Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 146
May 19, 2017
Latin America’s $160 Billion Fashion Opportunity
Regina Barrios has a fearless streak that you can sense within five minutes of meeting her. A serial entrepreneur who smiles wide but speaks her mind, Barrios is fed up with ill-informed outsiders who underestimate her part of the world. “Actually, there’s tonnes of money here. Tonnes of it,” she says brusquely before turning on a dose of easy charm.
“Call me Gina,” she entreats. “OK, true, in Latin America we have extreme poverty on the one hand and extreme wealth on the other. Some of the money is coming from weird places too so inequality is a massive problem, especially here in Mexico. It’s all true. But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s serious purchasing power for fashion here now — and I mean, serious purchasing power.”
Barrios should know. After ten years on the international trade show circuit wholesaling her jewellery line Ishi at the likes of Tranoi in Paris, Barrios opened a multi-brand boutique back in Mexico City called Lago DF which attracts wealthy chilangos and cool-hunting tourists alike. Her confidence in the local Latin American market has grown so big, in fact, that she decided to launch her very own trade show in the Mexican capital last year.
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“Caravana Americana showcases the best of Latin American design by focusing on the artisanal side of luxury,” Barrios asserts. “I’m obsessed with quality and rescuing techniques and pushing this special fusion design culture we have here. It’s not just clothing, jewellery and textiles but also objects and furniture.”
The latest edition, which was held in March, drew designers from Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina. Retailers came from across the region and as far away as Australia to buy.
When high profile imports meet high quality exports
Trade shows across the Latin American region have been growing or upgrading their offering in recent years. Big events in Brazil and Argentina as well as Colombiamoda in Colombia’s Medellin and Intermoda in Mexico’s Guadalajara have all had to up their game to compete with smaller carefully curated new entrants.
“Well, there have been several similar events in Mexico City recently, but few really make a difference. You can definitely say Caravana Americana has become the top event of its kind,” says Raúl Alvarez, fashion editor of the Mexican edition of Elle magazine.
The growing dynamism of the region’s B2B fashion trade is the product of higher quality exports and higher profile imports. As exciting Latin American designers like Mexico’s Carla Fernandez, Colombia’s Johanna Ortiz and Peru’s Escudo by Chiara Macchiavello pushed forward to breakthrough into Europe and the US, a wave of global fashion brands entered the region.
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Stella McCartney is the latest luxury player to put down roots in the region. Having opened a boutique in Saks Fifth Avenue in Mexico City’s Centro Santa Fe shopping centre, McCartney is one of several designers partnering with the US department store chain since it first expanded south of the border ten years ago.
This wave followed a bigger one a few years ago which saw Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dior, Burberry, Hermès, Chanel and many others expand through El Palacio de Hierro, a glittering department store chain with over a dozen locations across Mexico — most notably its Polanco flagship that reopened after a $300 million renovation.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s third major department store player, the upmarket Liverpool chain, just announced it would spend $320 million to add 11 more branches to its already bulging portfolio. If that weren’t enough, the local giant is now in the final stages of acquiring a majority stake in the Chilean department store group Ripley for a reported $1.2 billion, which has over 70 stores across Chile and Peru.
“Ripley has also expanded its sales pipelines by adding e-commerce, which is gaining territory in Chile and Peru to the point that Ripley.com now has more than 8 million visits per month,” says Francisco Irarrázaval, the managing director of Ripley’s online venture.
It is becoming easier for Ripley and competitors like Falabella, a retail group with hundreds of stores and dozens of shopping malls across the region, to attract international fashion brands to their growing e-platforms.
“Initially, some are sceptical about executing online sales in the region. However, after they realise how developed e-commerce already is in several countries in South America and see the special care brands receive… they end up wanting to work with us for their entire collection,” claims Ricardo Alonso, chief executive of e-commerce at Falabella Chile.
Further upmarket, online expansion is hitting fever pitch, suggests Karla Martinez, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Mexico and Latin America. “Delivery logistics have improved significantly in the region so brands are rushing to meet consumer demand,” she says, citing the increasing popularity of global e-tailers like Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, Luisa Via Roma and MatchesFashion.
