TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #025

Wuz'up -

The Midwest has three seasons: Winter, Summer, and Road Construction. You know it’s Summer here when you hear the dulcet tones of citizens shouting, “Dang mosquitos!” It’s mid-June, and that means mosquitos have officially arrived. I definitely don’t want hepatitis or Ebola, so I ordered some of those little citronella candles for the outside deck.

Either I get to enjoy a little alfresco dining, or I start bleeding out my eyes. I’ll let you know how it goes.

But that brings us to our first story of the week:

1. Amazon Deploys 1-Day Delivery

Those citronella candles I ordered? They arrived the next morning. Now, we’ve told ALL our customers that you don’t have to have the fastest shipping (or pricing) for your eCommerce products. You just have to be competitive. But if you are selling me a 72-pack of commodity candles without differentiation and mosquitos are eating your customer alive, then speed may be an issue. It was announced on June 3

that Amazon was implementing next-day shipping on a bunch of commodity items. There’s more to this story, but start here first.

Read about Amazon’s “Day One” Initiative here

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2. Target targets Amazon with New Shipping target

Don’t let Jeff “droopy-pants” Bezos scare you. He’s the one who’s scared. He set out to kill-off the big box behemoths by selling all those commodity items. But … turns out the behemoths have something to say about it. First, Walmart gets all up in his biz-ness. Then – ten days after Amazon launched their “Day One” thing – Target says,

“Oh yea?

Well

you ain’t got nothing on us home-slice! You got Day One, but let’s see you beat Day Zero, bivouacs!”

At least that’s what it sounded like to me because I don’t have a dirty mind like you do. And by that they mean they have announced SAME DAY delivery.

Next thing you know they’ll deliver stuff before you order it. Bezos will gaze into your video doorbell all creepy-stalker-like and say, “Trust me, Alexa says that you would have ordered this bulk pack of adult undergarments tomorrow anyway, so go ahead an open the door.”

And yes, you can read about that here

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3. PayPal Tests International Shipping

OK, this is interesting. PayPal has launched an international shipping service for merchants delivering products FROM Canada TO the US. And while that seems like an oddly limited service, what it looks like to us is a BETA test of a needed shipping service.

It makes a ton of sense too. PayPal is expert at currency conversions and getting money across international borders. In fact, they may be the best at it. We wish them success.

Read about it on Cision

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4. FedEx Needs a Dollar, Dollar, a Dollar is What They Need

Let me first extend my profound apologies to Aloe Black for this headline. Go listen, it’s a good song.

Any-who … FedEx has signed on with Dollar General to act as item return/drop-off locations as they compete with UPS and snail-mail for delivery market share. The reality here is that letting customers pick-up and drop-off at super-discounter Dollar General Stores makes eCommerce more accessible to the underserved, lower end of the market. And I think that this is probably good for everyone.

Read about it on eCommerceBytes

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5. And the Meeker Shall Inherit eCommerce

Do you know who Mary Meeker is? No? I don’t blame you. But to geeks, nerds, dweebs, and code monkeys like us, she is considered a sage. She’s sort of like a younger, less crotchety Warren Buffet for the internet set. And each year she delivers her widely anticipated “Internet Trends Report.” There’s not a whole lot here that you don’t already know because … well, I keep you pretty well-informed. But if you’re a deep-diving proto-nerd, you might want to read the eCommerce overview – or even view the entire report.

If so, you can start here

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So, another week, another adventure into the realms of eCommerce news provided by me … your semi-humble servant-genius. And you can show your infinite gratitude by forwarding this email of awesome to another worthy soul so that I may enlighten them as well.

Everybody wins.

Happy Selling,

Zachary