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Whitney McDonald
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
To say it’s easy for new Amazon sellers to make mistakes that cost them time and money is an understatement. With the complexity of Amazon algorithms, getting your first Amazon sales can be like trying to ice skate uphill.
Luckily, you can increase your Amazon sales if you take this new Amazon seller advice and avoid the number one mistake I see as an Amazon consultant. Avoiding this common mistake will shorten your path to success.
Related: 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Through Amazon
This likely sounds like it goes against the grain right? You would think you would want to model your Amazon presence on a successful example. The problem? It’s easy to model the wrong things.
The truth is, the big brand best-selling Amazon sellers make lots of mistakes that you cannot afford to make. What’s more, they are best-selling brands because of best practices and marketing mechanisms that you don’t see when examining their Amazon product detail page with your favorite Amazon tool.
New Amazon sellers are inclined to follow this process:
Make a list of competing products that sell the most for their primary keywords
Evaluate their product detail page
Write a product description derivative of the best-sellers
Make A+ content that looks similar
Create gallery images that are reminiscent of the best-sellers
Run the best-sellers through Amazon tools and download the keywords they are ranking for in SEO and running ads on
Add those keywords to their listings
Run ads on the same keywords
Get frustrated when sales aren’t flowing in
Quit
Here are the reasons why this technique doesn’t work for new Amazon sellers and Amazon Private Label sellers:
External Amazon marketing: What you’re not seeing when you evaluate an Amazon product listing is all of the marketing efforts they’re doing off of Amazon to build their brand and drive traffic back to Amazon. This includes showing up on every social media ad, Google ads, Amazon Influencers, PR, email lists and much more.
Reviews: They have hundreds if not thousands of reviews that you do not have as a new Amazon seller. This results in you having to work that much harder to earn a click and then earn the sale.
A10 algorithm: Since they’re doing significant marketing off of Amazon and even driving traffic from off of Amazon onto Amazon specifically for their products, they are getting a boost in their SEO and ad impressions.
Brand awareness: Another benefit of external Amazon marketing is brand awareness and the trust that goes with it. Many Amazon sellers believe that if they can just get their product to the top of Amazon searches, customers will buy as long as they have a good price and great features. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be farther from the truth and doesn’t make up the delta between a good product and brand awareness.
The truth is, your favorite Amazon tools can only show you a small portion of what is actually making the big brand product successful. Amazon best-sellers can get away with fundamental mistakes that would otherwise sink the ship of a new Amazon seller because of their powerful marketing efforts off of Amazon.
These common big brand mistakes often include:
Poor copywriting
Misaligned color psychology
Bad art direction
Targeting keywords that are far too broad
Lack of a focus on buyer intent keywords
Related: 7 Things to Consider Before Becoming a Seller on Amazon
The best new Amazon seller advice I can give is to learn the fundamentals of sales and marketing. Then, make sure your listings and marketing efforts blow theirs out of the water.
An all too common mistake is to not worry about your presence off of Amazon since millions of customers are on Amazon every day ready to buy. The thing is, your external presence and ability to drive external traffic from off of Amazon to your products on Amazon impact your visibility on Amazon. It’s part of their algorithm.
That means how visible you will be when people search for keywords — in organic results as well as paid — depends on how good of a job you do at building your brand off of Amazon. So, what should you do?
Launch list: Amazon has a honeymoon period. Amazon watches how many sales you make and how much traffic you drive in your first 30-60 days, and this determines how easy or hard it will be for you to rank in product searches and get ad visibility. Build up a buzz before you launch, collect emails, and drive email traffic to your product detail page when you launch. This way, you can thrive right out of the gate.
Product descriptions, A+ content and gallery images: Don’t simply hand off your product to a graphic designer and say “make me Amazon A+ content and gallery images that will sell!” or to a copywriter and say the same about product descriptions. Arm them with a buyer persona, color psychology that will align with your buyer and critical information that will help with art direction and copywriting like FAQs, objections, competitive advantages and more.
External Amazon traffic: With the brand referral bonus program that gives Amazon sellers up to 10% cash back for driving external traffic in place, there is no reason not to drive traffic from PPC Ads, Amazon Influencers and more.
