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Travis Turner, Director of Business Development, Hire Dynamics talks about Supply Chain Automation in E-commerce, Big Retailers and Job Opportunities

With the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an influx in the e-commerce industry, and HireDynamics, a workforce solutions provider has been playing their part to enhance the operations all over the Southeastern United States. Team eCommerce Next interviewed Travis Turner, Director of Business Development, Hire Dynamics to get more insights. Following is our interview with him:

Tell us about you, your work, and the company you work with.

My name is Travis Turner and I am the Director of Business Development, e-commerce & Supply Chain for Hire Dynamics. I have been in or supporting the Supply Chain Industry for over 12 years. My role at Hire Dynamics is to bring value far beyond Workforce Solutions, to our e-commerce and Supply Chain industry business leaders and organizations. Supporting our entire footprint, I work with our internal leadership, field employees, community partners, and business partners to ensure connectivity, facilitate best practice sharing, and help drive business growth internally and for our clients.

Hire Dynamics is a regional and local commercial staffing and workforce solutions provider headquartered in Duluth, Georgia with operations all over the southeast. We specialize in consultative workforce partnerships for companies in 4 key business segments; office administration, contact center, supply chain, and manufacturing. Built on the vision of being the #1 staffing company you’d refer to a friend, we are a Contract, Contract to Hire, and Direct Hire placement agency. We put over 10,000 associates to work each week, as our goal is helping companies attract, hire, and retain top talent.

Tell us about the moves some of the big retailers like Target and Walmart are making in e-commerce. Is this good for the consumer? Why or why not?

Major big-box retailers Target and Walmart are both ahead of the game and were positioned nicely for the recent e-commerce acceleration due to the pandemic. Utilizing their store locations as mini fulfillment centers for direct to consumer online orders, they have been able to cut down on delivery costs and maintain fast delivery times. Additionally, we saw the acceleration of “click and collect”, also known as “order online pick up in-store”. The consumer buying behavior is already primed for this from the food/restaurant industry “curbside” service. It is no surprise that once consumers got a taste of click and collect, they embraced it. Both companies have invested major dollars in technology to enhance their online sales platforms as well as their inventory management and logistics processes. This May, Target acquired the technology of last-mile delivery company Deliv, indicating their full-on investment in the ship direct to consumer strategy. Walmart comparatively acquired Shopify in its effort to increase its marketplace challenging Amazon’s status as the biggest and best. Further evidence of this is through their launch of Walmart Plus, which is similar to Prime, Amazon’s online paid membership service.

Options have always been good for the consumer as the competition creates lower prices. A new variable that may slow that price drop advantage is the added cost of delivery through traditional parcel companies like FedEx and UPS. Peak season hasn’t even hit yet and already we are seeing both companies raising their rates to peak levels. This increase in rates will not be absorbed by Walmart or Amazon, and they will pass that cost on to the consumer in the short term until more efficient lower-cost solutions are available. The acquisition of Deliv by Target is a last-mile Uber-like delivery technology that could help Target with delivery costs and pass savings on to their customers.

Suggested: E-commerce retailers prepared for financial and supply chain disruption due to COVID-19

What will the impact of automation be on the e-commerce industry?

Automation in e-commerce and Supply Chain, in general, has also been accelerated by the pandemic. We will see more “augmentation” solutions grow faster than full automation. Automation will be implemented in areas where repetitive slow-moving tasks are needed, but e-commerce, with all the unique orders, presents full automation challenges and that is why associate assisted technology, augmentation, will be adopted first. This is already being done with analytics to help drive associate efficiency. For example, companies like GreyOrange are building robots that bring products to employees for more efficient picking. Companies are utilizing automation to help make their employees more efficient. They are automating key parts of the process, such as setup on production lines, box building, smart conveyors, or as one Director of Supply Chain referred to as, “goods to person” robotics. The bottom line? Automation may help accelerate efficiency, but the number one asset in the building will still be people.

With e-commerce rising the ask for ‘unique orders’ will rise. What will the impact of this be on the industry?

Delivery direct to the consumer is going to change the industry and will drive innovation to get delivery costs down. Another area to watch is inventory management. With online product launches and peak season business, the unique orders of the online consumer will need the right levels of inventory in the right places to fulfill on-time delivery expectations. Inventory typically is one of the top 3 costs for any company in this space. So where will these companies store their product until it is ready to be shipped? Brick and mortar locations are being repurposed to house some of this inventory and ship direct to customers from the store. Additionally, third-party logistics warehousing companies should see an uptick in business opportunities as space for inventory begins to tighten. The rise in e-commerce online orders presents great opportunities for both small, medium, and large businesses to grow.

Returns are very time consuming do you see this turning around in the future? What can be done to streamline this pain point?

There are many opportunities for innovation in the reverse logistics category. Will companies contract third-party partners to handle it? Will they develop proprietary technology and processes to streamline returns? The answer is yes to all of these questions. It will be exciting and interesting to watch process innovation in reverse logistics and see who emerges as best in class.

How should e-commerce evaluate their workforce? What will the needs be for the labor force in the future?

Technology savvy employees will be a need in the future, and most of those skills can be taught. For companies evaluating their workforce from a fulfillment standpoint, it’s best to implement the right inventory management and Warehouse Management System tools that give you visibility to your supply chain. Having that visibility will allow companies to ramp up hiring or ramp it down to support the customer’s needs.

Where are the job opportunities now and where do you them in the future? Also, what type of jobs will we see?

In fulfillment the job opportunities are in picking, packing, sorting, machine operation, shipping and receiving, forklift operation, delivery truck operation. If there is automation in a facility, you must have technicians on staff in the event that there is a breakdown. With the rise in e-commerce and unique customer orders, the demand for customer service rises so companies will need to invest heavily in that department or outsource customer service to a third party. As far as the future goes? The sky is the limit for this industry as it will create more entry-level, management, and leadership opportunities for years to come.

Are you seeing a sudden jump in technology-related jobs especially around e-commerce and digital?  Is this something sustainable?

There has been a jump in developer roles both contract and permanent due to the increased need for customized digital solutions that support new buying trends. Additionally, open-source technology is a new trend that companies can tap into for solutions. The amount of technology being pumped into e-commerce and Supply Chain will ultimately create the demand for individuals with unique and specialized technological skills.

