Amazon's online stores revenue was down 2% year-over-year during the fourth quarter. Net product sales were also down. Not a good sign for the e-commerce industry
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Anna Hensel 
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And anyways, I've been thinking about that a lot this week and probably will in a lot of my coverage this year :/
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So for years my family has had a bit where whenever a big corporation does some similar good news for the company/bad news for the rank-and-file workers thing we yell “record profits!” and make like a cartoon trumpet noise 2/
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A family member worked at [redacted] corporation that — whenever they laid people off or said they couldn’t give raises — would shortly follow it up with an email being like “but great news everyone, we had record profits again!” 1/
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From mini pancake cereal to pink sauce, here's my story on how food brands are launching TikTok-inspired products 🥣
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I'm always curious to hear about how both retailers and e-commerce brands are rethinking marketing roles. Beyond rethinking the CMO role, what other marketing roles are you seeing companies prioritize (or deemphasize) right now?
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Over the weekend, I saw an explosion of IG ads promoting:
--"Archive" sales
--"We made too much" sales
--And of course one brand who ran a post like "shhh our investors don't want us to offer a sale but we decided to anyways" (I'm sure that's exactly what happened 🙄)
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Sales and steep discounts are lasting well into January as more brands look to offload excess inventory.
Story by @gabrielabarkho. buff.ly/3XGqgRO
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I know it's a tough time out there for job seekers -- Wanted to post this role that an acquaintance of mine is hiring for at CNN. Happy to answer any Qs, and if you are interested and have the relevant experience DM me
As someone who writes about a wide range of businesses — I would say that a company has raised $2.1 M is still a small business. But, to someone who isn’t plugged into the business world, they might see $2.1 M and think, that business is loaded! They’re not small anymore!
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This is but an aside in this (excellent!) story about why so many curated shops look the same, but I think an interesting dichotomy is how so many startup founders think of their companies as small businesses, but that’s not how many shoppers see it grubstreet.com/2023/01/why-ev
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This is how all great entrepreneurial stories start: you grow a business, get hundreds of million in funding, and still generate about the same amount of money as you did before you got the hundreds of million in funding
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scoop: new details on @bolt's finances as it lays off ~10% of staff. burn has decreased to ~$6m a month (down from ~$20m/month in q1 2022), but the company is only projecting $35-40m in 2023 revenue, which means it hasn't grown much since 2021 theinformation.com/articles/bolt-
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I spoke with a lot of smart people about what the fundraising environment is like for consumer startups right now. Basically, anything that’s not considered a slam dunk is taking longer to raise, to the detriment of a lot of founders. Please give it a read
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Yeah I think we’ll see a lot of other e-commerce brands realize that they can live without some software that was touted as a “must-have.” Enjoy their sponsored industry dinners while you can!
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We cut our SaaS expenses by over 50% and have reduced the number of SaaS vendors by 66% over the last 12 months for one our companies. Don’t see a negative impact in the business from these cuts. Everyone should check their SaaS expenses and make sure they are spending wisely.
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I'd like to start a resource thread for those impacted by layoffs below.
For anyone who needs help with their resume for free, find my Calendly here: calendly.com/kimeko-digiday
If anyone else can help, please chime in!
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You can still get your scoops, but you can also be a better human about it by like, remembering this is a traumatic time for people and letting that guide how you approach reporting and covering the news.
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Unfortunately, the job of journalists is often to approach people during some of the most stressful times in their life. It sucks, it's the part of the job I hate the most. I try to make it a little better by simply saying "I understand this is probably a shitty time for you" 3/
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It reminded me that layoffs are traumatic events, and it's something that all journalists should remember as they are reporting, tweeting ~analysis~ etc. while we are in a period of time where a lot of layoffs are happening and will continue to happen. 2/
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I recently worked on a story about startups that had shut down 8 months, where I asked people to recall what it was like when they got the layoff news. Even though the layoffs were months ago, some of my sources started crying when they were asked to recall what it was like 1/
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Inevitable that Wayfair would join the latest round of retailers announcing job cuts but...seems like a company that's been unprofitable for years (save for a few quarters) needs to cut more than 10% of staff?
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I’ll do it, I’ll be the next Stitch Fix CEO
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[Unconventional, but here goes...]
If you know someone who would be perfect for the $SFIX CEO opportunity, we are all ears. Looking for operating prowess, strong product instincts, & a strong cultural leader. Please send serious leads to: ideas@benchmark.com
[Please retweet]
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I'm back to work this week reporting on the ever-so-exciting retail industry. To kick off the new year, I wrote about the store closures happening among big-box retailers.
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If you haven't already, this is my reminder that you should read my story from earlier this week recounting the very chaotic week last March when both Fridge No More and Buy shut down, as told by the people who worked there
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It's good reminder that there are so many more interesting companies out there than you might recall in the moment! Also, a big reason why a lot of people said they liked these brands boil down to -- because the product just works well!
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I love these responses, I'll reply to them more in depth but keep 'em coming! I asked this Q because there's obviously some categories I don't have as much insight into because of my own purchasing habits. Also because ppl tend to reference the same 5 companies on Twitter 😅
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What’s an e-commerce/DTC startup that you’re really impressed by that you feel like doesn’t get talked about enough?
(Can’t name your own company/one you have invested in/one that’s a client of yours)
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If you are a founder of a small business that's experimented with TikTok ads, please get in touch with Vidhi!
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Looking to speak with small businesses/merchants that post TikTok content and run TikTok ads about their sales performance. Please drop me a line at vidhi@modernretail.co or reply 
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Looking to speak with small businesses/merchants that post TikTok content and run TikTok ads about their sales performance. Please drop me a line at vidhi@modernretail.co or reply 👇
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What’s an e-commerce/DTC startup that you’re really impressed by that you feel like doesn’t get talked about enough?
(Can’t name your own company/one you have invested in/one that’s a client of yours)
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~6 years ago I wrote about a company and shortly after the story went live, one of the co-founders left (didn't know for sure but I suspected things went sour with the other founders). Now, I just found out he's back at the company -- time is really a flat circle in startup land
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Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake is returning as CEO, and immediately announces plans to cut 20% of salaried jobs. Here's 's analysis of the news, and why things haven't been moving in the right direction for a while at the company
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We basically just did this same thing a year ago
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read image description
ALT
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You can't talk about 2022 without talking about 15-minute delivery, so I spoke with people about what it was like when Fridge No More and Buyk went under. But I think anyone with startup experience will relate to a lot of this -- please give it a read
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You can't talk about 2022 without talking about 15-minute delivery, so I spoke with people about what it was like when Fridge No More and Buyk went under. But I think anyone with startup experience will relate to a lot of this -- please give it a read
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Thinking of everyone who had an awful year but kept going — you have the most to be proud of
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I'm happy to be home with my family, but also I don't know why we put up with making the busiest, most expensive month for the travel the same one as the worst month for weather.
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I went back to Minnesota for three days and haven't gone outside for any of it because it's been so cold :(
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My favorite thing we do all year -- presenting the annual Modern Retail Dictionary, where Modern Retail editors and reporters tally up our least favorite buzzwords (and some other hot topics), accompanied with what we actually think when we hear them
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The reviews are in — I’m thankful for my friends who don’t follow retail and could care less about my job for still supporting me on here haha
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This is the fourth year we've done this. I'm regretting that we didn't entitle last year's edition "Modern Retail Dictionary: Tokyo Drift" but oh well, you can't win them all
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My favorite thing we do all year -- presenting the annual Modern Retail Dictionary, where Modern Retail editors and reporters tally up our least favorite buzzwords (and some other hot topics), accompanied with what we actually think when we hear them
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