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It’s clear that Prime’s success is perhaps the biggest contributor to Amazon’s success to date. Prime members shop more frequently and spend more money on Amazon than non-Prime members do. They also price-compare less. Still, there’s a lot we don’t know about Prime and its impact on Amazon. Like how many Prime members there are, other than at least 46 million. And how much they are worth to Amazon. 
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Instacart is saving minutes per delivery by sorting shopping lists using deep learning. Emojis help to define the problem and outline both a simple and a more complex deep learning architecture.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS Grocery shopping is often tedious, as most grocery stores have a slightly different layout. Instacart sends human shoppers to pick orders placed online on their website. Mapping every single one of their thousands of stores is not an option. Instead, they have trained a neural networks on millions of orders to predict the best sort order for their shopping lists. And in the meantime save precious minutes in the order picking process.
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Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS MATTERS The video shows how technologies can change the retail stores better than any article can. Also read the article: http://sco.lt/8wbsmH
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Marie Claire and Mastercard have partnered to open a pop-up shop in New York City, dubbed The Next Big Thing Concept Shop, that features a variet
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS Retail stores are transforming to become more digital friendly, mobile-friendly, omni-channel enabled, and basically more like an Apple Store than a Costco warehouse - more service, less aisles with shelves.
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Tiny electronics contained in the flexible snap tag connect the Jacquard Threads in the jacket’s cuff to your mobile device. The snap tag lets you know about incoming information, like a phone call, by giving you light and haptic feedback. Inspired by a strap that you would see on a cuff, it looks and feels like it’s a part of the jacket. The tag also houses the battery which can last up to 2 weeks between USB charges.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS Google announced the project in 2014 and now ships its first product. This may usher the dawn of an era for connected and digitally-enabled clothing. It will be interesting to findout about the technology and the possible applications. Looking at the video I can't help but wonder if this particular jacket will be useful, considering the fact that we all carry cellphones that allow you to do pretty much everything in this video. Here again, I believe this technology may be more appropriate and useful in business contexts rather than personal ones. We'll see.
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This is what your shopping experience will look like in the future.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT First, it is from the head of the largest retailer on the planet. Second, it draws from insights - and a great video - from the World Economic Forum.
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Walmart is investing in NVIDIA chips, which are high-level graphical processing units (GPUs), in order to build out its cloud network.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT The chart says it all: walmart investments in ecommerce have paid off with 60% growth in recent months.
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Get an introduction video to blockchain technology and see how it can be used to address global food safety.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT IBM has been an early adopter of blockchain technology and now videos such as this one begin to show where this new technology can be used in real businesses. Here the video presents blockchain in use for grocery food traceability from harvest to store shelves, in the grocery industry. The video is not great quality but the content is interesting.
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An Amazon team at Lab126, a research center based in San Francisco, has developed an algorithm that learns about a particular style of fashion from images, and can then generate new items in similar styles from scratch—essentially, a simple AI fashion designer. The approach is crude and hardly ready for Project Runway, but it hints at the possibilities.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT Not only does this experiment show potential for AI to enter the protected world of human creativity, it also signals we soon will be able to go from idea to design to production to sales using AI, automated 3D printing factories and eCommerce. Will we soon see a fully autonomous fashion retailer with no designers, no production staff, no stores that create and sell original clothing?
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We surveyed eCommerce Managers and CEOs from European countries and prepared the report based on their experiences and our knowledge.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT The report provides a good overview of key trends in eCommerce today with some useful trends and survey data.
tavaresandro's curator insight,
July 14, 2017 8:04 AM
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT The report provides a good overview of key trends in eCommerce today with some useful trends and survey data.
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Here's a collection of all 71 CB Insights market maps and unbundling/disrupting graphics.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT Digital transformation often comes from startup innovations. So maps like those are very good to know where opportunities to improve lie.