About Hire Dynamics

Hire Dynamics is among the top 1% of more than 22,000 staffing companies as the winner of ClearlyRated’s “Best of Staffing for Client & Talent Satisfaction” for 11 consecutive years. Founded in 2001 in Atlanta, Hire Dynamics transforms lives by employing some 10,000 people daily at more than 1500 client locations. Through nearly 50 locations across the Southeast and its innovative technology, Hire Dynamics specializes in matching workers with jobs in manufacturing, contact centers, administrative support, and e-commerce/logistics at warehouses and distribution centers. The mission is to be the #1 staffing company you would refer to a friend. Its own employees have voted it a “Best Place to Work” for 12 years in a row. For more information, go to www.hiredynamics.com

Trump indicates putting more pressure on Alibaba and other Chinese companies after ByteDance

US  President Trump has given strong indications that the US stand on Chinese products will be getting more meaner and tighter. He said that he would increase pressure on China-owned companies, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba, after his latest moves against TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance

At a press conference in Bedminster, N.J., on Saturday, Trump was asked whether he would consider banning other Chinese-owned companies, such as Alibaba to which he gave a cryptic reply.“Well, we’re looking at other things, yes,” Trump said without going into detail, as reported by Reuters.

On Friday, the US authorities gave ByteDance 90 days to divest the U.S. operations of its TikTok app. The government’s executive order cited “credible evidence” suggesting ByteDance “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”Additionally, ByteDance was further ordered to delete “any data obtained or derived” from TikTok users in the U.S.

Last week, Trump had ordered sweeping but vague bans on dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok and the messaging app WeChat. He categorically stated that they are a threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy, and the economy. It still is not clear what the TikTok orders mean as the app has nearly 100 million U.S. users, many of them teenagers or young adults who use it to post and watch short videos.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok.

Regarding  Alibaba, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had shown his reservations in a press conference in Washington that the company needs to ensure Americans’ personal information could not be obtained through Chinese cloud software.

“We’re protecting Americans’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property – including COVID vaccine research – from being accessed on cloud-based systems run by companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, China Mobile, China Telecom, and Tencent,” Pompeo said earlier in the month. “The State Department will work closely with Commerce and other agencies to limit the ability of Chinese cloud service providers to collect, store, and to process vast amounts of data and sensitive information here in the United States.”

Hour One raises $5M seed fund to generate AI-driven character from real humans

Hour One,  the tech company that specializes in generating AI-driven synthetic character from real humans has raised close to $5 million in seed funding lead by Galaxy Interactive and Kindred Ventures, with the participation of Amaranthine.

In the past, Tech futurists have long warned about humans being replaced by life-like AI-driven figures, almost impossible to differentiate between humans and machines as shown in Hollywood movies such as Terminator. The possibility is now fast approaching towards becoming a reality.

 The company, which was founded on Jan 1 2019  and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, is the world’s leading trusted provider of synthetic characters based on real-life. The funds will be used by the company for scaling its  AI-driven cloud platform, onboard “thousands” of new characters, and further expansion of its other commercial activities.

The company develops cutting edge technologies for creating high-quality digital characters based on real people with a focus on generating production-grade video-based characters in a highly scalable and cost-effective way. The upshot of this is that what appears to be a real human could talk about any product or subject at all, to the point of infinite scale.

This was showcased at its “real or synthetic” likeness test at CES 2020, challenging people to distinguish between real and synthetic characters generated by its AI.

Founder and CEO Oren Aharon commented: “We believe that synthetic characters of real people will become a part of our everyday life. Our vision is that Hour One will drive the use of synthetic characters to improve the quality of communication between businesses and people across markets and use cases. By enabling each person to create their own character together with our scalable cloud platform, we will provide a variety of solutions for next-gen remote business-to-human interactions.”

Hour One is currently working with companies in the e-commerce, education, automotive, communication, and enterprise sectors, and is poised for vertical growth in other industrial applications in 2020. The company recently showcased its “real or synthetic” likeness test at CES 2020, challenging people to distinguish between real and synthetic characters generated by its AI.

The contentious issue is how to responsibly deploy this technology without it been abused in the era which is full of cyber crimes and fake identities.

Lior Hakim, co-founder, and CTO said that this potential problem is dealt with via encryption technologies to secure the use and rights of the characters enabling “anyone to identify our videos as well as mark them as altered to notify the viewers.” The company also says it has an ethical policy code for how its technology is used.

Sam Englebardt, co-founder and managing director of Galaxy Interactive, said that the startup’s “ethics-driven approach to the creation of synthetic video” is key and that “given how challenging production with live actors has become as a result of COVID-19, now is the perfect time for businesses of all sizes to produce their content with Hour One’s synthetic characters.”

This will reduce the cost of synthetic character creation, meaning any textual content could be “automatically translated into a live-action video of a person that engages an audience by speaking the text,” said  Eze Vidra, co-founder and managing partner at  Remagine Ventures.

Natalie Monbiot, the company’s business strategy expert has said that the company has a unique ability to onboard “basically any human being and turn them into a synthetic character that’s a lifelike replica of that person. So it’s not an avatar or a version of that person. It really does look and behave like that person. You can then basically generate new content by uploading new texts. So, for example, in e-commerce, you can pick your characters and get them to present your product or do a product presentation. This means every single product SKU can have its own video presentation.”

Kroger to launch its own E-Commerce portal to compete with Amazon

The COVID-19 fueled a jump in worldwide online sales has been redefining the e-commerce market for the last few months. The latest to join the bandwagon is Kroger, the American retail company which boasts of being the second-largest general retailer in the US behind Walmart.As reported by FOXBusiness, the company is in the process of launching an e-commerce marketplace to compete with giants like Amazon.com and Walmart.

This U.S. based grocery giant is partnering with Mirakl, a French e-commerce company, to launch the platform offering thousands of products to consumers from third-party sellers. Kroger is adding on to Kroger Ship, the company’s digital delivery service that launched in 2018.

The platform will now offer customers an additional 50,000 products across different categories, ranging from the bakery, dairy, international food, and specialty items to home utility products and childcare items including toys.

Fox Business further added to the story that the expansion of Kroger Ship will include staples available in Kroger’s brick-and-mortar stores, as well as products exclusively at its website, Kroger.com.

