Bowing to pressure from investors, Pitney Bowes has replaced longtime CEO Marc Lautenbach, who is also leaving the board of directors, while a company statement on the news points to the likelihood of a pending sale of the money-losing global ecommerce unit, which investors have also called for. The board named EVP and Group President Jason Dies as interim CEO.
While generative AI is unquestionably a transformative technology being applied virtually everywhere, companies would do well to consider their potential for sharing sensitive personal information that could cause them to run afoul of privacy regulations both here and abroad. A cautious approach and careful attention to things like the structuring of contract agreements is advised, experts said.
The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general filed a long-expected antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, with the FTC accusing the company of monopolistic behavior on a broad scale and suggesting a breakup as one form of injunctive relief. The company used its market power to block competition, inflate prices and degrade product quality, the FTC alleges.
Retail cyber threats are numerous, from altering gift cards to deceiving self-checkout systems through swapping barcodes. It moves on to hijacking customers’ accounts and stealing their personal information, to digital skimming to steal credit card numbers. Here are five different ways retail cyber threats can impact your business, and some tools you can use to combat them.
Stitch Fix, the algorithm-driven, stylist-focused purveyor of subscription apparel, saw revenue drop 21%, a 13% decline in active clients and a 9% dip in revenue per client in 2023. But new CEO Matt Baer, a former Macy’s executive, sees a pivot leading to growth after a painful restructuring. The company is shutting down two of its five fulfillment centers to right-size operations and inventory.
Amazon Prime Day 2, this time dubbed Big Deal Days, is now set for Oct. 10-11, the company announced, with the fall version now appearing to be a locked-in flash sale event catering to bargain-seeking shoppers who seemingly can’t get enough during the July extravaganza. Target and Walmart, not wanting to be left out, have competing events that coincide or run ahead of Amazon.
Some major Pitney Bowes investors unhappy with its financial results are renewing calls for the company to sell off its money-losing global ecommerce business and get rid of CEO Marc Lautenbach, with one estimating a $1 billion valuation for the unit and possible interest from heavyweights like Amazon and Walmart. Short of that, another bruising proxy fight could be in the cards for next year.
Amazon aggregators, companies using massive capital to acquire and roll up top sellers to gain economies of scale, continue to fall on hard times as market forces have squeezed the model and forced them to shift their focus from an arms race to a profitable growth trajectory. They now look to grow existing brands and launch new products, only sparingly doing new acquisitions, an expert says.
Ecommerce experts don’t need more data or better analytics; they need a way to rapidly translate data into actionable insights. They need to understand how their products perform relative to the market. This entails evaluating multiple competitors across various marketplaces and categories. They need to move beyond sales to achieve objective measures of success and overall company growth.
In an unusual move, Amazon and Shopify have formed a partnership that lets Shopify merchants integrate Buy With Prime at checkout through an Amazon app in Shopify’s store, with the latter quick to note that merchants still control their brand and customer data within its administrative dashboard. The app will be available to all U.S. merchants in September.