TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #021

Amazon is Murdering Alexa, Jack Ma of Alibaba Knows Nothing, (ahem) Get Ahold of Jingdong, and more.

May 21, 2019

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Hello my fellow eCommerce hooligans!

It’s time once again to shake loose the bounds of normal marketing and business-y stuff and enjoy another TaskHusky email together as one family of non-conformist entrepreneurs.

Here are this week’s top stories.

1. Just another way that Amazon is destroying all of our lives.

OK, so there are … maybe … two hundred girls named “Cortana” right now. I looked it up. And there may be some girls named “Siri,” but they are few and far between. So Microsoft and Apple did marginal damage when they named their digital assistants. But Amazon, on the other hand … well, there are a ba-gillion girls named “Alexa.” Heck, one of Christie Brinkley’s daughters is one of them. In fact, in 2015 more than six thousand kids in the US alone got the name Alexa, but the number’s dropping fast. And who can blame them, right? I mean, just imagine that you’re “that” kid and every night you hear the joker next door shout, “Alexa, turn off the lights,” or “Alexa, what is the capital of Delaware?” Gosh darn, that would totally suck, right?

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2. Monkey Around With Marketing

If you’re reading this email, you’re probably using Shopify for your eCommerce platform. And – if you’re like most of us – you are feeling the pain of the heart-rending breakup of Shopify and MailChimp. Those two star-crossed lovers of the digital world are in a squabble and the two platforms no longer play nice with each other. First of all, if you need help, we can either get you a work-around to continue-using MailChimp on Shopify or get a new solution installed for you … so let us know. But MailChimp is not standing still in the turmoil. They are launching a new marketing platform. And we think it’s worth keeping up on.

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3. NEWS FLASH – eCommerce Works, Film at 11!

Looks like our segment of the economy is on freak’in fire! The US government is reporting that overall eCommerce sales in the US jumped 12.4% in Q1. Of course, if you’ve watched any of the recent Congressional hearings, you might have lost all faith in government altogether. But still, if they are even half-right, this time it’s good news. Heck, that’s almost $138 billion – which is a LOT of money … unless you’re Jeff Bezos, in which case it’s the amount of your divorce settlement.

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4. The Founder of Alibaba is a Know-Nothing … He Said So Himself

Normally I like to poke rich eCommerce billionaires in the eye and call them names like “big doo-doo head!” But the founder of Alibaba actually said something I like a lot. At the recent VIVA Tech conference in Paris, Jack Ma said:

“I know nothing about technology, I know nothing about marketing, I know nothing about [the legal] stuff. I only know about people. Everything we do as a founder: Make your customer happy. Get your team. Make your team happy. And you will be happy.”

So, I guess that those rich muckety-mucks are right … sometimes.

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5. Jingdong Sounds Like the Punchline to a Dirty Joke

We all know that Amazon is the Mack-Daddy of eCommerce. But do you know who #2 is? It’s NOT Alibaba … it’s another eCommerce site from China called Jingdong … and I have to tell you, the joke possibilities are ENDLESS! But hey … with a name like Jingdong, it’s GOT to be good!

Anyway … this little article lists the top eight eCommerce sites in the world and there are some interesting tidbits if you can stop giggling while you read it (I couldn’t).

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Well, it looks like we’ve come to the end of another incredible email from us … your friends at TaskHusky. I could try to use reverse psychology on you and tell you to NOT share it, but then you would feel guilty and sad. Just be happy and share.

Happy Selling,

Zachary