YouTube is shuttering its YouTube Originals division, with lead Susanne Daniels expected to leave in March.
YouTube Originals was the company’s foray into original content, began in 2016. Susanne Daniels headed up the division, and helped it create award-winning content.
According to a tweet by Robert Kyncl, YouTube Chief Business Officer, YouTube Originals is shutting down.
Today, there are over 2M creators in the YouTube Partner Program and our creator community has never been more successful: we’ve paid more than $30B to creators, artists, and media companies over the last three years.
However, with rapid growth comes new opportunities and now our investments can make a greater impact on even more creators when applied towards other initiatives, like our Creator Shorts Fund, Black Voices Fund, and Live Shopping programming to name a few.
Separately, Susanne has decided to leave YouTube and her last day will be March 1. I want to thank her for her vision, creativity and leadership.
Together, these factors contributed to our decision to reduce our YouTube Originals slate. Going forward, we will only be funding programs that are part of our Black Voices and YouTube Kids Funds. We will honor our commitment for already contracted shows in progress and creators who are involved with those shows should expect to hear from us directly in the coming days.
Apple has once gain overtaken Samsung for the title of the world’s top smartphone maker, based on Q4 2021 shipments.
Apple and Samsung go back and forth for the top spot, with each benefiting from release cycles, major upgrades, and a plethora of other factors. According to research firm Canalys, Apple took the top spot in Q4 2021, with 22% of worldwide shipments. Samsung came in second with 20%, while Xiaomi rounded out the top three with 12%.
“Apple is back at the top of the smartphone market after three quarters, driven by a stellar performance from the iPhone 13,” said Canalys Analyst Sanyam Chaurasia. “Apple saw unprecedented iPhone performance in Mainland China, with aggressive pricing for its flagship devices keeping the value proposition strong. Apple’s supply chain is starting to recover, but it was still forced to cut production in Q4 amid shortages of key components and could not make enough iPhones to meet demand. In prioritized markets, it maintained adequate delivery times, but in some markets its customers had to wait to get their hands on the latest iPhones.”
One of Apple’s greatest strengths has always been its supply chain, giving the company the ability to weather disruptions better than its competitors. That was certainly true in Q4, with supply chain issues hitting smaller companies much harder.
“Supply chain disruption affected low-end vendors the most,” said Canalys VP Mobility Nicole Peng. “Component manufacturers are eking out additional production, but it will take years for major foundries to significantly increase chip capacity. Smartphone brands are already innovating to make the most of their circumstances, tweaking device specs in response to available materials, approaching emerging chipmakers to secure new sources for ICs, focusing product lines on the best-selling models and staggering new product releases. These practices lend an advantage to larger brands, and they are set to stay for the short term, as bottlenecks will not ease until the second half of 2022.”
Amazon has dethroned Google in product searches with over 54 percent of all product searches now happening on Amazon instead of Google. What this means is that brands must make Amazon SEO their priority in order to show up near the top of product searches for their related keywords.
It’s predicted that an entire industry is in the midst of emerging to help companies adjust their strategies similar to what happened when Google first started to dominate search a couple decades ago.
We have seen a shift from Google to Amazon. Today over 54 percent of all the product searches that occur on the entire internet now occur on Amazon. Once you get into Amazon we’ve seen a strong growth in the number of sponsored placements that they put on their site. The product views that emanated from a sponsored click has increased from 3 percent to 7 percent in the last 18 months.
We think that Amazon and Google are converging. We did some additional analysis at Jumpshot that shows that from the time a consumer searches on either Google or Amazon to the time that they buy was actually much shorter on Google. On Google, 35 percent of those purchases were made within 5 days, only 20 percent on Amazon.
Amazon Becoming a Place for Product Discovery
What you are seeing is that Amazon is becoming a place for product discovery for customers more and Google is shifting from pure product discovery to more of that considered purchase. When people are interested in understanding the price or the quality or the brand name they’re going away from Amazon back to Google now.
Once you get to Amazon, 90 percent of the product views are actually the result of a search. So people aren’t messing around with merchandising placements or banner ads, they are typing a search for a product into Amazon and getting a search result. Once they get that search result we found that over two-thirds of the clicks are on the first page.
Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands
Imagine if you are a brand, you know that the majority of your customers are now searching for your product on Amazon. You know that once people get to Amazon what they are doing really doing is typing in a product search. Then once you get that search result you’ve got your competitors products, Amazon’s private label products, and you have to decide whether you are going to try and increase your organic results or pay for a sponsored placement. It’s a very confusing world for a brand today.
