E-COMMERCE

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Reindeer

With the holiday shopping season jingle bell rocking, shippers are straining under the weight of Americans’ online ordering habits. 

Having reached allotted capacity, UPS told its drivers to stop picking up packages at six major retailers, including Nike and Gap, to maintain performance standards, the WSJ reports. 

Amazon is even offering a rebate (we’ve seen $2–$3) for some of the company’s digital products if you select the “No-Rush Shipping” option, presumably so it can reduce the strain on its own fulfillment network.

Boom times 

We’ll look back on this past week as a milestone in e-commerce adoption. During a five-day stretch that included Black Friday and Cyber Monday, online shopping increased 44% over last year, per the National Retail Federation. 

• Shopify, a platform that’s home to 1+ million merchants, reported that Black Friday sales increased 75% annually to $2.4 billion, per Retail Brew. Its stock is up more than 160% this year. 
• At the same time, far fewer people are shopping at brick-and-mortar locations. U.S. store visits dropped more than 50% on Black Friday from last year. 

Follow the money 

The investors with the biggest pockets are making bets on the physical infrastructure that powers e-commerce: warehouses.  

• Just yesterday, Bloomberg reported that private equity firm KKR is close to acquiring about 100 warehouses in the U.S. for more than $800 million (the deal could close next week).
• But KKR is playing catchup—fellow PE giant Blackstone bought more than $25 billion worth of industrial properties last year alone. 

Bottom line: With consumers feeling more comfortable shopping online and companies rapidly expanding their e-commerce infrastructure, the retail industry has been catapulted years into the future by the pandemic. 

+ Dive deeper: 1) A New York Times feature on Shopify and 2) a report on the tech behind e-commerce from Retail Brew and Emerging Tech Brew.  

STIMULUS

The Only Bill Everyone Likes Is Billy Joel

Bill Capitol Hill Covid-19 aid McSchumer Pelostimulus gridlock. 

Sorry, that was nonsense—we’ve just been regurgitating similar summaries on a Covid-19 aid bill so often we figured if we just smushed the relevant words together, you’d get the idea. 

But there’s been some movement. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced their support for a split-the-difference compromise bill put forward by a bipartisan group of senators. Some details… 

• The price tag is $908 billion. Republican leadership wants a $550 billion package, Dems have favored one closer to $2 trillion. 
• It includes a “liability shield” for businesses and other organizations that have reopened, a measure Schumer and Pelosi resisted up until now. 
• Additional jobless benefits of $300/week, a smaller supplement than the $600 weekly infusion from the spring.
• $160 billion for state and local governments, schools, paycheck protection subsidies, and transportation.

Bottom line: Momentum has been building in the past few days, but time is extremely running out. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner told NBC that failing to pass a relief bill before Congress breaks for the holidays would be “stupidity on steroids.” 

ENTERTAINMENT

Look Who Discovered Streaming

In case late-night binges of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives weren’t scratching your Guy Fieri itch, Discovery Inc., the owner of cable channels Animal Planet, HGTV, Food Network, and more, is launching its own streaming service, Discovery+.

It’s going big

Discovery is offering 55,000 episodes from 2,500 different shows upon launch, the most content of any new streaming service. 

• It’s also partnering with Verizon to give 55 million customers one year of Discovery+ for free, a similar strategy to the Disney+ debut. That deal with Verizon netted about 20% of Disney+ customers in the first two months.

Discovery execs also think original, unscripted content like Bobby Flay beating up on amateur chefs, or big sharks eating smaller sharks, will help Discovery+ attract viewers who aren’t willing to commit to four seasons of The Crown. 

Bottom line: Competition is stiff, but Discovery's niche offerings and robust international presence (it has the European streaming rights for the Olympics) might be enough to differentiate the latecomer. 

SPONSORED BY WHOOP

Hey, You. Meet You.

It’s time you really got to know yourself. That’s where WHOOP comes in. 

WHOOP is a sleek, no-nonsense wearable that delivers insights to the inner workings of your body. With 24/7 heart rate monitoring and personalized, actionable insights, you’ll be able to unlock the best version of you. 

Your “gym” could be anywhere nowadays. But wherever you are, WHOOP’s Strain Coach helps you stay on top of your fitness routine and hit your body’s optimal output levels.

You might be thinking, “Hmm, sounds like something reserved for the pros, like golfer Nick Watney.” Well, that would be a “bogey” way to think. 

While many professional athletes love WHOOP, its powerful technology is equally geared towards folks like yourself—and even someone on your holiday gift list. 

And right now, they’re offering their best deal of the year: $0 down when you sign up for a six-month membership.

Check it out today.

FINANCE

Data Wins Acquisitions

Quick, can you name the biggest acquisition of 2020 so far? Uber buying Postmates? Morgan Stanley picking up E-Trade? 