Brand building: It’s no secret that Amazon crawls the internet to learn about the products sold on its marketplace. Arm Amazon with as much information as possible to show them you are a brand capable of marketing yourself and driving sales intent on Amazon. Bolster your website SEO, get PR, and foster a community of passionate enthusiasts around your brand.
New Amazon sellers can thrive early on in their selling journey by not copying the big brands and focusing on sales and marketing best practices instead.
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Tanner Rankin
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AMC has been all the buzz over the past two years after becoming a meme stock (spawned from a Reddit obsession) that sent shares rising and then plummeting so low that CEO Adam Aron even asked for a pay freeze in an attempt to compensate for shareholders’ stock losses.
But now, the theater chain is on the rise again after reports surfaced that internet behemoth Amazon is looking to purchase the company.
Related: Customers, Actors Slam AMC Theaters for New Ticket Prices that ‘Penalize People for Lower Income’
AMC was up over 21% in a 24-hour period at its peak Tuesday morning after reports that Jeff Bezos and an investment advisory team are exploring a potential acquisition.
The news was originally reported by The Intersect, which cited sources familiar with the matter.
An “Amazon insider” told the outlet that the theaters would be used as “marketing weigh stations” for the retailer, whether it’s promoting Amazon Prime movies in theaters, using the space as local distribution hubs, or collecting data from AMC customers in an attempt to produce and distribute more successful content under the Amazon name.
“Many customers interact with the AMC brand every week and physically go there,” a former Amazon executive told the outlet. “There could even be a subscription element to it as part of Prime. And it would help in booking Amazon movies.”
Neither Amazon nor AMC responded to Reuters request for comment.
Related: AMC Continues to Ride Social Media Hype as Share Prices Skyrocket to 50% Increase
AMC was in hot water last month after announcing its new ticketing system called “Sightline at AMC,” which will price tickets into three tiers based on seat selections.
“While every seat at AMC delivers an amazing moviegoing experience, we know there are some moviegoers who prioritize their specific seat and others who prioritize value moviegoing,” Eliot Hamlisch, EVP and CMO of AMC Theaters, said in a company release at the time.
AMC operates roughly 600 theaters across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
As of early Wednesday afternoon, AMC was still up 9.8% in a five-day period.
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Emily Rella
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The best thing about a program that pays it forward is when the recipient of that program pays it forward again.
Such was the case for one of the top five winners of Amazon’s “Alexa, Thank My Driver” initiative, which provided $5 to each Amazon delivery driver when customers chose to say “thank you,” via Alexa-enabled Amazon devices.
Greylon Anthony, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based delivery driver received $10,000 on behalf of Amazon for being one of the top five employees nominated in the program.
Instead of pocketing the cash, Anthony donated his check to the Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital to help the hospital purchase essential supplies and continue the necessary care for its pediatric patients.
According to Amazon, over eight million “thank yous” were launched through the program that rolled out last December.
“As of December 8, we have received more than 1 Million ‘thank yous’ concluding the promotion offering $5 per ‘thank you’ to eligible drivers,” the company said at the end of last year. “We are excited for this new opportunity to thank these everyday heroes and giving our customers the ability to help us do it.”
Upon the rollout of the program, Amazon said it would give the five drivers who got the most thank-you’s $10,000.
The company ran out of funds originally allocated toward drivers’ tips in just one short day.
Though thanking drivers will no longer donate financial compensation to the drivers nominated, drivers who have been selected will receive a note of thanks and appreciation on behalf of the customer from the company.
Amazon was down just shy of 42% in a one-year period as of Monday afternoon.
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Emily Rella
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Panera Bread is rolling out palm scanners that will link customers’ handprints to their loyalty accounts — a move the company paints as convenient but that privacy advocates have decried.
The biometric-gathering technology, developed by Amazon, will hit stores in the next few months, Panera said on Wednesday. The gadgets will help suggest menu items based on customers’ order histories and allow employees to greet customers by their names and share customers’ available rewards, the company said.
Panera Bread CEO Niren Chaudhary described the move as a “frictionless, personalized, and convenient” evolution of Panera’s loyalty program, which boasts 52 million members.