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Affordable brands like H&M, Mango and Forever 21 continue to aggressively expand their footprint across the region too and many new shopping malls are opening in Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia. But if international luxury brands are to continue their march into Latin America, even more physical retail expansion and infrastructure upgrades are necessary.
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Facebook and MLB partner to bring live-streamed games to the social network
Facebook and the MLB announced today a new live-streaming partnership that will bring 20 live, regular season games to the social network. The games will air weekly on Facebook, with the first — Rockies at Reds — showing tomorrow night at 7:10 PM ET on the official MLB Facebook Page. Additional games and times will be announced later.
The weekly broadcasts on Facebook will come from a feed of a participating team’s local broadcaster rightsholder, the companies said.
“It’s really important for us in terms of experimenting with a new partner in this area… we’re really excited about this new partnership,” noted Commissioner Rob Manfred when announcing the organization’s plans to live stream games on Friday nights, without blackouts.
This is not the first time the MLB has leveraged Facebook for streaming its games, however. The organization has been fairly forward-thinking in this area in the past. For example, in 2011 — before the launch of Facebook Live — MLB aired some of its spring training games live on Facebook by embedding its MLB.tv player into its Facebook Page.
Since the launch of Facebook Live, the MLB has used the platform to live stream news and analysis from around the league, as with its Facebook airing of “12:25 Live with Alexa,” where it also incorporates fan comments and questions into its programming.
It has also live streamed special league ceremonies, behind-the-scenes footage with players and teams and other live shows. It also went live for last season’s World Series for pre-game and post-game press conferences and other events.
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The new streaming deal will expand beyond these earlier efforts to actually stream live games to Facebook users — broadening access to games beyond their local markets. However, the games will only live stream to users in the U.S., the MLB noted, not baseball fans worldwide.
“Baseball games are uniquely engaging community experiences, as the chatter and rituals in the stands are often as meaningful to fans as the action on the diamond,” said Dan Reed, Facebook’s Head of Global Sports Partnerships, in a statement. “By distributing a live game per week on Facebook, Major League Baseball can re-imagine this social experience on a national scale.”
Source:
Facebook and MLB partner to bring live-streamed games to the social network
Google wants AI to manage my relationships, and that might be a good thing
When Google said that not sharing photographs of your friends made you “kind of a terrible person” at this year’s I/O keynote, I bristled. The idea that its new Google Photos app would automatically suggest I share pictures with specific people sounded dystopian, especially because so much of the keynote seemed geared toward getting Google’s AI systems to help maintain relationships. Want to answer an email without even thinking about it? Inbox’s suggested responses are rolling out all over Gmail. Has a special moment with somebody slipped your mind? Google might organize photos from it into a book and suggest you have it printed.
Google is far from the first company to do this; Facebook suggests pictures to share and reminds you of friends’ birthdays all the time, for example. It’s easy to describe these features as creepy false intimacy, or say that they’re making us socially lazy, relieving us of the burden of paying attention to people. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve decided that I’m all right with an AI helping manage my connections with other people — because otherwise, a lot of those connections wouldn’t exist at all.
I don’t know if I’m a terrible person per se, but I may be the world’s worst relative. I have an extended network of aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends that I would probably like but don’t know very well, and almost never see face-to-face. They’re the kind of relationships that some people I know maintain with family newsletters, emailed photos, and holiday cards. But I have never figured out how to handle any of these things.
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Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/19/15660610/google-photos-ai-relationship-emotional-labor
May 18, 2017
Desperately short of labor, mid-sized Japanese firms plan to buy robots
Desperate to overcome Japan’s growing shortage of labor, mid-sized companies are planning to buy robots and other equipment to automate a wide range of tasks, including manufacturing, earthmoving and hotel room service.
According to a Bank of Japan survey, companies with share capital of 100 million yen to 1 billion yen plan to boost investment in the fiscal year that started in April by 17.5 percent, the highest level on record.
It is unclear how much of that is being spent on automation but companies selling such equipment say their order books are growing and the Japanese government says it sees a larger proportion of investment being dedicated to increasing efficiency. Revenue at many of Japan’s robot makers also rose in the January-March period for the first time in several quarters.
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“The share of capital expenditure devoted to becoming more efficient is increasing because of the shortage of workers,” said Seiichiro Inoue, a director in the industrial policy bureau of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, or METI.