The supermarket chain, which was founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, OH, has reportedly built a 350,000-square-foot distribution center in Frederick, Md. last month for its grocery delivery expansion.

As per  Fox Business, Kroger also has taken a step ahead by partnering with automated warehouse tech company Ocado Solutions to assist with online order fulfillment that will supply communities in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., as  Kroger doesn’t have physical stores in those areas.

It seems that Kroger has timed its launch to perfection as the world is adapting to online sales practicing safe distancing and hygiene during the pandemic. Also, future times are going to determine how critical will be issues like logistics, sanitation conditions at the workplace, and workers’ health facilities.

In the past, Amazon did face issues like poor working conditions and health hazards at work which led to workers even boycotting the work.

Perhaps Kroger’s reputation and its delivery tactics may make it bite off a chunk of Amazon’s market.

Bed Bath & Beyond launches virtual online shopping experience for Collage students

The coronavirus pandemic has made most of the students stuck at homes pursuing education online, in virtual college conditions. Sensing this as an opportunity, Bed Bath & Beyond today launched  ‘ Collage from Home ‘,  an online shopping experience focused upon helping both parents and college students transform bedrooms into remote learning spaces for the fall semester as, the possibility of college opening seems to be very remote.

The company, which was founded in 1971 and boasts of a Fortune 500 ranking,  said “With the uncertainty of how exactly the COVID-19 pandemic will impact college and university campuses, many schools are opting for virtual college courses this fall. Shopping for and decorating a dorm room is a rite of passage for college-bound students, and College from Home provides inspiration to design a stylish and functional bedroom that feels like college.”

The new program is being offered by the retail chain in partnership with sister brand  Decorist , a top of the online interior design service, and will live in a special section of the retailer’s website.

There, consumers will find free design tips, curated products, and three inspirational room examples in the following themes:

Chill Camp Vibes: a natural and rustic vibe, with muted colors and outdoorsy elements for a camping-out feel

Low-Key Bohemian: bright and cozy, with vintage-inspired pieces and cool modern touches

Modern Glam: pink and gold with plenty of plush, fluffy accents that come together for a mature, chic look

Products featured in the section will include things like organizational tools, bedding, lap desks, accessories, and more.

Bed Bath & Beyond operates many stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As per Wikipedia, the company was expected to close up to 60 stores around the United States in early 2020. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company announced it would close more than 200 or 21% of its stores over 2 years.

Amazon shipping nearly 70 percent of its own packages as e-commerce booms during the pandemic

Amazon affiliates
Amazon affiliates

Amazon is delivering nearly two-thirds of its own packages as the COVID-19 pandemic is not showing any signs of slowing down.

As per data from ShipMatrix, Amazon shipped 415 million packages in the month of July with a monthly average of 389 million between April and June, during which the virus peaked. It also delivered a whopping 66 percent of its own packages in July, which was an increase of 5 percent between the April-June period.

This indicates that the COVID fueled online sales are still on a growth trajectory as in the second half of the year as July package volumes exceeded the average monthly volume in the first three months of the outbreak.

The founder of ShipMatrix, Satish Jindal said,  “Amazon is such a huge player in the e-commerce space, they have to manage their delivery themselves to handle the increased demand for online orders, especially during the pandemic. They will continue to deliver more of their own packages, potentially reaching 80% of their own packages by next year. It means UPS and the [U.S. Postal Service] will be looking for more business to replace the Amazon business.”

Rival companies UPS and FedEx also posted substantial gains as UPS had a volume growth of 26 percent in July, compared to average monthly growth of 23 percent during April – June, with FedEx also showing a 3 percent increase  on the same parameter (from 19 percent in the first three months to 22 percent  in July)

According to an eMarketer forecast, the third quarter will be the all-time peak for e-commerce with about 23% of all retail purchases being made online.

Jindal commented on an optimistic growth by adding, “E-commerce is continuing to grow because businesses have started to come back and that volume is coming back. This third quarter will definitely surpass the volume of the 2019 holiday season. However, consumers should expect on-time performance to be lower.”

COVID-19 has made PayPal ‘more relevant’ than before – says CEO

CEO Dan Schulman of PayPal told CNBC’s Jimmy Cramer on Thursday that the ongoing global health crises have sped up the adoption of digital payments and the industry is now more important than it ever was.

“What I think what’s happened is the world has accelerated from physical to digital across almost every industry,” he said in a “Mad Money” interview. This accelerated thrust adds up to a digital portfolio that includes Venmo, Honeywell, and Braintree, which saw its revenue surge 22% last quarter.

As in the US is battling the coronavirus, business strategies have been radically redefined to adjust to the “contactless” online platforms across various spectrums of businesses, digital payment platforms included.

From remote learning and online technical courses to telemedicine, and of course, online jump in daily utility consumables such as groceries, food items, and even furniture and clothing, all industries are adhering to the new social distancing norms and are adjusting to the new definition of normal operations. New generation 3D technologies and virtual tours are the new promotional tools for businesses.

Health institutions are leveraging telemedicine, schools are equipping themselves with remote learning platforms, and retailers are going online or setting up contactless payment systems in their brick-and-mortar locations, said Schulman, who has been in charge of the company since 2015.

Restaurants are relying more on online payments with major delivery operators like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates leading the way. Dine-in has been restricted by capacity caps which has further fueled the delivery market.

Schulman told Cramer that digital was poised to be a key part of the economy, but the pandemic only accelerated the need for online commerce from a timeframe of three-to-five years to three-to-five months.

Between April and June, the peak COVID period which also included shutdowns, PayPal recorded $221.7 billion worth of user transactions on its platforms, an increase of 29% year over year from $172.4 billion. It further added  21.3 million new net active accounts in the quarter, which was its paciest used growth on record.

“Across every industry, we’re seeing this surge towards a digital-first strategy, and all of the tools and products and services that we offer are probably more relevant and important across multiple industries than they’ve ever been before,” Schulman said.

PayPal reported $5.26 billion in revenue, up from $4.3 billion the year prior, in the quarter ending June 30. Furthermore, the profit was  $1.26 billion on a non-GAAP basis, or $1.07 of earnings per share, a 49% increase as compared to the previous year.

Wall Street estimated sales of $5 billion and earnings of 87 cents per share, according to Factset. Shares of PayPal are on an upswing with a rise of 0.91% to $193.07 at Thursday’s close.

