What’s the Opposite of “Upselling?” Jeff Bezos didn’t grow up in Minneapolis. Or if he did, he certainly didn’t work at a local hardware store (yes, they still exist in the Twin Cities; amongst other things, it’s where lots of local youth get their first job). I know that because twice in two weeks now,...Read More
What Do You Call the Opposite of Online Sales? Amazon has marched into every arena of commerce, building moat after moat — logistical, financial, customer service — to keep its rivals from catching up. It expanded into selling its own wares, into physical retail, entertainment and into all manner of home monitoring devices. And it...Read More
Credit Card Signing Threshold Even if you filled your grocery cart with $20/lb. cheeses, $8.99 organic gallons of milk, exotic truffles, etc., you’d be hard-pressed to spend $1,000 at Whole Foods (at least in a single visit). So, it was surprising to learn that, at least for credit card purchases < $1,000, Whole Foods no...Read More
Gargantuan State + Local Tax Incentives = Pyrrhic Victory for “Winning” Bidder “Amazon Narrows Down List for HQ2 to 20 Cities” —Headline, Bloomberg.com (1/18/2018). Anyone hearing the news that Amazon had “narrowed” the list of contenders down to 20 cities might properly comment, “Good Lord! How many cities were on the original list??” (answer: 238). While...Read More
