TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #020

TaskHusky Advice on China, Forget “The Bachelorette,” Cute Puppies, and more.

May 14, 2019

Hello there -

The NBA Finals are in full swing, but the Detroit Pistons fished with a 50/50 record – so they made it to the playoffs – but were eliminated in the first round four-zero. So, the finals are going on and it means that the champions will be the Golden State Doo-Doo-Heads, the Milwaukee What-Evers, or the Name Your Town Who-Cares. If your team is still in the running, I wish you nothing but luck. I'm going to be pouting for a few weeks.

Here are this week’s top stories.

1. So, What’s Going On With China

There’s no article to link to here. I just wanted to share a few words on China. Look … it really doesn’t matter what you think about the current administration in the US. China is getting the living crap kicked out of it. First, they

. Now, they find that they are in a trade war with the US – their biggest customer. Again, politics is irrelevant here. If you EVER find that you are in a war/conflict/disagreement with your biggest customer in any business relationship, anywhere in the world … ever … you are going to lose. We are not telling you how to run your business – we are here to help you implement and execute on the things that you want and believe you should do to help your business. But we believe that you should hedge your bets on this one. If you source everything from China, take this into consideration.

2. Forget “The Bachelorette” – Microsoft and Shopify

OK … I want you to read this article, but I don’t want you to believe anything in it. I want you to read between the lines. The way I see it, Microsoft is in a dance with Shopify. And if Shopify plays too hard to get or too difficult to work with, Microsoft will do their own thing. Either way, this is a brewing potential eCommerce romance more exciting than the current season of the Bachelorette.

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3. Shopify is Driving the Market – Adobe & Shopify

Shopify is living rent-free in every other tech company's head. If you are a regular reader on this email – and why would you not be – then you know that we’ve been following last year’s acquisition by Adobe of Magento. Well, Adobe/Magento is following Shopify’s lead by adding sales support for Amazon and Google. Sure, they’re still two years behind Shopify, but let them feel good about themselves for a few minutes with their second-place trophy.

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4. Goliath is Beatable

So, here’s the deal. Whenever we hear someone talk about super-big-company this or giant-mega-corp that is going to dominate the world … well, we’re always skeptical. If the free market is kept fair, monopolies have a REALLY tough time staying on top. Case in point … Wal-Mart is shutting down eCommerce operations in Brazil.

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5. Crazy eCommerce Story of the Week – Screw It, Let’s Look at Puppies

I gotta admit … the weird stuff people sell online is crazy interesting to me. Normally, I like to share the weirdest/craziest/oddest stuff for sale online. But this week, literally all the crazy stuff for sale was either wet taxidermy samples or Nazi memorabilia – not metaphorical “I-disagree-with-you-so-I call-you-a-Nazi” stuff … literally WWII Nazi stuff. So, here are pictures of cute puppies on Twitter.

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You know what? I’m pretty good at all this weekly-email stuff. And you know what else? It would be a complete share if all this goodness-wasn’t shared with all of the worth-while people of the earth. Therefore, you have a moral obligation to share it with everyone on the earth.

Or something like that. Talk to you next week.

Happy Selling,

Zachary