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May 25 2017

No. 201: Oddly, the Bateman brand persists. 🔪

This is issue no. 220. The last issue had a 48.92% open rate with a 8.76% learning the three trends disrupting eCommerce in 2017. Uh oh, introducing Lyft Lux. And Shopify launched eCommerce channel for video gamers.

If you want to better understand the state of video in 2017, consider the Mizzen+Main ad: Youtube (11,800+ views in 52 hours) and Facebook (300,000+ views in 52 hours). Zuck reigns Presidential.

Next issue (No. 221): I will be unpacking my ten lessons discussed by Stefan Pepe, Ryan Slyper, Jared Blank, and myself at the Bluecore Panel on "The Amazon Effect." If you were there, leave me a note via email on what most stood out to you. Everyone else, you'll want to read them! - @web

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Today's Top Intelligence (14 Reads)
Amid Brick-and-Mortar Travails, a Tipping Point for Amazon in Apparel
Apparel has been something of an eCommerce laggard. In years gone by, buying clothing over the internet was only for the fearless, with most shoppers unwilling to take the risk that a dress or a pair of shoes would fit poorly or look terrible on them.
Laggard
The Takeaway: Google Assistant, the search giant’s answer to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, will make money from e-commerce, according to Google ads chief Sridhar Ramaswamy. The revenue model for Google’s AI service, which lives on devices like Home and smartphones like Pixel, had remained unclear until now.
The Takeaway: Mr Porter is hardly alone in using Bateman as a figure to learn from and copy. Frankly, the number of articles endorsing Bateman’s way of life while casually pushing the bad stuff under the rug is axe-wielding-maniac scary. “Why Modern Men Can Identify With Patrick Bateman,” from The Telegraph in late 2013, goes so far as to suggest that it’s “unclear” whether or not the American Psycho protagonist is a hero or anti-hero. Have to say, it feels pretty explicit.
The Takeaway: In CRM’s shadow VRM, or vendor relationship management, arose but it never got traction. VRM innovators tended to come from academia and their idea of proving the concept involved writing grant proposals rather than raising venture capital. So VRM hasn’t progressed much but surprisingly, CRM for the B2C sector, what we can now safely call eCommerce, has done surprisingly well in supporting customers, especially in the most recent past.
The Takeaway: "We believe that digital and e-commerce is going to transform [the food] industry," said Mark Alexander, President of Campbell Americas Simple Meals and Beverages, in an interview with Fortune. That migration in spending has already occurred in many other consumer product categories, like books, electronics, and apparel. Food executives say their industry is next, as millions of consumers buy food through online grocery delivery and meal kit services, channels that lean on a direct-to-consumer model that cuts out brick-and-mortar stores.
The Takeaway: The platform is incentivizing brands and media buyers, offering bonuses, discount coupons and media credits for ad buys carried out in the second quarter of 2017, said multiple agency executives whom Digiday interviewed. The nature of the incentives, and their value, vary from one media agency to another. Agency execs reported the offers started last week and multiple buyers said the offers extend to mid-June, which happens to be when Snap’s second quarter starts to wrap up.
The Takeaway: The social media giant has signed deals with Condé Nast, Mashable and Refinery29 to produce original and exclusive video shows, according to sources. These companies join a list that includes BuzzFeed, Vox Media, Attn and Group Nine Media, according to a Reuters report from yesterday. If this list reads familiar, it’s because many of these companies are also being paid by Facebook to produce live and on-demand video for the news feed every month.
The Takeaway: Modern brands understand they must strive to relate to their audiences authentically and purposefully– which is especially true for the luxury market. While the luxury brands of yesteryear were built on images of unattainable wealth, today those who succeed invite the consumer to authentically participate with their brand’s values and principles. 
The Takeaway: Now, competitors with high-tech, data-driven supply chains can copy styles faster and move them into stores in a matter of weeks. Online marketplaces drive down prices, and design details such as nicer buttons and richer colors are less apparent on the internet. Social media adds fuel to the style churn—consumers want a new outfit for every Instagram post.
The Takeaway: Its standard app is already supported in more than 120,000 retail stores in 70 overseas markets via local partners, including the United States, but transactions are executed in yuan. As many as 8,000 retailers in Hong Kong already accept Alipay's yuan-based app, and the new app will soon extend to them, said Alipay Hong Kong's general manager, Venetia Lee.
The Takeaway: Opendoor fits that mold. Its plan is precarious: It faces rising competition, high operating costs and — because we are talking about the market that caused the global financial crisis — the possibility of an unforeseen blowup. But if it works, Opendoor could be transformative; by making buying and selling houses as easy as buying and selling cars, it might thoroughly alter the American economy and change how we think of homeownership.
The Takeaway: Recognizing specific categories that drive growth will help retailers and manufacturers better plan in-store and online assortment. For example, e-commerce drove more than 10% of sales last year for the beauty and personal care categories, while comparable in-store sales growth was minimal (0.6% for beauty and 1.3% for personal care). The pet care category is also performing strongly online, with e-commerce driving 16% of sales in 2016 and accounting for more than 80% of the category’s overall sales growth.
The Takeaway: Technically, he runs marketing and retail while Gilboa oversees technology and finance, but it's hard to overstate how collaborative their style is. Their desks are adjacent, and they often speak in tandem, one of them beginning and the other jumping in to supplement. Right now, for instance. "It's like when Jeff Bezos says you'd be irresponsible not to use Amazon Prime," Gilboa offers. "We're trying to change behavior around a medical product, so the value has to be that strong."
Amazon's Custom Clothing Patent
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