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As so much of everyday life moves to the Internet, including grocery shopping, grocers must find profitable ways to revive the in-store experience while enhancing online options.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT With this week's huge announcement of Amazon buying Whole Foods, this report from McKinsey key consultants in the UK is most important to read as it gives context to the news. Moreover, UK is the most advanced country in the world for online grocery ecommerce so we should listen to them as they are early best practice leaders.
http://fmcs.digital/blog/amazons-whole-foods-new-ecommerce-paradigm/
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News that Amazon agreed to buy Whole Foods sent competitors' shares tumbling on Friday morning. This new trend will shake, frighten, and horrify traditional retailers who are not attractive acquisition targets. Few people will have seen this coming.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT I rarely comment on news unless they have the potential to mark an inflection point. I believe this is one of those news because it brings Amazon 400+ prime store locations and a grocery footprint to propel its Amazon Fresh service.
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Target has begun testing a next-day delivery service, similar to Amazon Prime Pantry. Will it succeed?
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT eCommerce Achille's heal is delivery cost - the last mile. Any company that solves this problem wins the eCommerce game. Amazon has been experimenting in this field for years and it looks like some are really popular with customers and beneficial to Amazon. Case in point: Amazon Prime members spend 5x more than other consumers because they feel shipping is "free". Amazon grocery delivery will put thousands of trucks on the road effectively making delivery cost marginal for Amazon. And here, with repetitive restocking, delivery costs can be reduced by shipping in bulk and high volume.
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The CB Insights artificial intelligence deals tracker looks at top AI deals across industries.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT AI startups funding shows that the investments has been growing steadily in the past 4 years and that every industry will be affected by the technology.
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The 90,000-square-metre warehouse is the starting point for 190,000 customer deliveries every week
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT This is one of the ways eCommerce will evolve in the near future: robotization. Orders are prepared automatically, without humans touching them. Even for grocery. Especially for grocery. Because it is a high volume, low margin operation, grocery mandates automated preparation. Of course, this level of investment can only be afforded at very high volume, which is the case in the UK where Ocado's warehouses like this can deliver 190,000 orders every week. No other country has this level of grocery eCommerce but when they do (think Amazon Fresh in the US), robotic warehouses like this will become mandatory to stay in business. The last missing link will remain, of course, the last mile: delivery. There, self driving cars and drones may offer a solution.
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The most anticipated slide deck of the year is here. Key takeaways:
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT This is an annual bag of goodies. Highlight #1: retail stores are closing at record pace while Amazon opens stores. This is such a huge trend because it transforms stores from a mini-warehouse into something else: a destination for experience, service, and training. Think Apple store with the highest sales per square foot, genius bar, classes and a showroom. Amazon has pushed its Amazon GO, no lines, no registers concept and it is rolling it out slowly. This is just the beginning...
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Engineers at MIT have designed a workout suit that responds to your body heat, according to a study published last week in Science Advances. The clothing, made from latex, is covered with thumbnail- to finger-sized ventilating flaps that open and close depending on how much heat your body puts out. But what's controlling the flaps isn't something you'll find weaved into your usual workout gear -- it's bacteria.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT A good digital strategy should now include smart fabrics and garments as they will become part of the trade in years to come. More leading edge companies should look at fabrics embedded with living organisms, motors and all kinds of electronics to improve confort, track progress or fatigue, reduce cleaning needs, and even, maybe, look better.
