From grocery stores to fast food drive-throughs, today’s consumers pay a lot more for food than they did just a little while ago. In the years following the pandemic, food and beverage companies steadily increased prices to compensate for soaring commodity and labor costs and to please investors looking to boost profit margins. For example, the average price for a bag of potato chips in June 2020 was $5.09. These days, though, that same bag of chips goes for Continue reading
Consumers across the world have different tastes and preferences when it comes to food. For instance, a dish that people think is mild in one place might be considered extremely spicy in another part of the world. As the global economy pushes products across national and cultural lines, many businesses have come to discover the potential difficulties of selling food to customers in unfamiliar markets. In fact, an instant ramen company in South Korea learned this lesson the hard way Continue reading
When Apple releases a new iPad, the company tends to spend big on a slick commercial that shows off the device’s new features. Product launches like these can garner lots of attention from both consumers and tech media, which hopefully then turns into sales for Apple. This time around, though, the tech giant’s latest iPad ad started trending on social media for all the wrong reasons. The spot centers on a trash compactor-like machine that crushes an array of creative Continue reading
The fashion company Zara became a multi-billion dollar force in the industry thanks to its unique ability to churn out stylish clothing at low prices. Of course, critics of the Spanish firm would not likely call its business model “unique”: Zara has long been accused of ripping off its designs from luxury fashion houses. Those days might be in the past, however, as the company looks to reinvent itself as a high-end brand working with some of the world’s top Continue reading
A few weeks ago, we examined TikTok’s uncanny ability to provide entrepreneurs with major marketing opportunities at the expense of brand control. The potential downsides of the latter became clear last week when President Biden signed a bill into law that could ban the social network in the U.S. Under the provisions of the bill, which passed both the House and Senate with considerable support, TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has 270 days to sell the app to an American Continue reading
On the morning of March 26th, the Dali, an enormous container ship, crashed into one of the supporting structures of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed soon after. This tragic incident killed six workers on site and caused at least one major injury, along with an economic impact that spans the globe. The Port of Baltimore must remain closed for a few more weeks while the wreckage is cleared, which will require at least seven container ships and hundreds Continue reading
In 2016, the e-commerce giant Amazon began opening brick and mortar grocery stores called Amazon Fresh. Some of these locations came equipped with a much touted technological feature: “Just Walk Out” checkouts, where customers would simply stroll through the exit without consulting a cashier. The idea was that a customer logged in to their Amazon account before shopping, gathered their items, and then a sophisticated process driven by artificial intelligence would quickly ring up everything.
But as it turns out, Continue reading
Credit card firms provide both consumers and businesses with a convenient way to handle payments that eliminates the need to deal with large amounts of cash all the time. Still, this service doesn’t come for free: not only can customers rack up large amounts of interest on their credit card bills, companies also must pay a fee for every transaction they make. These “swipe fees” can add up quickly. Last year alone, U.S. merchants paid $101 billion in swipe fees Continue reading