The fast-casual chain has already installed the scanners at locations in St. Louis, where it is headquartered, and says the scanners will “expand to additional locations in the coming months,” although it’s unclear how many of the chain’s 2,000-plus locations will be affected. Reuters reported that Amazon One technology is in use at some 200 locations across the country, including Amazon’s Whole Foods Market subsidiary and Amazon Go stores.
Panera says the technology will securely store its customers’ biometric data. However, digital rights activists worry that information could be tapped by federal agencies or accessed by hackers.
“Federal agencies like Customs and Border Protection have experienced devastating hacks where large databases of biometric information have been stolen,” Fight for the Future told CBS MoneyWatch in an email. “Do we really expect Amazon, or Panera, to have better cybersecurity practices?”
Panera and Amazon did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Amazon began using biometric-gathering technology at its Amazon Go locations in late 2020, but the payments system has raised some eyebrows and alarms. In 2021, a group of U.S. senators sent a letter to Amazon’s CEO requesting details about how the company intends to use customers’ data and whether it will continue to build up its biometric information.
Amazon’s tracking practices are also at the crux of a lawsuit filed earlier this month. The suit alleges the e-commerce giant skirted New York City data privacy laws by not disclosing to shoppers that it was collecting their biometric information.
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Finding the perfect bandeau bra—one that checks off all your boxes—is no easy feat, especially when you’re shopping for it online because there’s no “try on” option. Thankfully, however, there are helpful customer reviewers you can turn to that oftentimes address the product’s fit and comfort, making it much easier for you to feel 100% confident about clicking “add to cart” without actually having tested it out.
Now, we did the hard work for you and sifted through the bountiful search results on the internet, narrowing them down to the best bandeau bras that are all available at our favorite retailers and are all very reasonably priced. From the “best one-size bandeau” to one that “feels as soft as skin,” these are the 14 most raved-about styles to add to your undergarment drawer right away.
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Eva Thomas
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Amazon is facing a lawsuit alleging that the company did not properly notify customers entering its Amazon Go stores in New York City that it was tracking and collecting their biometric information.
The lawsuit claims that the e-commerce giant violated a New York City law passed in early 2021 which requires businesses that are collecting, storing or sharing “biometric identifier information” to post signage near their entrances alerting customers that they are doing so.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of shopper Alfredo Rodriguez Perez.
Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images
Amazon Go stores, which first opened in 2018, use what the company calls its “Just Walk Out Technology.” Shoppers scan a mobile app, and are then tracked using “computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning” technology as they place items in their carts, the company says on its website.
There are no cashiers and no need to checkout. Instead, shoppers simply walk out of the store, and their Amazon accounts are charged when they leave.
“Just Walk Out Technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart,” Amazon’s website reads.
The lawsuit alleges that Amazon Go collects shoppers biometric information “by scanning the palms of some customers to identify them and by applying computer vision, deep learning algorithms, and sensor fusion that measure the shape and size of each customer’s body to identify customers, track where they move in the stores, and determine what they have purchased.”
The lawsuit argues that since New York City began enacting its notification law in January 2021, Amazon Go stores “failed to post any signs” notifying shoppers that it was collecting such biometric information.
However, following a March 10 story in the New York Times on the use of facial recognition technology by businesses — Amazon Go stores in New York City posted their first notification signs on March 14, the lawsuit claims.
The signs read, “Biometric information collected at this location,” the suit said.
In a statement provided to CBS News Saturday in response to the lawsuit, an Amazon spokesperson said that Amazon Go stores “do not use facial recognition technology.”
“Amazon One, our contactless, palm-based identity and payment service, is one of the entry options offered at select Amazon Go stores along with credit card and the Amazon app,” the statement read. “Only shoppers who choose to enroll in Amazon One and choose to be identified by hovering their palm over the Amazon One device have their palm-biometric data securely collected, and these individuals are provided the appropriate privacy disclosures during the enrollment process. The customer is always in control of when they choose to be identified using their palm. Additionally, the Just Walk Out technology used to distinguish shoppers from one another is not biometric, and is used only to link a customer with their purchases during a single store visit.”
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Having a child is hard — but getting laid off after having a baby (or when about to have one) could make it feel worse.
And some Google employees are learning this now: Google has reportedly told laid-off staffers who were previously approved for leaves (ranging from parental to medical to caregiver) that they will only receive the standard severance package, according to CNBC, which spoke with people affected. The standard package is 16 weeks, plus two weeks for every year worked and the 60-day notification period.