The stock is up more than 78% year to date with a strong growth momentum poised for the future.

Parabola announces $8M Series A investment focusing on an e-commerce no-code platform

Many companies are lacking productivity and efficient working due to the fact of doing manual and repetitive tasks such as cut – and -paste of data, copying and converting into spreadsheets, sending out similar emails every morning as they lack automation due to poor or no coding skills.

Enter, the change catalyst, Parabola, the company which is a drag-and_drop productivity tool that makes it easy to automate your manual, repetitive data tasks, step by step, which today announced an $8 million Series A investment.

The funding was led by Matrix Partners with active participation from Thrive Capital and other individual investors. Parabola board will be joined by Ilya Sukhar from Matrix under the new structure. The company has now raised $10.2 million, which includes a $ 2.2M seed funding in 2018.

Simultaneously, the company also announced a new Shopify connector. The coronavirus pandemic has redefined the online sales strategies of various companies with a  quantum jump on online sales and accordingly, Parabola has seen a corresponding increase in demand for its workflow automation services from online vendors, and they have added functionality to support that.

Company founder and CEO Alex Yaseen told TechCrunch – “We’re a drag and drop productivity tool, and we like to say we bring the power of programming to everybody”. He sees the tool as a way to bring programming-like automation to anyone who deals with data tasks on a regular basis, particularly in a spreadsheet.

They do this by providing a library of pre-built steps that you can drag and drop onto a workflow canvas. Each of those steps helps you automate what was previously a manual, repetitive data task in Excel or Google Sheets.

Board member Ilya Sukhar said that while low code is becoming more popular right now, he and Yaseen have always seen it as a way to bring programming-level productivity-enhancing skills to a much broader set of users and to bring that focus to e-commerce in particular.

“The real trick is finding the right set of users, the right abstraction, the right niche to start with and that’s where I think this goes back to the e-commerce focus. I think that’s what’s super exciting about the approach Parabola has taken, and what got me excited,” he said.

CEO Yaseen added that the usage on the platform has increased substantially over the last couple of months due to COVID fears and changing market dynamics where most of the retail companies move to increase their online presence and hence is the need to find ways to automate more of their internal processes.

Although Parabola is a relatively young start-up with around 20 employees, it is now working on ambitious growth plans actively hiring and looking to build a lean and tight team . Yaseen sees this attuned to the company’s overall mission of bringing programming level skills to more and more people who don’t know how to code, and they need a diverse set of workers that reflects society at large for effective delivery of the same.

“We talk about this as a core authentic value, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job so far. I think we have a lot of room for improvement, as does the tech industry as a whole, but we are pushing very hard,” he said.

Yaseen is focused on using this funding for further refining the platform design making it simpler and easier for non- technical users. “This round is very much for product and design work to make it increasingly comfortable for these users who are today really familiar with doing their tasks in spreadsheets […] and increasingly working towards a less and less technical user, as we make products easier and more approachable,” he said.

Amazon to convert its mall spaces in fulfillment centers

Amazon is reportedly considering converting its mall spaces into fulfillment centers as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The E-commerce giant has had talks with Simon Property Group in lieu of the same which started much before the arrival of the COVID pandemic which has redefined the concept of shopping globally. The latest shopping mall casualties have been the likes of   Lord & Taylor, JCPenney, and Nieman Marcus which rudely shook the traditional shopping establishments by filing for bankruptcy.

The coronavirus has classically redefined the concept of brick and mortar stores being replaced by the likes of online stores which grew by leaps and bounds during the pandemic as people strictly adhered to social distancing norms and shifted to the virtual concept.

Having its fulfillment center warehouses closer to residential areas would help Amazon improve on efficiency and adhere to quicker deliveries, commented on the WSJ.

Simon is amongst the biggest mall owner in the US but is now looking to fill empty retail spaces, particularly those vacated by its star tenants like Sears and JCPenney.

Some malls across the US rent parking lots to Amazon vehicles already, but it would be unusual for a company like Simon to lease retail space directly to Amazon, as pointed out by the WSJ. Also, it is unclear as to where or how many stores Amazon is considering, or how smaller mall tenants might feel about sharing a roof with the likes of Amazon.

 For Amazon the pandemic has been a rollercoaster journey as it pushed most retailers to the brink, the e-commerce giant reported its second-quarter earnings results that it doubled its net profit year over year to $5.2 billion.

UPS adds surcharge to high volume shippers, COVID effect

The ongoing COVID pandemic has spiked the online delivery business by many folds as people have preferred to shop online and remain indoors, and so have the shipping charges at United Parcel service.

The shipping company announced on Friday with a memo that it has tacked on an additional surcharge for some packages within the US and other on international parcels. The memo said that the shipping charges, which depend on the item’s weight, when it is sent, and whether a customer ships a high volume of packages.

The charges, which can be as high as $4 a package for air shipments to residences, are aimed at coping with an anticipated increase in deliveries in the upcoming holiday shopping season. The fees will add up to higher costs for retailers and other sellers — which they are free to eighter incur or further pass on to the end receiver.

The memo said “UPS continues to provide essential service amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak to support the needs of our customers. Our goal is to ensure businesses and customers are able to meet their shipping needs while demand has increased for shipping services.”

The stock of the company was up by 5%  on Friday morning. It touched a  52-week high of $153.32,  up about 30% so far this year, bringing the company’s market cap to more than $132 billion.

Rival company FedEx has already added surcharges to international shipments of packages and freight from April 6, as per notification on its website.

FedEx said on its website that the increase  was“due to the various COVID-19 containment restrictions issued in countries around the world.” It said the restrictions have made it harder and more expensive to transport goods across the globe.

Practicing safe distancing measures, people in the US have taken to online shopping in a big way. As the pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down, online sales are poised for a surge as people prefer to stay at home. Retailers have put their faith in shipping services, such as UPS and FedEx, to get those purchases to customers’ homes. That’s led to a massive surge in delivery services, ranging from furniture and food to even exercise equipment.

The situation can get very aggressive as in the upcoming holiday season people begin to buy gifts for family and friends and if another surge of COVID 19 cases occurs as been predicted.

As per UPS in the quarter ended June 30, its shipments business surged by more than 65 percent with the average daily volumes in the US grew nearly 23% and reached 21.1 million packages per day, the company said. Its quarterly performance beat Wall Street’s expectations and the stock went up by 11 percent.

