This is issue no. 139 of 180. The last issue had a 😐 39.02% open rate with 5.57% of you going to this article on theSkimm, a startup that I believe will have a profound effect on media curation and influencer eCommerce.
ECOMMERCE: Trunk Club has been counted as one of the bigger eCommerce winners of late, as it managed its exit via a $350 million acquisition by Nordstrom. Since launch, the program has expanded to cover women’s clothing and accessories. But since that high-profile purchase, Trunk Club has yet to turn a profit for its new parent (it is the one unit of Nordsrom that has not), according to reports in Chicago Business Journal, and apparently, its tolerance for the service as a loss leader has run out.
ECOMMERCE: According to the second annual State of Amazon study by BloomReach, reported by Graham Charlton, Editor in Chief at ClickZ Global, Amazon is involved in most online activities, with 90% of customers checking the retailer even if they find the product they want on another ecommerce site. Charlton continues, noting that “ the survey of 2,000 US consumers found that more and more people are hitting the Amazon website first… its share of this action up 11% year on year… down for search engines and other retailers…”
DATA: Accessories included a small black handbag that was effectively a plastic robot with blinking square eyes. Chanel, which is privately owned, traditionally organizes some of the most striking shows during Paris Fashion Week. The events help the brand preserve its image which is crucial for retaining customers and wooing new ones. According to figures filed with the Amsterdam exchange, the French luxury goods maker was hit hard by the luxury spending slump last year.
BRAND: Hariston said Tackma makes clothes for those that want to be a part of their movement of self expression, not a specific criteria of people. “The brand is designed to be for everybody,” he said. “When it comes to style, some things might appeal more to some, but we really try to make things everyone can enjoy.” Tackma takes pride in using top quality materials for its brand, down to the zippers and buttons, Hairston said. A T-shirt costs $40, while hats are $65 on average.
BRAND: Fashion labels have fallen a little out of, well, fashion. That’s according to Interbrand’s 17th annual survey of corporate names, which ranks the world’s 100 most prestigious brands. A slowdown in demand for fashion -- particularly from China -- hammered those brands in this year’s list. Prada SpA dropped to 81st place from 69th, and Ralph Lauren Corp. declined to 98th from 91st. Hugo Boss AG fell out of the top 100 altogether. Exclusive insights in your inbox, from our technology reporters around the world.
RETAIL: Sears could burn through at least $1.5 billion annually, estimates Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Noel Hebert. Plus, it faces continued debt maturities of at least $500 million over the next three years, according to Hebert. To generate enough cash to keep the business going, a trio of private-label brands -- Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, and DieHard batteries -- as well as Sears' auto centers and home-services businesses are next on the chopping block.
MEDIA: Though its fate is in flux, one thing is clear: A year after he officially took back the reins as CEO, Jack Dorsey has either ceded or lost at least some control over the future of the company he helped create. On the board, he may be overruled by fellow directors on the future of Twitter as an independent company. Within his management team, he’s largely delegated command of Twitter’s strategy to chief financial officer Anthony Noto.
ECOMMERCE: The integration, available to Shopify merchants in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, makes product catalogs and pricing available inside Messenger. It also lets shoppers complete purchases inside the app. People chatting with Shopify merchant bots can browse through store catalogs and pricing by tapping through suggested replies inside a Messenger conversation. To make a purchase, they need only click “buy now” to view a checkout form with an assortment of payment options.
MEDIA: After creating a prototype, the guys (they are almost always men) enter start-up boot camps like Y Combinator, recruit a group of early investors, and perhaps launch a Kickstarter with a slick video. If the initial plan succeeds, the founders go into heedless expansion mode, which usually means selling off huge chunks of their company in exchange for gobs of money from venture capitalists. Then, after a few years, if all goes according to plan, they hit the big time — an initial public offering and a chance to be the next face of the future.
MEDIA: In recent weeks, it's become clear that a similar mindset has fully taken hold among the social media platforms themselves. Snapchat is now a "camera company," accented by its recent announcement of its video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles. The Venice, Calif.-based company, now known as Snap Inc., has been trying to shed the "social" tag in recent months when meeting with the press. Twitter COO Adam Bain last week mentioned at Advertising Week that his company recently moved its mobile app listing in Apple's App Store from the social section to news.
INNOVATION: Yesterday’s announcements from Google seem designed to take on the company’s challenges in an assistant-centric world head-on. For good reason the presentation opened with the Google Assistant itself: pure technology has always been the foundation of Google’s power in the marketplace. Today’s world, though, is not one of (somewhat) standards-based browsers that treat every web page the same, creating the conditions for Google’s superior technology to become the door to the Internet.
ECOMMERCE: While some product category sales fell for e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc., others surged this month, according to a new report from One Click Retail, an e-commerce vendor that tracks pricing on Amazon.com 12 times per day across millions of items. One Click Retail tracked the top five categories by month-over-month dollar sales growth on Amazon for September. The vendor tracked items sold directly from Amazon and those sold by outside merchants via the marketplace. Below are the rankings.
Chart of The Week: Amazon's Apparel Dominance Grows