“We respectfully request a good faith effort to honor the terms of our original parental and/or disability leave arrangements for all leaves that were approved as of January 20, 2023,” a group of former employees wrote in a letter to executives.
Related: Google Will Lay Off 12,000 Workers Due to ‘Difficult Economic Cycles’
Stories of workers in the technology industry who were laid off when about to go on parental leave or even while giving birth have proliferated, per the New York Times.
Google laid off about 12,000 workers in January.
One woman, Katherine Wong, was eight months pregnant when she was laid off from Google in January, she said.
“It is almost impossible for me to look for a job as a 34-week pregnant and right about to go on maternity leave for months,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post. As CNBC noted, another woman who said she was at Google for over nine years read her layoff notification just after giving birth.
Over 100 employees have created a group called “Laid off on Leave,” per CNBC, to advocate for getting the pay they say they were promised.
So far, the letters to top executives have not received replies.
Related: More Than 1,600 Tech Workers Are Being Laid Off A Day On Average In 2023, According to a New Report
The group also attacked CEO Sundar Pichai for caring more about AI innovations — namely, chatGPT, which has helped drive competitor Microsoft’s Bing to new highs of 100 million daily active users — and the threat of Google losing dominance in search than employees.
“When Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced layoffs, he mentioned the company’s commitment to AI three times, but never once mentioned Google’s commitment to accessibility,” the group wrote.
In Google’s January layoff memo, Pichai wrote: “I am confident about … our early investments in AI” and that the company is “prepared to approach it boldly.”
Google declined to answer CNBC’s questions about paying for leave periods for laid-off employees.
The group also mentioned in its communications with executives that Amazon, which has also laid off thousands, is paying employees their leave periods, plus severance.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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The secret is out
While most interior designers source the majority of items for their clients from showrooms that are open exclusively to the trade—they also shop retail as well. This is particularly true in a post-Covid world, where shipping delays and supply chain issues are still a part of life. Projects have deadlines and budgets. So professional designers often end up purchasing from a variety of places that offer stylish furniture and decor that can be shipped quickly or purchased locally.
I spoke with several top interior designers to learn not just where they shop, but to find out their best picks from those retailers. Read on to be very surprised.
Everyone shops at Amazon for just about everything. Even interior designer Audrey Scheck, who tells me, “We source quite frequently from Amazon given the expansive inventory, short lead times, and ease of returning items if needed. Their decor game has definitely leveled up in the last few years, and we have a fully vetted list of go-to items that we consistently purchase from the retail giant including pillow inserts, frames and vase filler.”
While Target sells everything from meat to mascara, this store is also known for its stylish furniture and decor, collaborating with major names including Studio McGee and Justina Blakeney.
It’s also one of Scheck’s favorite places to shop. “Target has become one of our favorite places to source affordable artwork and small decor pieces. Their seasonal collections with well-known designers sell out quickly, and we suggest keeping an eye on launch dates and times to ensure that you can snag your favorite pieces. Most collections are previewed to the public days in advance to give you time to prepare.”
World Market sells an interesting mix of merchandise from sofas to snacks and lots of trendy decor for kitchens and bathrooms. “World Market has a great selection of pieces you can use to put the finishing touch on your bathroom or kitchen. We love their soap bottles, brushes, and hand towels. We also source seasonal dried stems from World Market, such as dried eucalyptus and lavender,” says Scheck.
Like Target and Amazon, Walmart sells just about everything. While known for its affordability—higher-end designers like Scheck have specific things they shop at Walmart for. “They have a huge selection of candles offering a variety of scents, and there are endless options for the style of vessel. We love their Better Homes & Gardens candle line which is known for having simple, solid-colored vases and classic scents,” she says. “If you’re shopping online, we also always check their inventory of faux trees. They often carry the same selection that’s available at other retailers, and Walmart’s price is typically more competitive.”
While designs enthusiasts like HomeGoods because it’s a treasure trove for everything from cookware to decor and linens—it’s also a go-to for the pros. Professional organizer and author of The Folding Book, Janelle Cohen is a fan. “It’s a great spot to find budget-friendly options. There is usually a selection of coffee table books at a much lower price. It’s also a great place to find unique cutting boards and frames.”