Yotpo raises $75M for its Marketing cloud

Yotpo, the user-generated content marketing platform which offers integrated solution enabling marketers to gather, curate, manage and respond to all kind of user content from just a single platform has announced $75 million in funding, money which it will use to continue growing its suite of products, as well as to acquire more customers and build out more integration partnerships.

Used by the likes of Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle, and others, Marketing cloud” has become an increasingly popular concept in the world of marketing technology. Yotpo is a commerce marketing cloud with the most advanced solutions for customer reviews, visual marketing, loyalty, and referrals.

The Israeli-based user-generated content marketing startup is building its own take on the idea aimed specifically at e-commerce companies announcing this funding after seeing a surge of business in the last few months.

This Series E included a number of both unnamed and its existing investors which included  Bessemer Venture Partners, Access Industries, and Vertex Ventures (a subsidiary of Temasek).  Another new investor is  Hanaco, which focuses on Israeli startups as Yotpo is co-headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York.

This brings the total raised by the startup to $176 million.

CEO Tomer Tagrin — who co-founded the company with COO Omri Cohen — describes it as “nearly a unicorn.”, without disclosing its current valuation.

Sounding ambitious, he said in an interview that Yotpo is on track for ARR next year to be $100M, “I like to call what we’re building a flamingo, which is also a rare and beautiful animal but also a real thing, and we are a proper business.”

Starting initially as an app in  Shopify’s App store, the company provided tools to Shopify customers to help with customer engagement by way of user-generated content, and while this relationship blossomed, it now has multi-dimensionally added around  500 additional strategic partners, including  Adobe, BigCommerce, and Salesforce amongst others.

CEO, Tomer Tagrin however  still likes to describe his company in Shopify-ish terms stating that  “Just as Shopify manages your business, we manage your customers end to end”

He believes Yotpo’s e-commerce-specific approach that stands apart from the pack because it addresses issues unique to D2C and other e-commerce companies.

While it’s great to see the bigger trend of consolidation around marketing clouds, it’s not a one-size-fits-all problem. A diverse range of customer services is being provided by the company today. These include SMS and visual marketing, loyalty and referral services, and reviews and ratings.

A vast range of e-commerce companies, spanning from newer direct-to-consumer brands like Third Love and Away, to more established names like Patagonia and 1-800-Flowers are using them successfully for overall business growth. However, not all are built by way of acquisition (like SMSBump was acquired in Jan ), as some of them are developed by in house R&D.

Adam Fisher, a partner at BVP said “Since our first investment more than three years ago, Tomer and Omri have executed flawlessly, expanding the product suite, serving a wider range of customers, and continually hiring strong talent across the organization. Yotpo is singularly focused on helping direct-to-consumer eCommerce brands solve the dual challenge of engaging consumers and increasing revenue, and with their multi-product strategy and innovative edge, they are uniquely positioned to dominate the eCommerce industry for years to come.”

CEO Tagrin said that  Customer count grew by 250% in the last year. Yotpo is built as a freemium platform, with some 9,000 customers paying for services and a further 280,000 customers on its free-usage tier.

The COVID pandemic led the acceleration of that trend of people switching more and more to e-commerce platforms as they were shopping from their homes. The growth has been drastic since February, with revenue and spends both regularly exceeding baseline figures over the last several months, according to research from digital marketing agency Common Thread Collective.

Yotpo was a direct beneficiary: It said it had a surge of sign-ups of new customers, many taking paid services, working out to a 170% year-on-year ARR, and lower customer churn.

Of -course at one end which such platforms surged, on the flip side, the picture was grim as there were thousands of layoffs across the whole tech service, and a huge number of brick-and-mortar businesses could not sustain leading to closures and massive unemployment. It is yet to be seen if in the longer perspective, will there be a slowdown in overall spending or not

For  Yotpo, this will be a challenge as presently it is on a roll but l continue to think longer term, it may have to redefine its strategy to continue to diversify its products to cater to a bigger customer base. For example, today, it addresses customer care needs by way of integrations with companies like Zendesk, but longer-term it might consider how it can bring in services like this to continue to build out the touchpoints between D2C brands and their customers, and specifically running those through a bigger picture of the customer as profiled on Yotpo’s platform.

Tagrin said about product expansions”This is a big part of our product in our meetings and debates, I do think any celebration of growth and funding comes to me with something else: we need to be internalizing more what is going on,” he said.

“The world is not back to normal and we shouldn’t act like it is,” he said sounding both a bell of warning as well as optimism.

Etsy CEO aims at winning the loyalty of millions of people

Etsy, the  American e-commerce website which focuses on handmade and vintage items and craft supplies is on a roll.CEO Josh Silverman on Thursday told CNBC that the online retailer has added on to new customers during the pandemic leading to staggering growth across various segments of the market.

“This is a moment when we have a chance to win the loyalty of millions of people and we’re working so hard to do that,” he said in a ” Mad Money ” interview with Jim Cramer.

Etsy items fall under a wide range of categories, including precious jewelry, bags, clothing, home decor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft supplies and tools. All vintage items must be at least 20 years old.

After Wednesday’s close, Etsy quarterly profit jumped more than 400% from a year ago, as on Wednesday close. The company earned $96.4 million, or 75 cents per share, up from $18 million in the year-ago June quarter. Revenue came in at $429 million in the three-month period, a 137% increase year over year.

According to Factset, these numbers topped the 39 cents per share and $330 million of revenue as per Wall Street expectations. The company now has 3.1 million sellers, which is 34% more since last year, and above 60 million active buyers,  which is an increase of 41%.

Silverman, its CEO for the last three years, highlighted that Etsy produced $2.7 billion of gross merchandise sales during the period. That figure is up 146% from a year ago.”Our mission is keeping commerce human,” Silverman said.

With more and more people confined indoors due to the ongoing pandemic, the home furnishing business showed a massive online thrust with sales growing by a whopping  125%. Sellers on the platform sold more than $2 billion worth of home decor and home furnishing in the last 12 months, the CEO stated.

“Home furnishings was yet again our biggest category,” he said. Jewelry and apparel were two other shining stars as merchants sold about $1.2 billion worth of jewelry and $775 million worth of apparel in the past year, Silverman noted. As for the second quarter, sales were up 50% year over year for the former and nearly 60% for the latter, he added.