I would not want to be a brand manager at a CPG company right now because I think you are between a rock and a hard place. I think what you will see in the future is the same way that an ecosystem of companies sprung up around Google search when it started to dominate peoples online behavior, you are going to see the same thing for Amazon search. What people are going to need is a non-Amazon source of information to help them understand what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to spend their advertising dollars.
Content marketing is reshaping ecommerce for companies large and small. That’s because marketing is about trust first and foremost and marketers are realizing that quality content builds trust quicker than traditional advertising. Tim Turner Forman of a new startup called The Tot and Matt Osias of Hawke Media recently discussed how to start a content-driven marketing strategy.
Why is it important to resist the urge to have your content do the selling?
Tim: What we do at The Tot is provide trust and advice and mindfully curated products. For it to be considered trusted advice it needs to come from a credible real place. It needs to be authentic and it needs to come from experts, people who know what they are talking about. At The Tot we work with a network of experts around the globe to create parenting content. What first-time parents are looking for most is information and they are just as likely to turn to a website as they are to go to a doctor and they are even more likely to go to a website than to ask their own Mother. If we are able to develop and curate content of moms sharing to other moms, that develops a relationship and provides values for them.
How do you measure the success and performance of a content-driven marketing strategy?
Matt: When you consider measuring in general, there are so many different formats that are out there that people can leverage. Oftentimes, people are saying… well I want articles for my blog. What type of article are you looking for? What is the goal of that piece of content? Are you trying to drive organic search and bring in new audiences so they can learn who you are or are you trying to engage them a bit more with videos and infographics? Every single format has a very specific measurement.
Beyond that, your measurements are somewhat different than your basic media buying for example, where you spend a dollar and hope to make back three, or some version of that. When we are looking at content marketing, especially when it is brand agnostic, the real important ideal there is to think about how can I actually give something to my audience that resonates with them, teaches them and solves a problem. Then ultimately, your brand is there waiting for them.
Awareness, Engagement, Advocacy
The three things that I look at are awareness, engagement, and advocacy. The first thing you would want to do in building a content marketing strategy is to consider the idea of awareness, giving awareness to the people you are working with. Then having intent-driven content. People are asking questions in Google all the time and they are getting answers. If your site has the answers in its content, especially if it’s early stages, then that’s going to do something that most (ecommerce) sites aren’t doing, which is to put eyes onto your site, without the brand and product coming into play at first.
With this brand agnostic content, the bulk of your content is primarily text-based content. With measurement I look at eyes on site and what they are doing when they get there. Are they jumping around to different pages or are they bouncing right away? When you bring in somebody to your site where it is solving something you have to have something that is engaging to keep them there and keep them coming back.
Tim: We definitely watch inside of Google Analytics to be able to see the pageviews, what people are doing, and how they move from the editorial side of the site to the product side of the site. We also use content as part of our marketing program. It’s definitely an upper funnel prospecting piece.
Quality Content is Just as Important as Ad Spend
Tim: As somebody who came from an ad agency working with clients who had large ad spends and then coming to a start-up to help them grow and find customers, we didn’t have a large ad budget. What we did have though is this wonderful bank of content. This quality content has become just as important as the ad spend. Every month we put together a new prospecting campaign with a variety of articles and then we keep some evergreen pieces of what performed and that gives us a really good indicator of the type of people we are able to draw and attract to the site. It’s very contextually targeted so somebody that is clicking and looking at an article titled, “9 Ways to Prepare for a New Baby,” is probably going to be our customer.
Amazon is being accused of pushing its own products at the expense of more popular, better reviewed products from other companies.
Amazon is the world’s biggest e-commerce site, but the sellers that use it often have a love/hate relationship with the company. Many sellers have long suspected Amazon favors its own brands, something the company denied in testimony to Congress in 2019.
According to The Markup, however, Amazon does favor its own brands, or brands that are exclusive to its platform, even if that means promoting them over other brands that are more popular or have more reviews.
The Markup cites the example of Robert Gomez, founder of 4Q Brands, who worked tirelessly to get his Kaffe coffee grinder ranked in the top three Amazon search results. Gomez even paid Amazon $40,000 a month for advertising. Once Amazon introduced its own competing coffee grinder, and started carrying a partner exclusive, both of the competing grinders almost immediately started showing up in the top three search results.