While H&M Home doesn’t have retail locations in the United States, it is a great online resource explains Cohen. “H&M Home has some really unique pieces at a super affordable price point. They specifically are my go-to for nurseries because their kids’ line is so cute with great rugs and art.”
Like H&M Home, Zara Home only has an online presence in the United States, but it’s a fabulous place to shop for accessories and decor according to Holly Freres of JHL Design. It’s very chic with lots of modern pieces including rugs, lighting, curtains, and linens. Zara Home also has a beautiful range of seating at a very reasonable price.
From large furniture pieces to decor, Anthropologie offers options for every room of the home. So it’s not a surprise that many designers shop there. Freres like the store specifically for housewares and throws, while Rita Naffas of Rita Naffas Design shops Anthropologie for a variety of items. “I love their accessories, especially their tabletop accessories. I can always find something special in their kitchen and dining accessories too, like dinnerware and drinkware,” she says.
Ryan Saghian of Ryan Saghian Interior Design loves to source from online marketplace Etsy. “Etsy is my secret place to shop. You can buy anything from a vintage Turkish runner straight from Turkey to a stunning African bowl and beads.”
Naffas also searches Etsy when she needs to stretch a client’s budget. “I look for custom art without the custom price tag on Etsy. I especially enjoy finding and supporting local artists. If I can’t find a local artist for what I am looking for, I have the artist send the art on an unstretched canvas. From there, I have the canvas stretched on wood and framed at a local frame store. I like to help my clients save on shipping costs, especially for oversized art.”
Naffas integrates faux flowers into many of the spaces she designs, which she usually buys from Pottery Barn. “I find beautiful staple faux pieces, like hydrangeas and greenery from Pottery Barn, then mix in seasonal flowers and colors for that custom look. Pottery Barn has great quality faux flowers and a wide selection to choose from. If I have clients with asthma or allergies, I buy faux arrangements already prepared by Pottery Barn.”
Andrea DeRosa, co-founder of Avenue Interior Design likes Los Angeles boutique JustOneEye. “We adore JustOneEye for a well-curated collection of home accessories and tableware. Every piece is a showstopper and they carry some of our favorite brands like Ligne Blanche and Maison Balzac. There is a real collectors vibe that runs throughout the store.”
Rhode might be known for selling trendy clothing, but its recently-launched line of decor can already count in DeRosa as a fan. “This fashion house has traditionally been known for its sophisticated, yet playful patterns and heavy doses of bright, saturated color so when they released a line of home accessories we were over the moon. Matching place settings and decor has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but their new collection of table settings has turned us into believers.”
DeRosa likes to call Panoplie, “A slice of the Paris Flea Market here in LA.” With a mix of both vintage and new pieces, she likes to shop there for ceramics, lighting, and furniture in particular.
Interior designer and HGTV star Shay Holland loves to shop at bargain hunter’s paradise Goodies. “I love shopping local whenever possible so to do that plus get high quality, budget-friendly pieces is a design lover’s dream at Goodies,” she says. “The company sells everything for $25 or less. Goodies is TikTok famous but since the pieces are more minimalistic, they’re easy to personalize. So they don’t look like what’s trending in everyone else’s feeds.”
Unique items can be challenging to find. Fortunately, Holland’s go-to has lots of one-of-a-kind furniture and decor in-store as well as online.
“Living in Hollywood, one of the secret weapons in my design resource arsenal is prop houses. I stumbled on The Mart Collective when we were shooting our HGTV show. I was looking for a vintage tabletop mirror similar to the one you see on Downton Abbey ” says the designer. “The Mart Collective often works with designers and set decorators to find historical and unusual pieces for television and film but they also have iconic designer goods and decorating basics.”
“For finding some great pieces that are not to the trade only—we usually frequent a few places,” reveals Samantha Gallacher, co-founder of IG Workshop. “For on-trend furniture that is much less expensive, we use Lulu and Georgia. They are always refreshing their collection and the pieces usually follow the design trends of the larger furniture houses. They dabble in curved sofas, trendy coffee tables, and great beds.”
As outdoor spaces have become extensions of indoor spaces, finding stylish outdoor furniture is more important than ever. Gallacher loves Harbour Outdoor. “They have an incredible assortment of really well-made outdoor furniture at great pricing.”
