For most people, the Halloween season is about creepy costumes and candy rather than shopping. But even though the retail sales of All Hallow’s Eve can’t compare to the December holidays, Americans still manage to spend a scary sum of money at the end of October. The National Retail Federation estimates that this year consumers will spend as much as $8.4 billion preparing for Halloween, amounting to an average of $82.93 per shopper.
Costumes account for $3.1 billion of this Continue reading
Israeli entrepreneur Yekutiel Sherman had a great idea for a product: a selfie stick that folded seamlessly into the back of a smartphone’s case. He spent a year carefully designing his idea, producing prototypes and securing small investments from family and friends. By December 2015 Sherman launched a Kickstarter campaign in order to finish funding the item, now called Stikbox. But while the project immediately attracted investors, his popular crowdfunding campaign also caught the attention of Chinese bootleg manufacturers. Within Continue reading
For those who have spent years ordering items from online retailers like Amazon, setting foot inside a store can sometimes seem like taking a trip back in time. But while the shift away from brick-and-mortar locations has utterly changed industries like music and clothing, grocery stores have remained largely the same since the dawn of the digital revolution. After all, most people still prefer to examine food in person before they buy it.
But that hasn’t stopped a collection Continue reading
In recent years Hollywood has watched its dominance over entertainment decline as new forms of media like streaming video become more and more popular. As a result, today’s movie studios don’t take many risks when they’re planning the next crop of summer blockbusters. That’s why remakes and sequels appear so often now in multiplexes: Hollywood hopes that the public’s previous knowledge will encourage them to buy tickets to familiar franchises.
This plan didn’t exactly work in the summer of 2016, Continue reading
As the Internet’s popularity began to rise in the late 1990s, the music industry had just enjoyed some of their best years to date. Annual sales soared over $14 billion at its peak, driven by an enormous demand for CDs that appeared to be insatiable. After 1999, however, consumer interest shifted online where users could download any song they wanted for free. While the Recording Industry Association of America tried in vain to stop illegal file trading, the practice only Continue reading
The family-owned berry grower Driscoll’s is looking to become more of a household name. With new packaging and a retooled online presence, the company wants to let the U.S. know why their berries are unique. “You have to find a way to say this strawberry is different from that strawberry, which isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do,” said executive vice president Soren Bjorn. “But our strawberries actually are different — no one else grows the strawberries we grow.” Along Continue reading
For Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, establishing a clear narrative around a startup’s foundation and purpose is essential to success. Few people understood this concept better than Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of the formerly acclaimed blood-testing firm Theranos. She founded her company in 2003 at the age of 19 after dropping out of Stanford University’s School of Chemical Engineering. Holmes left college early because she claimed to discover a revolutionary new method for medical testing: rather than drawing a significant amount of blood Continue reading
Almost 95 percent of all manufactured goods arrive at their destinations in shipping containers. These freight boxes often begin their journeys aboard enormous cargo ships that transport items around the globe. Normally this process is simple enough: a ship pays a docking fee upon arrival along with additional charges for unloading and container storage. In the case of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Company, however, this common process has been halted. After filing for bankruptcy protection last week, ports across the Continue reading
Last week we shared a video about how food companies label some items as “natural” even though they’re no healthier than their non-natural counterparts. While that term may soon come under regulation, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently banned another marketing buzzword from use on commercial products. As of last Friday, “antibacterial” soaps are no longer allowed on U.S. store shelves after manufacturers failed to prove they were safer or cleaner than regular products.
“Consumers may think antibacterial washes Continue reading