Further exacerbating the issue is that many listings for Amazon brands or exclusives are not explicitly listed as “sponsored,” despite showing up in the part of the site reserved for search results. This is also in direct contradiction to a statement from company spokesperson Nell Rona, who said the company adds “Amazon brand” to its own products. The Markup found that only 23% of the Amazon-branded products it researched had that tag.
This behavior could land Amazon in hot water, according to Bill Baer, former director of the Bureau of Competition at the FTC, as well as former assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ antitrust division.
“If basically you’ve got somebody with market power that is restraining competition both in terms of site access or where things appear on the site,” he said, “that is potentially problematic.”
Despite Amazon’s ethically — and potentially legally — questionable behavior, few sellers are willing to speak up. Blake Adami, VP of Government Relations, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, explained the problem to The Markup in an email.
“Our members are still very hesitant to speak out against Amazon for fear of retaliation, even anonymously.”
The Markup’s full report is well-worth a read, especially for anyone in the e-commerce industry, and illustrates why legislators are increasingly looking to crack down on anticompetitive behavior.
Inflation is rising as we continue trekking through this pandemic. In 2021, the US Consumer Price Index rose nearly 7%. With the Federal Reserve aiming to keep it at 2% or less each year, why have rates skyrocketed this year? To answer this question, first we need to understand what inflation is and why it occurs.
Inflation is an increase in the price of goods or services due to weakening currency caused by different economic triggers. These triggers can be things like surge in product demand, production cost increases, supply chain breakdowns, or changes in the housing market. There have been two major theories that have been presented regarding why inflation occurs. The first is the cost-push theory which explains that higher costs of services or production of goods raise overall prices. The second is demand-pull theory which suggests that when demand for goods outpaces the availability of them, it raises the prices.
Both of these theories work to explain why it is rising so high in these times of the pandemic. With mass stay-at-home orders being enforced early in 2020, many production jobs were lost which lessened the availability of products and resulted in rising prices. New safety and sanitary procedures added more fees for businesses to pay which raised the cost for production of goods. This explains why rates are rising, and in fact America is experiencing the biggest jump in more than 30 years.
The History of Inflation
This is not the first time this country has experienced a large jump in inflation. After the Revolutionary War, America experienced the biggest jump in it’s entire history with inflation rates at nearly 30%. In the 1970’s the Great Stagflation saw inflation rise to over 14%. So while the rise of 7% we are experiencing today may seem daunting, we have experienced worse economic strife in the past.
Something we may have to prepare for is the possibility of a recession. The United States has experienced more than 19 recessions in the past 100 years, notably The Great Recession which occurred in 2008 due to policies trying to reduce inflation. The U.S has been known to enact strategies to control inflation, but as seen with The Great Recession, these strategies can have unintended consequences.
Inflation Trends
So what can we expect from these ongoing inflation trends? Well on a positive note, we can expect lower unemployment rates and higher wages. In 2021 unemployment dropped to 4% and the average hourly wage rose 5%. Unfortunately, we can also expect lower savings rates, increased interest rates, and overall higher costs of living. As we’ve seen in the past, inflation is inevitable, so what can you do to prepare?
Investing your money into rental properties and commodities like industrial metals have a great ROI percentage and may be a good way to prepare for rising cost of living. Consider continuing your education, as 30 million Americans could be earning 70% more with a college degree. There are many other ways to prepare for the effects of inflation, learn more in the infographic below:
If you avoid these seven online marketing mistakes and you follow these tips you’re going to generate more sales, says popular digital marketing expert Neil Patel. A common theme of Neil’s tips is creating a brand. “Google doesn’t want to rank sites that aren’t brands,” he says. “There’s an issue out there called fake news and that’s why they’re pushing brands over anything else.” Patel says that if you follow these tips you’re going to crush it!”
Neil Patel, digital marketing expert and founder of Neil Patel Digital, discusses the seven online marketing mistakes in his latest video release:
Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes
I’m going to break down seven online marketing mistakes that you need to stop. You’re probably wondering you’re doing all these things but why aren’t you seeing results? Even if you’re doing the right things, if you’re also doing the wrong things at the same time it’s going to hurt you and it’s going avoid you from getting the results that you deserve.
Mistake 1: Not Collecting Emails
The first mistake you are making is not collecting emails. It doesn’t matter how good you are with SEO or marketing only a very small percentage of your visitors are ever going to convert into customers. By collecting emails not only can you get people to come back to your site but you can convince them to convert over emails.