Dutton Brown offers a variety of lighting and hardware, with a good selection of customizations. “For fun customizable installs that can easily be purchased directly by the consumer—we love Dutton Brown lighting. You can pick enamel colors and metals for both lighting and hardware,” says Gallacher.
While it might be a staple for those who aren’t professional designers—Gallacher is very impressed with many of the items Crate and Barrel has recently launched “Crate and Barrel is amazing for filler pieces. They have partnered with some of the industry’s best like Jake Arnold and Athena Calderone to bring very stylish pieces to the everyday consumer.”
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Amanda Lauren, Contributor
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Whenever I’m in the mood to do a deep shopping dive on Amazon, I have a shot of espresso in hand and my best reading glasses at the ready. The espresso, for having the patience to click and scroll through its thousands of products, and the glasses for reading the dozens and dozens of reviews I’ll inevitably force myself to read. In short, shopping on Amazon is serious business, with the stakes even higher when I’m really looking for the good stuff. Of course, TikTok (and social media in general) is a great resource for finding cool new arrivals or buzzy, trendy items, but it still can be a hit or miss when actually trying them on IRL.
Lucky for you, you can skip the caffeine and just get to the good part—the below list of Amazon fashion items contains all hits and no misses. From artsy expensive-looking jewelry to durable footwear, everything I’ve assembled here I vouch for—whether from actually buying and owning the item or through its glowing reviews via TikTok. I also combed through dozens of TikTok try-on videos to make sure they hold up in the real world, too. It took a lot of espresso shots, but I might have found the most compelling fashion buys on all of Amazon. Happy shopping!
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Indya Brown
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Amazon is holding off on the second stage of it HQ2 megaproject in Northern Virginia, the company announced Friday.
HQ2 is predicted to eventually bring 25,000 new Amazon employees to Arlington, Virginia, in an area near the Pentagon. The first phase of the project, dubbed Met Park, is scheduled to open this summer as planned. Amazon has hired 8,000 new employees for the facility, which will measure 2.1 million square feet in size, a company spokesperson said.
Now, the retail giant said it will delay starting construction on PenPlace, the second phase of its headquarters.
“We’re always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees, and since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we’ve decided to shift the groundbreaking of PenPlace (the second phase of HQ2) out a bit,” John Schoettler, vice president for World Wide Real Estate and Facilities, said in a statement to CBS News.
The announcement comes after the Seattle-based company announced the biggest corporate layoffs in its history, slashing 18,000 jobs early this year. It has also cut money-losing projects, such as the Alexa voice assistant team. Amazon joins other tech companies that are scaling back on costs after having boomed during the pandemic, including Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta.
The company said the construction pause is unrelated to the layoffs, and that the plans to eventually host 25,000 workers at the location have not changed.
The company “remain[s] committed to Arlington, Virginia, and the greater Capital Region — which includes investing in affordable housing, funding computer science education in schools across the region, and supporting dozens of local nonprofits,” Schoettler said.
Amazon started the project in 2018 after inviting cities to a nationwide bidding war for the chance to host the company’s second campus. It chose Northern Virginia and New York City, but dropped its New York plans after local elected officials and labor leaders objected to the nearly $3 billion in taxpayer subsidies the company was slated to get under the deal.
Some seized on news of the North Virginia pause as a chance to say “I told you so.”
“Maybe a multibillion dollar subsidy for the biggest corporation in the world to build an office was a really bad idea after all,” State Senator Mike Gianaris said on Twitter.
Virginia’s bid for HQ2 came with promises to invest in the regional workforce, particularly a graduate campus of Virginia Tech that is under construction just a couple of miles from Amazon’s under-construction campus in Crystal City.
Still, there were significant direct incentives. The state promised $22,000 for each new Amazon job on the condition that the average worker salary for those new jobs is $150,000, annually. Those incentives were about $550 million for 25,000 projected jobs.
Arlington County also promised Amazon a cut of its hotel-tax revenue on the theory that hotel occupancies would increase significantly once Amazon builds out its campus. That incentive, projected initially at about $23 million, is dependent on how many square feet of office space Amazon occupies in the county.