Nope, it’s S&P Global’s deal, announced Sunday, to take over data provider IHS Markit for $44 billion. And yesterday, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) picked up the baton when it reportedly landed EU approval for its $27 billion purchase of Refinitiv, another data provider. 

What’s going on? On Wall Street and in the City of London, financial data is the coin of the coin-making realm. Bloomberg was the first to pick up on the trend in the 1980s, spawning competitors—but the sector is now rapidly consolidating. 

• Intercontinental Exchange, LSE rival and owner of the NYSE, has bought both mortgage finance tech platform Ellie Mae and data provider Interactive Data in the past few years. 

Bottom line: The former NYC mayor and memelord’s namesake company still towers over the financial data market. Bloomberg commanded about 33% as of last year, per Burton-Taylor Consulting, but Refinitiv wasn’t far behind at 21%. 

REVIEW

Brace Yourself: The Year-End Roundups Are Here

Like your lower back pain, year-end-lists have returned once again. Here’s a look at some of 2020’s trendiest trends.

App Store: Unsurprisingly, Zoom was the most downloaded free app of the year, with TikTok and Disney+ following closely behind. On the gaming side, Among Us edged out Call of Duty: Mobile and Roblox which is super sus. Even more sus...the global pandemic simulator Plague Inc. came in at No. 2 on the paid gaming charts. 

Spotify: If you’ve managed to avoid Instagram Stories these past few days, we should tell you that Spotify released its annual Spotify Wrapped data on Tuesday. The biggest winner? Spotify. It was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter yesterday afternoon, and its stock jumped 12.6%. 

TikTok: While 420Doggface208 vibin’ to Fleetwood Mac set the interwebs aflame, it was only the second-most popular TikTok video of the year. The top spot goes to breakout star, Bella Porch, lip syncing to British rapper Millie B’s diss track, “Soph Aspin Send.”

SYLLABUS SERIES

Be Like Jim

Whether you’re in the sales industry already, or just want to learn more about it, our new Sales 101 guide will teach you about selling a lot more than paper. We sifted through years of expert blog posts and watched every relevant Office episode to bring you a 10-step guide to the best resources in the industry. 

• What you won’t find: Fluffy listicles that tell you what you already know, like a warm lead is better than a cold lead. 
• What you will find: Insightful case studies, videos, articles, and more that people in the industry actually use to make them better professionals.

Check out Sales 101 here.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• The UK approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine. The first shots could be administered next week.
• The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that puts further scrutiny on Chinese firms trading in the U.S. (like Alibaba). 
• The CDC shortened its quarantine guidance for those potentially exposed to the coronavirus from 14 days to seven or 10 days.
• The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs removed cannabis from its strictest drug control list. 
• DeepMind’s big breakthrough, explained.
• Australia’s economy grew 3.3% in Q3, busting it out of its first recession in almost three decades.

SPONSORED BY FUNDRISE

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(Here's all the legal jargon we know you love reading).

FROM THE CREW

Brew's Bookshelf

Congratulations to Brew’s Bookshelf alum Sarah Frier, whose inside story of Instagram, No Filter, just won the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. 

Each year, the award celebrates cream-of-the-crop business reads. Here are some other picks from recent years that caught our attention: 

• Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein traces the impact of a shuttered GM factory on a Wisconsin community in the years after the Great Recession.
• How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt explores how the simple MP3 file transformed music sharing and led to an entire generation of music pirates.
• Boom by Michael Shnayerson depicts how a handful of contemporary art dealers turned the postwar art market into a lucrative investment vehicle for the wealthy, sending prices skyrocketing. 

Head to Brew’s Bookshelf to see the rest of our recommendations. 

BREW'S BETS

Must-read: Every year, we look forward to Tom Whitwell’s list of the 52 things he learned. The 2020 edition just dropped.

Font savant: All of the free fonts you can get through Google, set to the couplet of a beloved sitcom intro. Plus, get copy inspiration from actual company emails. 

Cool maps: Lightning and wind, in real time. 

Seven: It’s an iconic 1995 film that did not help the unboxing trend, but more importantly, it’s the number of people currently in space.

GAMES

Three Headlines and a Lie

There's less than a month left in the year, but 2020 isn’t done pumping out wild news stories. Three of the following headlines are real, and one we made up. Can you spot the fake?  

1. "Drake is selling a scented candle that smells like...himself"
2. "Vatican asks Instagram to investigate mysterious papal 'like' of model"
3. "KFC rolls out self-driving 5G 'chicken trucks' in China"
4. "San Luis Obispo In-N-Out warns of wild bear attacks in the area, but customers show up anyway"

ANSWER

We made up the wild bear attacks. But shoutout to all our SLO readers!