The moment someone gives you their email address think of that as a micro-commitment. They’re much more likely to convert into a customer because they committed, they already gave you something. That’s why you want to collect emails. You can do this through sliders or exit pop-ups. You can do this for free using tools like Hello Bar.
Mistake 2: Not Collecting Subscribers Through Push Notifications
The second mistake you’re making is you’re not collecting subscribers through push notifications. There are free tools like Subscribers.com that’ll make it easy. Just add in a JavaScript or a WordPress plug-in and then when people come to your website they will automatically subscribe through the browser. Then anytime you have new content or products or services that you want to sell then you can notify them through Subscribers.
Mistake 3: Not Building a Brand
The reason tip number one on collecting emails and tip number two on getting more push notifications subscribers are really important is because you need to build a brand. This gets you into the third mistake. Google doesn’t want to rank sites that aren’t brands. Why is this? There’s an issue out there called fake news and that’s why they’re pushing brands over anything else. It’s not just going to be Facebook and in Google. Eventually, it’s going to be Twitter and LinkedIn and all the sites out there.
When you get people back to your site seven times you’re much more likely to build a brand. It’s called the Rule of Seven in marketing. So with your site, you want to provide an amazing user experience. When you provide an amazing user experience, create a great product, create a great service, it’ll help you build a great brand over time.
Mistake 4: Not Interlinking
The fourth mistake you’re making is not interlinking. You may notice on Google I’m ranking for terms like online marketing on page one. You’re probably wondering how do I do this? A lot of it comes out to interlinking. In my sidebar, I link to my most popular pages of content. When I write blog posts related to online marketing I link back to the online marketing guide that talks about what online marketing is. By having all these links it helps me rank higher.
Mistake 5: Just Focusing On Text-Based Content
The fifth mistake I have for you is just focusing on text-based content. The future of digital marketing is moving to video. It doesn’t mean you should stop doing text but it means you should also be doing video. When you do video you’re going to get more traffic because everyone’s lacking it. LinkedIn wants it right now. YouTube wants more of it. Facebook wants it. Instagram even wants it.
Why is this? They want to crush the television networks. You look at things like the Oscars or traditional movie theaters and they’re not doing as well. You look at traditional TV and they’re going to get crushed. Why? It’s because of Facebook. It’s because of Google. It’s because of Netflix. If you’re there creating that video content you can be part of it and you’re going to get extra traffic. They want as much help as possible to crush these big old-school companies.
Mistake 6: Sticking To Just a Few Marketing Channels
The sixth mistake that you’re making is you’re really sticking to just a few marketing channels. Marketing is competitive. People raise venture capital hundreds of millions of dollars just so they can compete in marketing and sales. You need to do more than one or two or three marketing channels. The more you do the better off you’re going to be.
Mistake 7: Not Asking For the Sale
The seventh mistake I have for you is not asking for the sale. Whether it’s a lead or whether it’s getting people to buy your product, there’s nothing wrong with asking people to buy from you. If you don’t you’re not going to generate any sales. Everyone’s like I get all this traffic through my online marketing but no one’s converting. Why? Because you’re not asking for a sale.
Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel
Popular payment apps will start reporting payments of $600 or more to the IRS to comply with a new tax law.
While businesses have been required to report payments of $600 or more for years, this is the first time that online payment apps have been subject to that requirement. Previously, PayPal and others were required to report gross income exceeding $20,000 per year.
Under the new rule, bar is now lowered to $600. Fortunately, according to Fox News, this new rule only applies to payments classified as goods or services. Money sent to friends and family, gifts, reimbursements, and products sold at a loss will not be included.
For true income, however, users will need to be more careful when filing their taxes, as the IRS will now have a point of reference.
“For the 2022 tax year, you should consider the amounts shown on your Form 1099-K when calculating gross receipts for your income tax return,” PayPal’s Q&A section says. “The IRS will be able to cross-reference both our report and yours.”
Walmart is expanding its home delivery service to some 30 million US homes, and is hiring 3,000 drivers to accomplish its goal.
Walmart has been aggressively building out its InHome delivery service, especially in the face of the pandemic and shoppers reluctant to be in crowded stores. The service was previously available to 6 million US homes, but the company is planning to expand that to 30 million in 2022.