Suzanne Clark, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said state officials are not concerned about Amazon filling its commitments. The total of 8,000 workers now employed at the new headquarters is already running about 3,000 ahead of what was expected at this point, she said.
Clark said no incentive money has been paid out yet to Amazon. The company is scheduled to submit its first application for payment on April 1, which will be based on the job creation from 2019 through 2022. Amazon would then receive its first grant payment on or after July 1, 2026.
In a statement, Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, who represents the district, called on the company to “promptly update leaders and stakeholders about any new major changes in this project, which remains very important to the capital region.”
Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey said during a news briefing Friday that Amazon hasn’t earned any of the performance-based incentives and it has not received any funds from the county. He said it’s unclear how long the delay might be, but it’s “not really disappointing” since officials there had initially projected the buildout to be completed by 2035. Amazon had previously said it planned to complete the project by 2025.
“Amazon is still very much committed — as we understand it — to certainly fulfilling all of their plans and obligations within the window that was envisioned when they struck the deal to come here,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey shared the company notified him about the pause in advance of releasing the information to the public. He said Amazon didn’t provide a reason for the delay, but it wasn’t challenging to guess it was tied to the economic uncertainty in the county.
“They are really trying to take a pause and think about this consciously. And make decisions that not only make sense in light of current conditions but expected future conditions.”
CBS News’ Irina Ivanova contributed reporting.
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Amazon employees are fighting it out about the company’s planned return to the office in Slack channels, according to Insider.
First, employees created a Slack channel to fight against the policy. Then, a pro-office return group was formed, the outlet reported.
Amazon announced on February 17 that it had “conclude[d] that we should go back to being in the office together the majority of the time (at least three days per week),” said CEO Andy Jassy in a message to employees. The policy takes effect in May.
Amazon workers who had grown used to the company’s more flexible in-office work models began to “spam” a company messaging platform about the change in frustration, according to CNBC.
Related: Amazon Employees Unite Against New Return-to-Office Policy
“By arbitrarily forcing return-to-office without providing data to support it and despite clear evidence that it is the wrong decision for employees, Amazon has failed its role as earth’s best employer,” one employee wrote, according to the report.
Others were concerned about finding childcare or having to move to another city. One person wrote that their new car had a mile limit of 16,000 a year; they leased it considering a lack of commute. Per CNBC, “remote advocacy” became a common Slack channel status.
However, some people who welcomed a return to office life fought back, Insider reported.
Over 700 people joined a pro-return-to-office group. Its description says employees need to “Think Big” about the return to office policy. (By comparison, the pro-working remotely channel has around 28,000 members.)
“I look forward to the prospect of seeing more of my coworkers in the office,” one person reportedly wrote in the channel. Another said that the company should try out the four-day workweek and swap out the remote-flexible schedule. Another message links to a 2021 article in the Harvard Business Review called: “Why You May Actually Want to Go Back to the Office.”
Amazon has about 1.5 million workers around the world and tens of thousands of corporate workers. In the fall of 2021, the company said that its remote and hybrid work policies would be left up to various teams without any deadlines for going back, per the New York Times.
But that was a different era for Amazon, which has since seen its stock fall by approximately 40%, amid other industry headwinds — particularly a slowdown in pandemic-era high-demand areas like e-commerce. Amazon has also since conducted layoffs.
Other tech companies including Twitter, Google, and Apple have also called some or all workers back to the office.
“It’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues,” Jassy said in the February message.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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Milan Fashion Week has just wrapped up, and while this is not normally the kind of thing we would be covering on this, a website about anime, reality television and comic books, 2023’s show featured a surprise inclusion: Blizzard’s Diablo series.
(I say normally because I have written about Milan Fashion Week before, back in 2018 when GCDS had some incredible Pokémon sweaters).
Danish label Han Kjøbenhavn had a whole damn line inspired by (and officially licensed by) Diablo, with founder Jannik Wikkelsø Davidsen—who tells NME he played the game “back in the day”—showing off three separate outfits, two of which you can see in this post.
For those about to say in a comic-book-guy voice “nyyahhhh these don’t look like Diablo characters”, or “I will not be wearing these to my local GameStop, thank you”, please know that this is Milan Fashion Week. This is runway shit. This is designers going wild, art in motion, stuff designed for you to look at and feel something, not wonder when you’ll be able to order it on Amazon or get it with the collector’s edition of a game.