If the investment ambitions are fulfilled it would show there is a silver lining as Japan tries to cope with a shrinking and rapidly aging population. It could help equipment-makers, lift the country’s low productivity and boost economic growth.
The government predicts investment in labor-saving equipment will rise this fiscal year, Inoue said.
The way Japan copes with an aging population will provide critical lessons for other aging societies, including China and South Korea, that will have to grapple with similar challenges in coming years.
“More than 90 percent of Japan’s companies are small- and medium-sized, but most of these companies are not using robots,” said Yasuhiko Hashimoto, who works in Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd’s (7012.T) robot division. “We’re coming up with a lot of applications and product packages to target these companies.”
Among those products is a two-armed, 170-centimeter (5-foot-7) tall robot. Kawasaki says it is selling well because it can be adapted to a range of industrial uses by electronics makers, food processors and drug companies.
Hitachi Construction Machinery (6305.T) says it is getting a lot of enquiries for its computer-programmed digging machines that use a global positioning system to hew ditches that are accurate to within centimeters and can cut digging time by about half.
“We focus on rentals and expect business to pick up in the second half of the fiscal year, which is when most companies tend to order construction equipment for projects,” said Yoshi Furuno, a company official. Hitachi Construction declined to provide figures.
Mid-sized companies are planning on increasing spending much more than large-caps, which are projecting just a 0.6 percent increase in the fiscal year, according to the Bank of Japan. Smaller companies tend to have less flexibility in overcoming labor shortages by paying workers more or by moving production overseas.
WORKING POPULATION PLUNGING
Some companies could end up spending less than originally planned. But with demographics only worsening, companies will need to continue to search for solutions to the labor shortage problem. Japan’s working-age population peaked in 1995 at 87 million and has been falling ever since. The government expects it to fall to 76 million this year and to 45 million by 2065.
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In the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2016, mid-sized companies with 100 to 499 workers advertised to fill 1.1 million new positions, the highest in five years and almost five times the number of open positions at companies with 500 workers or more, Labor Ministry data show.
Among the robot makers to report stronger revenue in the last quarter was Fanuc Corp (6954.T). Its revenue was 7.9 percent higher than a year earlier, the first increase in seven quarters.
Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-capex-analysis-idUSKCN18B01Z
Betsy DeVos Is Hellbent on Making Your Student Loans Even Harder to Pay Back
Oh Betsy DeVos, you terrible person you. As the nation’s attention is squarely focused on the Donald Trump-Russia investigations, it seems like the rest of the administration is trying to get away with destroying as many government programs as it can, without people noticing. Enter the Cruella DeVil of the education system, secretary of education Betsy DeVos. DeVos has already made quick work, getting rid of Obama-era protections for student loan borrowers, but she wasn’t content to just stop there. No, DeVos, a woman who admitted to having no personal experience with loans of pretty much any kind, is doing her damnedest to make sure you struggle to pay back your college loans.
As part of its plan to slash the Department of Education’s budget by some $10.6 billion, the Washington Post reports that the White House will propose ending the federal student loan forgiveness program for public sector and nonprofit workers, and lengthen the amount of time Americans will have to spend repaying their debts on income-based plans if they borrowed to get an advanced degree.
As it stands right now, if you work for the government or a non-profit for 10 years, you can have your student loans forgiven. Under this new budget that will disappear entirely. But that’s not all, the new plan also will make changes to the income-based repayment system. The current system requires that people who borrowed for undergraduate degrees spend 10 percent of their disposable income on their loans for 20 years to have the balance forgiven and for 25 years for a graduate degree. The new plan will up that 10 percent to 12.5 percent, but shorten the time down to 15 years for undergrads. It will lengthen the time for grad students to 30 years.
The major takeaway here? Things are going to get slightly harder, and though you will be able to get out from under your loan slightly faster under the undergraduate plan, it will come at a higher cost. And all decided by the woman who had this exchange with Elizabeth Warren during her confirmation hearing:
WARREN: Have you ever managed or overseen a trillion dollar loan program.
DEVOS: I have not.
WARREN: How about a billion dollar loan program?
DEVOS: I have not.
