Rishi Taparia - Issue #69
Thanksgiving week brings a few more random tidbits than normal! This week we look at Black Friday sales, the resilience of Costco, Amazon looking to move Pay offline, Tencent looking to grow non-gaming revenue, robot caregivers, what worries Americans and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
Black Friday Sees Record-Breaking $6.2 Billion in Sales
Some Black Friday statistics for you:
6.2B in online sales
23% jump from a yr ago
2.1B done on smartphone
49% traffic from smartphones
43% traffic from desktop
Record $2B in spend from smartphone
$7.8B predicted in online sales for CyberMonday
Casper Co-Founder Predicts the Death of (Bad) Retail
Philip Krim, CEO of Casper, the online mattress seller, on how we’ll shop in the coming decades and why we’ll brag about early bedtimes. A lot of good insights here, with a tremendous amount of clarity around the Casper customer and how they will shop in the future.
The Resilience of Costco
A well-researched presentation on Costco, its position in the market and how it is predicted to fare against the likes of Amazon.
FinTech
Amazon Pay Accepted Here? Web Giant Aims to Put Digital Wallet in Stores
Add another Pay to the mix, this time Amazon Pay. The e-commerce giant is working to persuade brick-and-mortar merchants to accept its Amazon Pay digital wallet, according to people familiar with the matter, looking to bring their online payment method offline. An important data point to add to their user profiles to be sure, but I wonder if it’s too little too late for yet another payment type. Apple Pay and Google Pay are still limited in their usage, and that’s with terminals converting over to accept NFC. Why someone would use Amazon Pay in store remains to be seen. I personally think Amazon will have better luck capturing the data with their credit card - 5% cash back on all Amazon.com and Whole Foods purchases alone is a good reason to get it!
Ezetap's Bobby Bose to be Whatsapp India head
WhatsApp just snagged a top executive as its first non-US based country head and guess what - he just so happens to come from payments. WhatsApp pulled Abhijit (Bobby) Bose out of the company he co-founded, Ezetap, to lead the messaging giant and payments hopeful in one of their arguably most important markets. Bose’s payments connections and reputation is sure to bolster the company’s efforts to go deeper into the payments space - a big get for the social networking giant.
Tencent’s WeChat testing money market fund and score system in bid to catch up with Alipay
Tencent has never been bashful: they are, above all, a gaming company. However, recent government relations issues have caused the company to question the strategy. Now the company seeks to expand its payment services to help diversify business in the face of uncertainties in gaming segment.
Technology
Meet Zora, the Robot Caregiver
The number of people over 60 will more than double to 2.1 billion by 2050. In the United States, about 10,000 people turn 65 each day, with one in five Americans will be 65 or older by 2030. By 2035, Americans of retirement age will eclipse the number of people aged 18 and under for the first time in U.S. history. Proper care for the elderly is going be of increasing need, and there currently exists a massive shortage in care workers. Welcome Zora. It may not look like much — more cute toy than futuristic marvel — but this robot is at the center of an experiment in France to change care for elderly patients.
Wanted: The ‘perfect babysitter.’ Must pass AI scan for respect and attitude.
Speaking of care, childcare is big business. You will want to do everything you can to vet the person you are trusting your child with someone. What about a social media personality test? A start-up that requires prospective babysitters to hand over their social media accounts says it uses “advanced artificial intelligence” to assess a sitter’s risk of drug abuse, bullying and more.
Random Tidbits
The Industrial Revolution was the most important event in history
Almost all the gains in human well-being in history happened since the Industrial Revolution. An amazing chart.
30 Years of American Anxieties
A unique look at what worries America through the eyes of Dear Abby. The Pudding partnered with IBM Watson and took over 20,000 letters to the columnist written over a period of 30 years to see what has captured the attention and worry of Americans over the decades. Syndicated in more than 1,200 newspapers at the height of its popularity, it offers an unprecedented look at the landscape of worries that dominate US life. A fun and interactive article. Oh, and if you’re wondering what emerged as some of the hot topics: sex, religion, LGBTQ issues, conduct at work, fairness, cheating and death.
Young People Are Having Less Sex
A long but fascinating read on the ‘sex recession’ - why people, both young and old, are having less sex.
Your Brain Is Wired to Suck the Joy Out of Good News
Happiness, just like everything else, has a half life.
Eventually, everyone goes back to baseline. One study found that the initial excitement of marriage tends to wear off after two years; another suggests that the honeymoon period in a new job lasts a year, on average. Even smaller pleasures — a slice of cake, a new hobby, a day off work, a different hairstyle — may feel more fleeting than we’d like. And once the magic wears off, we’re left to pursue the next thing for the same result. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as “hedonic adaptation,” or, sometimes, the “hedonic treadmill.”
Quote I’m thinking about: “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.” - J.K. Rowling