“These are massive categories, and Etsy’s growing faster than the market leader in each of them,” Silverman said.

Showing strong performance for the second quarter, Etsy shares sold off Thursday closing down 3.6% at $130.66. The stock spent the past six sessions continuously rallying to jump by 36% at Wednesday’s close from late July.

EThe stock has nearly tripled from the start of the trading year.

BigCommerce Shares jump four-fold on IPO debut

BigCommerce
BigCommerce

BigCommerce, the public technology company whose features include customer groups and segmentation, search engine optimization (SEO), web hosting, and more is on a roll. It made a  spectacular debut in the public markets. with the stock soaring by more than 400 percent.

The company which went public at $24 a share on Wednesday, is trading sharply higher again on Thursday, soaring around $100 a share, which makes BigCommerce one of the year’s best-performing initial public offerings.

The company was founded in 2009 and has 600+ employees with headquarters in Austin, Texas. With about 66 million shares outstanding, the company now has a market cap of about $6.6 billion, or about 44 times run-rate revenue of about $150 million, which instantly makes it one of the public market’s most expensive software companies on a price-to-sales basis.

The company’s primary rival, Ottawa-based Shopify (SHOP), which trades for about 50 times the current year is the only one with a higher growth trajectory. Shopify had $714.3 million in revenue, while BigCommerce estimates its revenues to be between 35.5-35.8 million.

Both companies are competitors in similar businesses offering cloud-based software for running online stores.

CEO Brett Bellm of BigCommerce said in an interview with Barron’s yesterday that the two companies have different approaches to the market, with Shopify taking a suite approach and BigCommerce using a flexible platform that levers third-party software.

BigCommerce shares are up 3.2%, at $97.70, in recent trading, and have now rallied an astonishing 307% from the company’s IPO pricing this week at $24. That’s the second-best new-issue performance this year, trailing only Schrodinger (SDGR), a drug-discovery platform business that has rallied about 329% since its IPO in February.

Facebook launches accelerator programs for start-ups

Facebook launches accelerator programs for start-ups
Credits: Getty Images

Facebook hs launched commerce and connectivity – focused accelerator programs for startups on Monday.

The two  12- week capsule program is focused on providing and expanding new ideas and solutions to broaden its commerce and connectivity efforts as the COVID pandemic has redefined business strategies of major e retailers.

The company said that Facebook’s  Commerce Accelerator will select 60 startups from the EMEA and LATAM regions for the program. The chosen startups will focus on building shopping solutions to drive commerce inside Facebook’s family of apps.

Michael Huang, Head, Startups Programs commented on a blog post, “Our goal is to make shopping seamless and empower anyone from an entrepreneur to the largest brand to use our apps to connect with customers”.

In a  recent global survey conducted in partnership with the OECD and World Bank, Facebook found that at least a third of small to medium-sized businesses on Facebook saw a 25% or more jump in its sales being made on e-commerce platforms as people preferred to follow safe distancing norms and shop online due to coronavirus.

The company stated, “With so many sales being made online, the importance of intuitive and positive e-commerce experiences for customers has become even greater.”

The other accelerator program, called Connectivity, will feature 30 startups from the LATAM and North America (Americas) regions. These startups will be totally focusing on making internet access available in more places and providing affordable connectivity to a minimum of 100,000 additional potential customers.

Facebook said through these accelerator programs it aims to provide local development opportunities for potential entrepreneurs. The company holds one or two similar accelerator programs each year in some markets.

In total, the company has launched accelerator programs in 11 countries to date. The pandemic has “exposed the hard truth of the digital divide and the critical need for reliable, affordable internet connectivity,” commented  Huang.

The chosen participant start-ups will get access to cost-free training, 1:1 mentorship, access to Facebook products, and the rich expertise and knowledge of a global network of successful founders.

However, as announced on Monday,  the company is not offering monetary benefits to startups — something it has done in some of its previous accelerator programs, Interested parties can submit the online application.

“At Facebook, we strongly believe that by connecting, training, and growing entrepreneurs and startups through our programs, we can empower people to solve relevant, meaningful problems. We aim to build products that billions of people can use and benefit from,” Huang wrote.

For Facebook, the interest in commerce is relatively new as in the past it has mainly focused on connective efforts. CEO Mark Zuckerberg in May had unveiled Facebook Shops for making it easy for companies to list their products on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook’s foray into the already competitive e-commerce platforms is surely worth a wait and watch.

Google adds ‘Black-Owned’ business attribute to its listings

Verified Google My Business profile owners in the U.S. can now add a Black-owned business attribute to their listings. Business attributes are highlighted as icons when customers view a business’ profile on mobile.

Google said it has seen “a surge in online searches for Black-owned businesses” in recent months — a period in which the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum, after George Floyd, 46, died after being arrested by police outside a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Distinguishing Black-owned businesses in local search may help those businesses attract visibility in Search and Maps and gain customers.

“With this attribute, our goal is to make Search and Maps more inclusive and help support Black-owned businesses when they need it most,” Jewel Burks, head of Google for Startups U.S. said in an announcement made on Thursday. Additionally, the company is s also adding the new attribute to its digital skills training program- Grow with Digital Coaches, an initiative designed to help Black and Latinx small businesses reach new customers.

In addition, the company said it is partnering with the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc., an organization that includes 145 Black Chambers of Commerce and 326,000 members nationwide, to spread awareness for the new attribute.

Google also announced the first inaugural class of Google for Startups Accelerator for Black Founders on Thursday.

This initiative comes keeping in cognizance that in April, more than 40% of Black business owners reported that they weren’t working, compared to only 17% of white small business owners, according to an analysis of government data reported on by The New York Times.

In 2018, Google introduced family-led, veteran-led, and women-led attributes in Google My Business.

Walmart merges online, stores business leading to cuts in corporate roles

Walmart is on a consolidation spree as it is cutting corporate roles across the company merging its online and store businesses in the U.S. The retail giant confirmed on Thursday that it is eliminating some jobs in its back offices — refusing to comment on as to how many workers will lose their jobs.

Bloomberg was the first one to report the layoffs. Citing people familiar with the matter, the report said Walmart has laid off hundreds of corporate employees across store planning, logistics, and real estate units.