WARREN: Okay. So no experience managing a program like this. How about participating in one? I think it is important for the person who is in charge of our financial aid programs to understand what it is like for students and their families who are struggling to pay for college. Mrs. DeVos, have you ever taken out a student loan from the federal government to help pay for college?
DEVOS: I have not.
WARREN: Have any of your children had to borrow money in order to go to college?
DEVOS: They have been fortunate not to.
WARREN: Have you had any personal experience with a Pell Grant?
DEVOS: Not personal experience, but certainly friends and students with whom I have worked.
WARREN: So you have no personal experience with college financial aid or management of higher education.
You know what they say. Those who can’t do, control the budget and financial aid packages of millions of Americans.
Source:
http://www.gq.com/story/betsy-devos-student-loan-programs
Drivers For Ride-Hailing App Juno Claim Company Misled Them With Promises Of Stock
Last year, drivers for ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft were excited about a new competing app, Juno, which promised to grant drivers stock in the company along with lower commissions and in-app tipping. Juno was recently acquired by yet another service, Gett, and the drivers have seen their equity evaporate, leading them to file a complaint with federal regulators.
The plan for Juno was to share more revenue with its drivers than rivals do. Retaining drivers is important, as it cuts down on costly expenses associated with recruiting new drivers, like referral fees and sign-on bonuses.
A source familiar with the startup’s finances told Bloomberg Technology that Juno was profitable, but unable to convince investors to help it expand to more cities. Instead, the company decided to pursue a deal with Gett, a ride-hailing app out of Israel which operates in multiple cities, including New York.
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Drivers acquired theoretical equity in Juno the more that they drove, and the plan was that drivers would own about half of the company by 2026. Gett, which paid $200 million to acquire Juno, has no such equity plan, which meant the end of the stock program.
Drivers learned in an email that they would receive a small cash payment, about 10% of what drivers had been told their accumulated stock was worth.
That’s where the Independent Drivers Guild, a group that’s not a union but represents New York City’s drivers with Uber, comes in. To maximize their time and income, drivers for ride-hailing apps often work for multiple services at once, accepting passengers as they come in. According to the group, 40% of its members also drive for Juno.
While the Independent Drivers Guild represents drivers for Uber in New York City, its members often drive for Juno as well. Yet Uber pays some of the group’s administrative expenses, which makes it a little awkward when the IDG is calling for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate one of Uber’s competitors.
Uber itself Uber paid $20 million to settle charges that it misled prospective drivers about what their pay would be.
In its letter to the FTC [PDF], the IDG says that it learned from mysterious “sources” that Juno had learned from the Securities and Exchange Commission that its stock plan may be illegal. Yet, the IDG alleges, that was a few months before the deal, and the company still used the idea of earning equity in the company to appeal to new drivers.
“Many IDG drivers have no access to traditional worker protections like retirement plans, group health insurance, or even paid time off,” the IDG notes in its letter. “The promise of a stake in the company attracted thousands of drivers seeking financial security for their families.”
The group also sent the letter to New York state’s attorney general, New York City’s Office of Labor Policy and Standards, Juno, and Gett.
Source:
Drivers For Ride-Hailing App Juno Claim Company Misled Them With Promises Of Stock
Facebook Live, CrossFit Cut Deal Over Live Events
Facebook Live (FB) and CrossFit are said to have come to terms on a deal that will result in the social media company’s live platform carrying live CrossFit events as well as shoulder programming through the year.
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Terms of the deal were not announced, but Facebook is said to have paid an unknown fee for the programming, which will also be streamed on YouTube and Games.CrossFit.com, Sports Business Daily reports.
“We’re splitting our audience to a certain extent, but we also feel like we’re getting new lift and new engagement by having it on multiple platforms,” CrossFit Games GM Justin Bergh said, according to Sports Business Daily. “We’re always looking for better ways to serve our community. This gave us new tools that allowed us to talk and listen in a way that was going to make the experience for our fans different than anything they’ve had before.”
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Source:
https://www.thestreet.com/story/14140104/1/facebook-live-crossfit-cut-deal-over-live-events.html
This New App Wants to Be the Uber of Camping
According to a report by the Outdoor Foundation, Americans log 598 million nights a year under the stars. At an average of $40 in expenses and fees per night, that’s $24 billion spent on campsites alone. Add in all the related costs—gear, transportation, food—and the Outdoor Industry Association figures the industry generates closer to $167 billion annually.