As part of its expansions, Walmart is hiring an additional 3,000 drivers, and building out a fleet of EVs to facilitate deliveries.
“We’ve been operating InHome in select markets over the last two years and have found it is a perfect solution for customers who want to live their lives without worrying about making it to the store or being home to accept a delivery,” said Tom Ward, senior vice president, last mile at Walmart U.S. “Identifying ways to help our customers save time and money is our purpose, and nothing showcases that better than InHome delivery, which is why we’re excited to bring the convenience of InHome to even more customers in 2022.”
Unlike some other delivery services, Walmart has built InHome around the ultimate convenience. Associates will deliver a customer’s groceries, even putting them in their kitchen or garage refrigerator. Access is granted via a one-time code in the InHome app, in combination with smart home locks and technology. This allows the driver access for the delivery, and only the delivery.
Walmart ensures these associates are highly trained and trustworthy, even using virtual reality to help round out their training.
“This new role is yet another example of how technology is enabling us to offer new career opportunities that just didn’t exist a few years ago,” said Julie Murphy, executive vice president and chief people officer, Walmart U.S. “Expanding our number of InHome associates is a testament to the trust and confidence we have in them and their continuous commitment to delight our customers. There’s a path for everyone to build a career here at Walmart, and this position is further proof of that.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against Walmart, accusing the retailer of illegally disposing of hazardous waste.
The California AG was joined by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in filing the suit. In particular, Walmart is accused of dumping hazardous waste in landfills that are not equipped to handle it. The items include batteries, pesticides, aerosol cans, toxic cleaners, e-waste, latex paints, and LED lightbulbs. The company is also accused of dumping confidential customer information in landfills.
“Walmart’s own audits found that the company is dumping hazardous waste at local landfills at a rate of more than one million items each year. From there, these products may seep into the state’s drinking water as toxic pollutants or into the air as dangerous gases,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “When one person throws out a battery or half-empty hairspray bottle, we may think that it’s no big deal. But when we’re talking about tens of thousands of batteries, cleaning supplies, and other hazardous waste, the impact to our environment and our communities can be huge. This lawsuit should serve as a warning to the state’s worst offenders. We will hold you accountable. As the People’s Attorney, taking on corporate polluters and protecting public health will always be among my top priorities.”
“Despite repeated enforcements against Walmart over the past two decades, it consistently – and knowingly – fails to comply with California’s environmental protection laws,” said Dr. Meredith Williams, DTSC Director. “DTSC will vigorously pursue justice in this and all mismanagement of hazardous waste – particularly by repeat offenders, and most especially in communities forced to suffer the consequences of industrial pollution, generation after generation.”
This isn’t the first time Walmart has been accused of this behavior. The company reached a $25 million settlement with California in 2010 over similar actions. In spite of the measures taken against the company, inspections beginning in 2015 discovered that Walmart was still violating state laws with its hazardous waste.
Toyota is reconsidering a controversial decision to charge for keyless remote entry after backlash from owners and non-owners alike.
Toyota ignited a firestorm in mid-December when The Drive broke news the company planned on disabling key fob remote start unless customers were enrolled in a monthly subscription. Rather than announcing the change only for upcoming models, Toyota said it would apply to models sold from 2018 forward.
At the time the news broke, Toyota was less than forthcoming with details, but the company has since provided The Drive with more information. Evidently, the remote start functionality — activated by pressing the lock button three times — was never advertised in official Toyota materials as a feature, and was something many dealers simply told customers about.
Toyota says the issue comes from software logic related to the data communication module (DCM), which checks for the presence of a subscription before allowing certain feature. The remote start is one such feature, even though the functionality is handled locally, between the fob and the car.
“The subscription truly is for the app,” a Toyota spokesperson told The Drive. “The key fob remote start was never intended to be a cost item either at the time of purchase or through subscription.”
The company claims it never anticipated the pushback it received, although it’s hard to imagine how a company with the marketing resources of Toyota managed to miss such an obvious conclusion, especially given the “subscription fatigue” many customers feel. It’s also not clear how or why the company did not realize dealerships were telling customers about the remote start, or that it would be such a loved feature — one customers would not want to give up.
Either way, Toyota says it is reevaluating the situation and trying to determine if the functionality can be left as-is.
Water is the most important resource on the planet. We use water for almost all aspects of life from cooking, to cleaning, to bathing, and most importantly: for drinking. But do we really know what’s in the water that we drink? Less than .5% of the water on Earth is drinkable. Much of it is being wasted every day. With such a small amount of drinkable water, are we sure that everything we are drinking is completely clean? Let’s learn more about current water trends.
