TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #014

March Madness, Snarky Marky Zuckerberg Privacy Issues, Why eCommerce Businesses Fail, and more.

April 02, 2019

Heya -

Do you follow college basketball? It’s filled with clever phrases like “Sweet Sixteen,” “Elite Eight,” and “Final Four.” Of course, this is all a part of “March Madness” – the annual NCAA tournament. As CEO of the TaskHusky Empire of Awesomeness, I have always been a fan of Michigan State. In almost every photo and video I shoot, you’ll see me wearing my green Michigan State Trojans hat loud and proud.

Anyway … it has nothing to do with eCommerce, but Michigan State just beat Duke to enter the “Final Four” and I’m feeling downright giddy. I woke up this morning humming “We Are the Champions.”

Here are this week’s top stories.

1. Mark Zuckerberg Can’t Say “Privacy” Without Snickering Like Dr. Evil

First, a free word of advice for Mark Zuckerberg.

Stop appearing in public.

Seriously … you give off a creepy vibe, dude. And given your less-than-stellar history of data privacy, now that you are allowing people to purchase products directly through Instagram, you’re going to need people to trust you with their credit card info. So, um … just keep your snarky face off of camera for a while.

If you weren’t paying attention, Instagram launched its pilot in-app eCommerce service in March with 23 big-time vendors. And yes, trust will be an issue.

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2. A Statistical Analysis of Why eCommerce Businesses Fail

OK, this is interesting. These guys put together a brief article and infographic-like design to list their reasons that eCommerce businesses don’t succeed. Not bad, IMHO. But our list for Lead the Pack is a bit better and has real-world examples you can review.

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3. Yes, Content Still Matters

We believe it, we preach it, and we live it. Content matters – not “just” for SEO, but for customer loyalty, conversions, and more. We're always happy to post links to people who recognize our personal brilliance and agree with us. So here goes.

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4. OK, What the Heck Is BestBuy Up To?

Some of us have been predicting the demise if BestBuy for nearly a decade. The intense competition amongst big-box retailers and eCommerce have put dozens of major corporations into the ground. But BestBuy has been holding on. And then, just last October, they purchased GreatCall for US $738 million. GreatCall does cell phones and – importantly – mobile health services and tech for the home healthcare market. On their recent shareholder and analyst conference call, they hinted at a major shift in their marketing strategy … and we’re interested.

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5. A Tale of Fine Young Amazon Cannibals

We’ve heard the story a thousand times. Selling on Amazon (lower margins) eats away at the merchant’s sales on his own website (higher margins) while Jeff Bezos purchases another girlfriend. It can feel like a Catch 22. But these guys think that there are some things you can do about it. And we think that it is worth reading.

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Wow … them there’s some good article curation, don’t you think? And I was able to find all that great info while Michigan State was beating Duke … apparently, I’m quite the multi-tasker.

You should take advantage of all this good stuff and

share it so that you can be a winner too.

Happy Selling,

Zachary