But former investment banker Michael D’Agostino, who grew up camping on a farm in Litchfield, Conn., still calls the industry a broken business.
The tipping point came a few summers ago, when D’Agostino found himself on vacation “directly across from a campsite of 40 people at a Wiccan convention: robes and UFO spotters and streaking and all.” It wasn’t what he’d imagined as a quiet weekend with his wife—counting stars, listening to crickets, bellies full from prime steaks grilled over a man-made fire. “We definitely took them up on some mead,” he said of the Wiccans, “but we had to keep the dog in the tent—she was going bonkers—and it was kind of like camping in Times Square.”
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The experience led him to create Tentrr, a free iPhone app that takes the guesswork out of camping. It lets users find and instantly book fully private campsites in vetted, bucolic settings, all within a few hours’ drive of major cities. The sites themselves are all custom-designed by D’Agostino and follow a standardized footprint: They consist of hand-sewn canvas expedition tents from Colorado, set on an elevated deck with Adirondack chairs. You’re also guaranteed to find Brazilian wood picnic tables and sun showers strewn around the campsites, as well as portable camping toilets, fire pits, cookware, and grills. As for the sleeping arrangements? Air mattresses with featherbed toppers, not sleeping bags, are the name of the game.
Tentrr beta-launched last summer with just 50 campsites in New York state, while D’Agostino figured out how to get liability insurers on board with his slice of the sharing economy. Despite the soft opening, the app has already logged $4 million in funding and 1,500 bookings—40 percent of them by people who’d never gone camping before.
In the days leading up to Memorial Day, Tentrr will move past its beta phase with a newly expanded collection of roughly 150 campsites spread across the U.S. Northeast. By July 4 an additional 100 sites will gradually come online, not including a 50-site expansion into the Pacific Northwest. Next year, D’Agostino plans to tackle the “San Francisco-Yosemite corridor, the American Southwest, and counterclockwise around the perimeter of the U.S., all within a few hours of major metropolitan cities, until all of the country’s top-50 hubs are served.” His ultimate vision, however, is global.
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How to get a refund from LuLaRoe for your ripped leggings
LuLaRoe is refunding customers following complaints about the quality of the company’s clothing, as Business Insider reported earlier.
The policies include the “Make Good” program — which applies to purchases made between January 1, 2016 and today — and the “Happiness Policy,” which applies to all future purchases.
Here’s a breakdown on the specifics of each policy, and how customers can get a refund, credit, or exchange.
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The “Make Good” program:
Applies only to purchases of defective merchandise made between January 1, 2016 and April 24, 2017.
Customers can apply for a replacement, gift card, or cash refund by contacting the retailer who sold them the product and arranging to have the product and proof of purchase returned to them. The proof of purchase must include a copy of the original receipt or a copy of a bank statement reflecting the purchase and identifying the retailer. Customers will not be charged for return shipping.
If that retailer refuses to help them, customers can contact LuLaRoe through its “Make Good” website, and the company will connect them with another retailer who can process their claim.
Customers can also apply for a refund in the form of a personal check or a LuLaRoe gift card by making a claim directly to LuLaRoe on its “Make Good” website. The website contains a form for submitting claims.
Claims must be submitted no later than July 31, 2017.
The “Happiness” policy
Applies to purchases made on or after April 25, 2017.
Within 30 days of purchase, customers can return products for any reason to the retailer they purchased from to receive a full refund, credit, or exchange.
Within 90 days of purchase, customers can return products for any reason to any retailer to receive a credit or exchange.
Customers can also apply for a refund in the form of a personal check or a LuLaRoe gift card by making a claim directly to LuLaRoe on its “Happiness Policy” website. The website contains a form for submitting claims.
Customers must provide their original purchase receipt to complete a return. Customers will not be charged for return shipping.
If a product has a manufacturing defect in materials or workmanship, customers may be entitled to a return any time under the company’s new limited warranty. The limited warranty applies to items purchased after April 24, 2017.
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Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-a-refund-for-lularoe-leggings-2017-4