Spokeswoman Jami Lamontagne of Walmart told CNBC “We are continuing on our journey to create an omnichannel organization within our Walmart U.S. business and we’re making some additional changes this week”. She said the company will share more details after notifying employees.

The news comes during struggling COVID times when Walmart is attempting to turn its e-commerce business into a profitable one. It’s made a series of organizational changes and announcements in recent months.

In late February, the company merged its buyer teams on the store and online side to decrease conflicts over the pricing of products online and in-store. The company had previously struck deals with second-hand apparel and accessories site ThredUp in May and with Shopify in June to expand the assortment of goods and add new brands to its website. Furthermore, it announced in May that it would close its Jet.com brand.

The company further has expectations to launch a subscription-based service called Walmart+ to compete with Amazon Prime. Walmart’s e-commerce sales in the U.S. shot up by 74% in the first quarter, which ended April 30.

The ongoing COVID pandemic has redefined corporate strategies of a lot of retail sites as financial pressures have led to the leaning up of the staff and retailers have eliminated a lot of corporate positions. Macy’s , Nike, and L.Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, have all announced plans to reduce headcount.

However, Walmart’s case has been different as an essential retailer, it’s been able to keep stores open.

Sales have jumped as Americans buy more groceries and household essentials as they spend more time at home. Same-store sales grew by 10% and the company’s average ticket increased by 16% in the first quarter.

In recent months, the retail giant has hired more than 400,000 employees for stores and fulfillment centers to help stock shelves and keep up with demand. With this addition, labor costs have risen.  To keep up the employee spirits, Walmart has announced three rounds of special bonuses that have totaled $1.1 billion.

The company’s stock was down about 1% on Thursday.

Role of Omnichannel Analytics in the new E-commerce landscape

Role of Omnichannel Analytics in the new E-commerce landscape
Role of Omnichannel Analytics in the new E-commerce landscape

There is a shift happening all around us. The retail e-commerce landscape is evolving at a faster pace than anything ever did in the history of commerce.

Traditionally, marketers relied heavily on a few broadcast channels like TV or Print ads and the relationship between the buyer and the seller was one that of loyalty.

Now, not so much. With e-commerce platforms popping up every day in an already flooded market and the reducing attention span of the modern buyer, consumer behaviour is transforming at an unprecedented pace.

And with that transformation, Omnichannel analytics is fast becoming a matter of survival for the seller to tap into consumer’s evolving (or distracted) mind and their buying patterns.

According to a December 2017 report by Statista, an average consumer in the US spent 14.1 hours every month shopping online with heavy users spending thrice as much.

Today, buyers demand much more from the sellers, not only in terms of value but also in terms of a seamless experience. They often jump from one online catalogue to another to find their perfect product and the in-store availability.

What is Omnichannel Analytics and how does it affect a sale?

Omnichannel data analytics
Omnichannel data analytics

Let’s say I want to buy a pair of Nike Jordans. Typically, I would google different models, search for authentic reviews, compare prices and check for availability.

Once, I am convinced with a particular pair, I will add the item to my cart before searching for the in-store availability of that specific pair to try them on before making a purchase (comfort being a major value driver for me).

There are also risk areas in the process like the particular model being unavailable at the brick or mortar store. It could negatively impact my experience and more often than not – the seller could bid me goodbye as a customer.

This is exactly where Omnichannel analytics and omnichannel data analytics in particular, come into the picture. A smart omnichannel analytics strategy would identify a potential customer and funnel him/her through a purchase with a precise and focussed campaign effort across online and offline consumer touchpoints.

Marketers must understand and accumulate actionable insights from the digital footprints that a customer leaves all over the internet – while searching for a website or while making a transaction et al – to come up with the right strategy.

What are the key elements of Omnichannel data analytics?

From when a customer identifies the need for a particular product until he/she closes the purchase, there are multiple layers of customer interaction involved in the process.

With Omnichannel analytics, retailers can optimize their digital and offline efforts to enhance their targeting strategy across these layers, which can be broadly classified into four key elements:

1. Identifying Customer Uniqueness

Identifying potential customers and understanding their uniqueness is at the core of Omnichannel analytics.

It is achieved when marketers look at the big data and ask questions like how does a customer interact or transact and across which channels or which segments are the most relevant for a particular product category.

The answers to these questions can help a marketer identify targets with higher potential and predict their behaviour.

Social media is fast emerging as the most potent source of customer identification by tracking their interaction with products and companies.

2. Engaging the customer

Customer engagement determines the quality of customer experience through the lifecycle of a buy-sell transaction.

A market can assess the effectiveness of a customer journey through analytics. These assessments provide key insights into what is working and what is not.

Customer satisfaction and conversions score can help a marketer tweak their strategy for a more seamless experience for the customer.

With time more sellers are using more add-on capabilities like ‘chatbots’ and ‘shopping assistants’ to enhance the overall experience of the customer.

Tracking customer journey through analytics goes a long way in ensuring repeat customers by instilling a sense of loyalty by giving them a smoother experience than their competitors.

3. Predicting consumer behaviour

Predicting consumer behaviour is key to ensuring a high satisfaction delivery to the consumer.

It is also very important in the context of saving marketing efforts, after all, marketers lose a lot of their effort in trying to identify which strategy works the best.

Predicting consumer behaviour takes into account multiple relevant consumer traits such as the intent, the potential, the behaviour and so on. These traits or attributes help the marketers in recognizing the correct channel to display their product to the consumer and tweak offers.

For example, the websites that the customer often visits, the time spent on a specific page, the product that the customer is searching for our buying on other platforms etc are all examples of the attributes that assist predicting behaviour.

4. Delivering Value 

All of the above strategies and efforts eventually lead here, to the final delivery to the customer. Delivering value to the customer is a function of having the right product at the right place for the right customer at the right time.

Analytics play a pivotal role in helping sellers come up with corrective strategies to optimize their merchandising, get their supply chain in order, manage their inventory better and augment their in-store operations.

Delivering value is trickier than it might sound. There could be thousands of customer journeys with different levels of performance scores. To identify what works best is key to delivering value to the customer.

How can retailers drive higher sales with Omnichannel analytics?

According to a Boston survey report, 85% of the retailers want to create a holistic platform that enables seamless integration of offline and online activities by combining every function within a company.