Contamination in Our Water
Unfortunately, 1 of 5 Americans have been exposed to contaminated drinking water in the past 10 years. Some of the most common contaminants are nitrates, arsenic, and microorganisms. Microorganisms can include bacteria and viruses that can cause widespread illness in humans. Contaminated water can spread diseases such as cholera and dysentery and waterborne illnesses cause over 6,000 deaths every year in the US.
Aside from the tragedy that waterborne illnesses can bring, the cost of these illnesses totals over $3 billion a year! This cost comes directly from a loss of water sanitation. It can easily be solved with mainstream products in the US. Clearly we want our water supply to be as clean as possible, so can we accomplish that?
Filtering water is the best way to ensure that the water that is coming straight from the tap hasn’t been contaminated by anything. Filters can remove 99.99% of bacteria as well as 99.99% of viruses. This makes the risk of infection from contaminated drinking water significantly less. Filtered water also removes over 200 other contaminants such as fluoride or debris from pipes.
Much Water is Wasted
Water is such an important part of our lives. It’s surprising how much is wasted. With contaminants in water, it would seem that consumers would try and save as much clean water as possible, but this is not the case. Americans use an average of 82 gallons of water every day. This number comes from water used for bathing, cooking, cleaning, and drinking, our taps are always running!
Using water filtration systems, water usage can be cut down. Since the filter is filled one time, it doesn’t have to be filled again. Filtration systems also come in a range of sizes to accommodate any consumer’s needs. Filters can be portable and easy to travel with, or hold up to six gallons to host a number of people! This wide variety of sizes makes it so that consumers can make sure that no matter the occasion, they can readily have a supply of clean drinking water.
In Conclusion
Water is integral to our lives. There is a limited amount of water that is drinkable on the planet. We must make sure to minimize the water that is wasted. It is also important to make sure that the water that we are drinking is clean and safe, and this is all possible through the use of water filtration systems. Learn more about water filtration systems in the infographic below:
Beverage trends are always changing depending on the preferences of the consumers, but the beverage industry is currently seeing a boom in the non-alcoholic market. Sales of non-alcoholic drinks have more than doubled those of alcoholic drinks in 2019 alone while sales of sodas and other sugary drinks have declined over the past decade. How are consumer preferences affecting the beverage industry and causing the rise of the non-alcoholic beverage market?
The Functional Water Market
Consumers are turning away from sugary drinks and choosing functional waters, or herb-infused sparkling or still waters, that include healthy additives like vitamins, minerals, and vegetables. More people desiring products infused with healthier ingredients that help with weight loss as well as nutrition have caused the functional waters market to grow in popularity. By 2025, the global functional water market is even expected to reach $18.24 billion. Consumer preference for eating organic foods have led to increased interest in finding organic beverages as well. As more people learn about the health benefits of organic products and thus look for beverages that do not contain sugar or caffeine and are naturally flavored, brands are providing solutions by developing organic drinks. By 2027, the global organic beverages market is estimated to be worth $32.78 billion.
Coffee Trends
There are some consumers who are aware of the health benefits of drinking coffee and see the drink as a great alternative to sugary beverages. Coffee is also easy to buy in cans, bottles, and cartons while new innovative products make the drinking experience enjoyable. Coffee has and still charges up the world in the morning, and the demand for the drink will only continue to increase. In fact, the ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee market is believed to reach $133.9 billion by 2027. However, for those who want to stay away from caffeine, tea is a great alternative. People who are conscious of their healthy lifestyle are looking towards highly oxidized and herbal teas to get the energy boost they need without consuming caffeine. In fact, innovative ways of revamping the cold tea category with cold brews and various milk blends have increased the market’s popularity with many predicting the global tea market to reach $68.95 billion by 2027.
The Rise of the Mocktail
Now, there are even healthier versions of alcoholic beverages as consumers desire to taste different flavors in their alcohol. Consumer preferences for drinks with lower alcohol content due to growing awareness of the effects of excessive alcohol consumption have caused brands to craft RTD alcoholic beverages with healthier ingredients and flavors that include tropical fruits, apples, and berries. More bars are also adding non-alcoholic mixed drinks options to their menus called a mocktail. With more customers being non-drinkers (especially the younger generations) who still want to take part in the bar scene, a mocktail is a healthier option to alcohol that looks luxurious and satisfies people’s desire for complex flavors. A mocktail can be enjoyed by anybody, not just pregnant women, like children who want to share a special drink with their families for a special event.
