords, shields, and helmets to fight back.
Our full-page ad may state: “We Arm the Indies With Digital Weapons.&...
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