Omnichannel predictive analysis does exactly that by letting the retailers build a more targeted strategy, tweak their merchandise assortment for higher profits and deliver higher satisfaction scores on a customers’ path to purchase.

Omnichannel data analytics also allows retailers to ensure a more secure environment to protect their customers from fraudulent activities and minimize their losses.

It leads to reduced costs by optimizing the company’s supply chain and enables more cost-effective modes of shipping.

Going forward, the traditional data models are more likely to end up in wasted marketing efforts and most possibly fail in keeping up with a distracted consumer.

While going Omnichannel analytics could be a baffling undertaking, the returns are high when it comes to keeping up with rapidly changing expectations and behaviours of a modern consumer.

If a company or a seller wants to stay relevant in a fast-changing landscape of commerce, they will eventually have to replace their outdated models with more a more holistic model that addresses everything from identification, distribution, engagement and supply chain to cybersecurity for more seamless customer experience.

The balance of power in this new landscape has shifted towards the consumer and company’s need to earn customers’ goodwill at every touchpoint, lest they want to lose a customer to their competitor forever.

Magento has a critical security flaw allowing code execution

Magento
Magento

While we know that nothing is as secure as it was back in the day, the chances of getting hacked have become even more due to hackers looking at things in the minutest of ways to get inside. However, the problem is that many platforms have vulnerabilities that are being exploited by the hackers and their work becomes easier. Similar is the case with Magento which is now owned by Adobe. It is known that there has been a critical flaw found inside Adobe’s Magento that reportedly allowed code execution from the outside.

This is as severe a flaw as it gets because remote code execution should not be possible in any platform whatsoever. This could mean that people would just be able to delete or post anything they want remotely without the owner having any clue. Thankfully, Adobe has patched this flaw and we are now safe from this flaw. Adobe revealed that “Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution and signature verification bypass,”

A cyber attacking gang called Magecart cybergang reportedly had an expertise in the exploitation of this flaw and were getting inside people’s Magento stores through it. The company added that “Based on previous experience, we do not anticipate exploits are imminent. As a best practice, Adobe recommends administrators install the update soon (for example, within 30 days),”

And it goes without saying that the patches should be installed as soon as possible. The update which patches things is Magento Commerce 2 versions 2.4.0 or 2.3.5-p2 and if you are on any previous version, you should install the above version as soon as possible. Since this flaw has been exposed even more now, we expect those who do not patch their stores to be hacked. Also, people who have not updated from Magento 1 to Magento 2 are also under risk so make sure to upgrade as soon as possible.

BigCommerce Holdings to come out with $130M IPO

BigCommerce
BigCommerce

BigCommerce Holdings, which provides a cloud-based platform for businesses to create online stores, announced terms for its IPO on Tuesday.

BigCommerce is a top e-commerce platform that allows you to create an online store. It lets you set up your store, add products, and make money through your website.  BigCommerce is a specialized e-commerce builder, meaning it’s designed to help you sell online.

The company is privately held and provides a SaaS e-commerce platform. It was founded in 2009 and has 600+ employees with headquarters in Austin, Texas. The company plans to raise $130 million by offering 6.9 million shares at a price range of $18 to $20.

New investor Tiger Global Management intends to purchase up to 20% of the shares in the offering. At the midpoint of the proposed range, BigCommerce Holdings would command a fully diluted market value of $1.4 billion

BigCommerce states that its SaaS platform simplifies the creation of online stores through ease-of-use, enterprise functionality, and flexibility. It empowers both its customers’ branded e-commerce stores and their cross-channel connections to popular online marketplaces, social networks, and offline point-of-sale systems.

As of June 1, 2020, it served approximately 60,000 online stores in approximately 120 countries.

BigCommerce Holdings was founded in 2003 and booked $120 million in revenue for the 12 months ended March 31, 2020. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol BIGC. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Jefferies, and KeyBanc Capital Markets are the joint bookrunners on the deal.

It is expected to price during the week of August 3, 2020.

CEO Bezos to testify about how Amazon is the quintessential US company

CEO Jeff Bezos of Amazon plans to bring in focus the company’s job creation and support for small businesses during Wednesday’s antitrust hearing, according to prepared remarks released by the company on Tuesday.

Bezos will tell the House Antitrust Subcommittee that Amazon now employs a million people and that it built an online marketplace that allows some third-party sellers — independent “entrepreneurs” — to make more than $100,000 a year.

He acknowledges that Amazon is “a large company” but that its fast-paced sprawling scale has created more than $1 trillion of wealth for its shareholders, which include “fire, police, and school teacher pension funds.”

The remarks also highlight personal information about his life, like the fact that his mother was a 17-year-old high school student when he was born, and that his adoptive father emigrated from Cuba. They were among Amazon’s first investors. In a common theme for Bezos and the company, the statement repeatedly mentions Amazon’s drive to please customers and notes that this focus has made Amazon one of the country’s most trusted institutions

“It’s not a coincidence that Amazon was born in this country,” Bezos said in his prepared remarks. “More than any other place on Earth, new companies can start, grow, and thrive here in the U.S.Researchers at Georgetown and New York University found in 2018 that Amazon trailed only the military among all respondents to a survey on institutional and brand trust. Among Republicans, we trailed only the military and local police; among Democrats, we were at the top, leading every branch of government, universities, and the press,” the statement says.

Bezos is one of four tech CEOs set to appear in Wednesday’s hearing, along with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who will use the opportunity to defend Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp and talk about its commitment to open-source projects, according to prepared remarks released Tuesday.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, will also appear.

Amazon’s “Day One” mentality will also be a key theme of Bezos’ opening remarks. He plans to highlight how the business philosophy, which has afforded Amazon “both the scope and capabilities of a large company and the spirit and heart of a small one,” is great for customers, even when it might attract critics. Amazon has earned the trust of consumers by listening to their needs, which are “lower prices, better selection, and convenience,” he added.

“As I have said since my first shareholder letter in 1997, we make decisions based on the long-term value we create as we invent to meet customer needs,” Bezos said. “When we’re criticized for those choices, we listen and look at ourselves in the mirror. When we think our critics are right, we change. When we make mistakes, we apologize. But when you look in the mirror, assess the criticism, and still believe you’re doing the right thing, no force in the world should be able to move you.”

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