The non-alcoholic beverage market is now on the rise, and there is no stopping it any time soon.
Toyota has revealed that customers will need to pay a subscription fee to use the remote start functionality of their key fobs.
Remote start is a popular add-on feature for many vehicles, and can be a life-saver in cold or extremely hot weather. Unfortunately, Toyota customers who thought their vehicles came with remote start are in for a bit of a surprise: They’ll need to pay a subscription fee to continue using it.
Subscription-based services have become incredibly popular in the tech industry, with everyone from enterprise software providers to shareware authors opting for the licensing model. That model seems to be making its way into the automotive industry, with luxury manufacturers turning to subscriptions to unlock high-end features.
In a turn of events, however, the world’s largest automaker appears to also be embracing subscription-based services. According to The Drive, 2018 and later Toyota models with a key fob that includes remote start will require a Remote Connect subscription in order to continue working.
If more automakers embrace Toyota’s position, it’s a safe bet the demand for aftermarket remote start kits will skyrocket.
Italian regulators have fined Amazon $1.3 billion for promoting third-party sellers that buy its extra services over other sellers.
Amazon is the biggest e-commerce platform on the planet and, as such, serves as a gateway for countless other companies looking to sell online. Unfortunately, Amazon’s position as the market leader also makes it the gatekeeper for those third-party companies. The decisions it makes about which companies to promote can mean the life or death of a smaller company’s business.
According to Italian regulators, Amazon has been abusing that position, favoring sellers that buy into its extra services over sellers that don’t. As a result, Italian antitrust regulators have fined the company $1.3 billion
Amazon provided a statement to GeekWire disagreeing with the ruling.
“We strongly disagree with the decision of the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) and we will appeal. The proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate,” Amazon’s spokesperson said.
“More than half of all annual sales on Amazon in Italy come from small and medium sized businesses and their success is at the heart of our business model,” the spokesperson added. “Small and medium-sized businesses have multiple channels to sell their products both online and offline: Amazon is just one of those options.”
Industries throughout the market are experiencing supply chain problems and Apple hasn’t been spared from this issue. Shortages for iPhone 13 and its varieties have caused customers to give up their search for the phone with no end in sight for the turmoil in the market.
According to Apple component suppliers the company has told them demand for iPhone 13 and its varieties have weakened and decreased their production target by 10 million units, down from a 90 million due to lack of parts.
Fortunately, there’s some good news for Apple and their investors… despite the component shortages they are expected to have record holiday sales. Analysts project a sales increase of 117 billion in the 4th quarter of 2021, a 6% increase, due to incentives from partners and notable hardware improvements.
The iPhone 13 appears to contain more than its usual incremental improvements with the addition of a significant upgrade to their camera and improved processing. Along with the improved hardware, some carriers are offering aggressive promotions up to allowing for free upgrades from iPhone 12 to iPhone 13. However, due to the shortages consumers may continue to wait until (presumably) iPhone 14 arrives next year.
Taking a cue from Google and Facebook, Square has changed its name to Block, retaining the Square name for its Seller business.
Square is Jack Dorsey’s second company. Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO Monday, presumably giving him more time to focus on Square. As the first big move since Dorsey’s pivot to focus exclusively on Square, the company is changing its name.
Block will be the name of the corporate entity, with its various businesses — such as the Square Seller business — forming the building blocks of the company.
“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” said Jack Dorsey, cofounder and CEO of Block. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”
Other than the name change, there will be no other organization changes.
Amazon is on the verge of a major milestone, as it closes in on UPS and FedEx as the largest US delivery service.
Amazon may have started as an online book sales platform, but it has grown far beyond its origins. The company is now the largest e-commerce platform, the largest cloud provider and will soon be the largest delivery service, according to CNBC.
While Amazon originally relied on other services to deliver its products, it has increasingly invested in its own service over the last few years. Dave Clark, Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Consumer, told CNBC that the company expects to become the biggest service in late 2021 or early 2022.
“We expect we will be one of the largest carriers in the world by the end of this year,” Clark told CNBC’s Becky Quick. “I think we’ll probably be the largest package delivery carrier in the U.S. by the time we get to the end of the year, if not in early ’22.”
