This interview is a great reminder of China’s outsized role in the luxury goods market. “Ian Rogers, the chief digital officer of LVMH sat down with Jing Daily to talk about reinventing the biggest luxury group in the world and the huge role China is playing in the luxury industry.” | learn more
An Amazon misstep?
Zack Kanter writes about how he defines Amazon’s business. It’s a fairly interesting, though not totally novel, analysis. What most caught my eye is his argument that their advertising business is creating a crack in their mighty facade. This is worth paying attention to. | learn more
Walmart’s secret weapon to battle Amazon
“The world’s largest retailer is using Jetblack, a labor-intensive and money-losing personal-shopping service, to develop artificial intelligence to compete with e-commerce giant Amazon.” I’d try this as a consumer – seems great! | learn more
How the Ford Transit solves a big challenge facing the weed industry.
While dealing with logistics is part every retailer’s world, most have it relatively easy with strong 3rd party infrastructure to enable moving goods and currency. Well, not as easy for those in the marijuana market. Enter the Ford Transit, a vehicle light enough to avoid having to register with the feds. | learn more
The reinvention of Tide packaging for the e-commerce age.
“How Amazon and Procter & Gamble collaborated to create better packaging.” |learn more
The new black hat tactics Amazon sellers are using to compete.
I’ve looked under the hood of a quite a few Amazon Marketplace based businesses in recent months. This article highlights the tenuous nature of their continued prosperity. They’re caught in the crossfire between unscrupulous competitors and an often aloof marketplace (the big A itself). | learn more
There’s now a Raspberry Pi store.
“The Raspberry Pi Foundation just unveiled a brand new project — an actual store. If you live in Cambridge in the U.K., you can now buy a bunch of sweet Raspberry Pis with which to tinker and develop some cool stuff… The foundation has developed a lineup of insanely cheap computers with an ARM-based processor, a bunch of ports, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.” | learn more
How robots and drones will change retail forever.
“What if you could store and deliver goods as easily as data? Amazon, Walmart and others are using AI and robotics to transform everything from appliance shopping to grocery delivery. Welcome to the physical cloud.” | learn more
The Give Back Box allows you to donate old clothes from home.
This video highlights Monika Wiela, who came up with an idea to toss a prepaid shipping label into her outgoing e-commerce boxes that let consumers donate used clothes without having to make an extra trip. Then, she turned it into a nonprofit to enable other retailers to do the same. | learn more
India gives Amazon and Walmart the finger.
Basically, a new law prohibits foreign internet retailers from selling brands they have an ownership stake in. “Both Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart have reportedly pulled thousands of items for sale.” | learn more