This article is part of a larger discussion on smart fabrics. Read more here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/23/the-future-of-fashion-and-technology/
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If you collect email information at the point of sale for your loyalty program, you can import store transactions directly into AdWords yourself or through a third-party data partner. And even if your business doesn’t have a large loyalty program, you can still measure store sales by taking advantage of Google’s third-party partnerships, which capture approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States. There is no time-consuming setup or costly integrations required on your end. You also don’t need to share any customer information. After you opt in, we can automatically report on your store sales in AdWords.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT So many people tell me that they are not on Facebook because they want to keep their privacy. This is another proof that privacy does not exist anymore and that there is no line between online and real-world. Please all be aware and try to put into practice the tips I share during my talks on me.com and the management of your digital twin. for more, read these:
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An Uncertain Future: New Entrants In The #Food #Delivery Space Decline As Existing Startups Struggle
Maple's acquisition and Munchery's recapitalization highlight challenges in food delivery, with fewer fundings, increased M&A activity, and some companies ceasing operation.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT The first question a good friend of mine always asks when I come to her with this great new idea (and it happens more often than not) is: "how are you going to make money?". And she is right: if the business model is not there, then no matter how much funding you get at some point in time, you will run out and will have to close. Simple. But frustrating for an entrepreneur to hear because my ideas are so great...! That being said, I am old enough to remember the dotcom bust in 2000 and the various same-day delivery outfits that folded. Because they did not have a viable business model. So it may seem that the same has repeated here with one difference: the market is much larger than in 2000. Thus there may be some niche markets or geo that provide sufficient margins to make this a money making business. All others, see you next time. I wrote about possible doom of same day delivery in the past so you can verify that I am not just saying in retrospect but that I called the shot years ago (earliest post is in 2013). - first warning in 2013: http://sco.lt/6nkd4z - same day delivery: http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses?q=same+day+delivery - food delivery: http://sco.lt/8tvFnl - same day not good, next day is great: http://sco.lt/4wpmQT - google same day not a great idea: http://sco.lt/67V5iz
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Instacart is excited to announce our first public dataset release, “The Instacart Online Grocery Shopping Dataset 2017”. This anonymized dataset contains a sample of over 3 million grocery orders from more than 200,000 Instacart users. For each user, we provide between 4 and 100 of their orders, with the sequence of products purchased in each order. We also provide the week and hour of day the order was placed, and a relative measure of time between orders.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT In today's eCommerce world, winners do not limit themselves to building great catalogs and payment processing experience. They actively analyze data to understand customer behaviour, to provide them with exceptional information to speed-up their shopping experience, but also maybe make them buy more or more expensive products. This is a great example of such a data analysis by grocery shopping leader instacart. It provides amazing insights into grocery shopping but also has open sourced the data for others to benefit.
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The startups in this infographic have raised nearly $1.5B to optimize grocery store operations with AI, virtual reality and more.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT Grocery is the last frontier for digital disruption, everyone knows (huge market but late adopter of digital, especially eCommerce see http://sco.lt/8ai7W5 http://sco.lt/6q1Ijx http://sco.lt/8Y94vh ). But no one knows when exactly they'll get disrupted. Many are betting on eCommerce but from the looks of this report, we may see a lot of changes in our weekly trip to the supermarket, from shelf monitoring to augmented reality. Then again, grocers are pre-historic in their use of technology because of low margins and a very repetitive shopping experience. We mostly always buy the same products and are looking at our store "experience" to be fast with low prices, not so much fun and experiential (see Amazon GO http://sco.lt/8MTY8X where there is no cash register to slow you down still needs to be cheap http://sco.lt/80HuqX). So my bets are on the startups that enable faster grocery shopping at a low cost- all others I expect will have a hard time (sorry AR and VR startups...)!
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China tops the US as home to the most e-commerce companies with funding over $100M.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT Interesting to see where eCommerce is strong- unsurprising that USA is king, clearly China is not far behind (or ahead?). And Canada is not even on the map.
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Seattle-based Amazon is doubling down on AWS and its AI assistant, Alexa. It's seeking to become the central provider for AI-as-a-service.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT Amazon is a beacon in the digital transformation space - part of the famous GAFA acronym - Google Apple Facebook Amazon. This teardown from CBinsights shows that Amazon is way more than the eCommerce retailer we have come to love and rely on so much. The report reviews where Amazon invests and provides unique view into where it may be going. Retailers beware!
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There have been more retail bankruptcies so far this year than all of 2016. The number of retailers filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy is approaching its highest level since 2008 and 2009.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT If you are a retailer with physical stores or a real-estate owner, this chart should scare you into rethinking you long-term strategy regarding a decrease in physical store square footage and increase in eCommerce. From the looks of it, as soon as the cost of money will increase (interest rates), we may see many retailers from the old-wave (read: no eCommerce) be forced into bankruptcy...
Also read this for other very interesting stats, including sales per sq.ft.
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Curated by Farid Mheir
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WHY IT MATTERS
Amazon has been innovating on all fronts but it appears that their prime loyalty program may be the most powerful tool they have in their arsenal. This blog post has tons of very useful metrics about the Prime programme. Other retailers should take note.