“Consumers love our product because it represents purchasing power but also budgeting for them,” says Sezzle co-founder and CEO Charlie Youakim. “They feel safe with it just like they do with the debit card. We’re driving a new wedge into payments between credit and debit. I call it the creditization of a debit card. I think it’s here to say because of that safety element that we give to the consumer.”
Sezzle is generally focused on the ecomm space, that’s where we do most of our work. We are present on over 44,000 merchant websites. The Buy Now, Pay Later industry, in general, is typically focused on ecommerce. So as that push back into ecomm occurs (potentially due to increases in COVID causing more people to shop from home) we generally benefit from that.
We compete in this space by really focusing on our stakeholders, focusing on the merchants, focusing on the consumers, and doing the right thing by both of them. We really stand on the high road for the consumer. We are the only player in the space that focuses on credit building which is totally unique. We love it, our consumers love it and our merchant partners love it. By focusing on their needs, these consumers’ needs, and doing right by them and right by the merchants, you have a chance to do a really strong job within the sector.
Sezzle Pushing Into the Enterprise
With SMB’s we’ve been growing like wildfire. It just continues for us. That’s how we have that big count of merchants and we expect that to continue. We’re doing a great job there and the merchants love us. It’s viral in that space. For us now the push is into enterprise and in Target, Bass Pro Shops, those are two great examples of that for us. The reason we’re doing that is that our consumer wants to shop with us everywhere so we have to be everywhere. That means we have to be with SMB, we’ve got to be with mid-market, and we’ve got to be with enterprise.
That will be the push for Sezzle to continue to push in those spaces. If you look at the enterprise players in those spaces, what they want is they want a brand that they can believe in. That’s where you have Sezzle and our halo around doing right by the consumer helping them build their credit score up and being a partnerships player. That’s what really sets us apart.
Sezzle: The Creditization Of a Debit Card
The average order value per customer has been relatively stable. We’re around $100 per order. The only reason it’s been tracking a bit up for us is we’ve been expanding our services. We started with a pure ‘pay in four’ for over six weeks interest-free and so that’s where we tracked right around $100. But as we add long-term into the mix we’ve been starting to track upwards. The order values on a 12-month order or 12-month installment plan, tend to track towards $1,000. We feel it’s probably going to stay stable, it’s just going to be a mixed shift that creates any change for Sezzle.
We see from our consumers that they love our product because it represents purchasing power but also budgeting for them. They feel safe with it just like they do with the debit card. We’re driving a new wedge into payments between credit and debit. I call it the creditization of a debit card. I think it’s here to say because of that safety element that we give to the consumer.
Sezzle Is the Creditization Of a Debit Card, Says CEO Charlie Youakim
Patreon is working on a video platform to help creators break free of their reliance on YouTube, a move that could have a major impact on the market.
YouTube has long been the preferred video platform for content creators, although the relationship has not always been a rosy one. YouTube’s algorithms occasionally de-prioritizes content unfairly, and YouTube has de-monetized entire categories of videos.
Many creators have taken to using Patreon to supplement their income, receiving donations from patrons that enjoy their content. According to The Verge, Patreon CEO Jack Conte says the company is building a video platform that could completely replace YouTube for many creators.
“We already host podcasts, and now we’re starting to host video, as well,” he says. “We’re building a video product … So in terms of how we’ve approached our strategy, and what exactly it is that we’re building, we’re building the horizontal architecture for any creator, no matter their medium, or no matter the upload format, to be able to build a business around their work.”
A Patreon video platform could be a game-changer for the subscription economy, and could eventually put a serious dent in YouTube’s popularity.
YouTube is removing the visible dislike count in an effort to combat harassment of content creators.
Likes and dislikes are an important part of YouTube’s platform, playing a role in the algorithms that decide what content gets recommended. Dislikes can be problematic, however, as some creators find themselves on the receiving end of “dislike attacks,” where users try to drive up the number of dislikes, effectively tanking a video. Smaller channels are especially vulnerable to this behavior.
We also heard directly from smaller creators and those just getting started that they are unfairly targeted by this behavior — and our experiment confirmed that this does occur at a higher proportion on smaller channels.
To address the issues, YouTube says the dislike button will still be available for people to use, but the number of dislikes will no longer be publicly visible. The count will still be available privately for the content creator to see.
Based on what we learned, we’re making the dislike counts private across YouTube, but the dislike button is not going away. This change will start gradually rolling out today.