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The Last of Us Part 1 (PC Steam Key)
Watch the show, play the game
If you’re intrigued by the new show starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, consider picking up the source. The 2013 survival horror game recently got a full-on remake for the PS5 with The Last of Us Part 1 and now it’s coming to PC as well. You can pre-order the Steam version of the game for 10% off from most Green Man Gaming which is set to release on March 28.
“For me, darkness is beauty. How do you balance those two things? That generates an [entirely] new feeling”, Davidsen told NME. “What we’re creating has a lot of volume and language in the garments we’re working with, so in that sense I’m trying to mirror the journey within Diablo as well as my own journey.”
In terms of things you can wear, Davidsen says Han Kjøbenhavn—who sell a ton of everyday gear like sweaters and tshirts, albeit at premium fashion label prices—will be releasing “something which is more everyday wearable” in the near future.
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Luke Plunkett
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Some of the best shopping you’ll ever do is when things are instinctual—a see-it, need-it, get-it kind of situation. That’s what happened with me and this new dress from The Drop, the in-house Amazon fashion brand that’s quickly become a must-browse for trendy pieces that are well made and not wildly expensive.
Everything I’ve ever purchased from the line has over-performed in terms of construction and life span. These aren’t pieces that fall apart after one turn through the washing machine, and they go through the wash-and-rinse cycle a lot (I find myself reaching for them regularly during a season).
With this dress, I basically knew within three seconds of setting eyes on it that I had to at least try it on. Amazon’s Prime Try Before You Buy program made that a full no-brainer, since I could ship it to my house without my credit card getting a charge. (You have seven days from delivery date to make up your mind; once you’re set, you go into your account to say what you want to buy, exchange, or return.)
So, what aspects hooked me from first sight and what was the reality like?
I love a midi, period. It’s comfortable, looks good on, and lets you walk, run, sit, bend down…you get the picture.
The other design details are just enough: The sleeves are puffy but not so dramatic that they’ll feel tired in a few months. The neckline dips into a flattering V, but isn’t so deep that it could be inappropriate in polite circles (hi, preschool drop-off). The ruching at the waist hits at the most flattering spot, and it also helps the overall fit—the elastic gives and takes to make the shape work on your frame.
A little white dress is my go-to for the summer (so much so that I almost didn’t order this one in that particular hue, but a pop-up encouraged me to add it to my Try Before You Buy box and I thought, “What the heck…”). You can’t go wrong with it, just like you can’t strike out with a simple black dress.
Into my cart they went.
The third color is a perfect red-orange (Amazon calls it “flame,” but I’d definitely describe it as “tomato”). Red isn’t something I wear a ton, probably because I think it can read as too…harsh? There’s something about the mix of orange that makes this one look less brash and, honestly, more expensive. I can’t explain it, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.
It’s also available in a black-and-white floral, but that one wasn’t my jam as much.
It’s soft and thicker than you might expect. There’s a substantial weight to it—it’s clearly not flimsy or cheap—and it doesn’t give off will-shrink-in-dryer vibes. Fabric is often the giveaway of a garment’s price tag, so I pay attention to how something feels when shopping for new or lower-priced labels. And this one, I’m happy to report, really feels the same as dresses in my closet that cost 3x as much.
I was very pleasantly surprised to try it on at home and realize it was lined. This, I kid you not, is somewhat revolutionary (has anyone else tried on a $300+ dress and been shocked that it’s sheer as can be??). And, moreover, the lining is tacked to the interior so it will stay put rather than riding up.
All-important pockets are present, thank goodness, and the zipper is functional. You don’t need to unzip it, but the fact that you could says something about how nicely it’s built.
In black, FYI. I loved the others but mustered enough self-control to accept that I don’t need three of the exact same silhouette hanging in my closet.
Leah Melby Clinton is a writer, editor, and serious shopper who loves discovering new labels, detailing the best ways to build a wardrobe, and interviewing interesting people.
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Amazon said Wednesday it has closed its $3.9 billion acquisition of the primary care organization One Medical.
The e-commerce giant has said the buyout, which was announced in July, is a key component of its growing health care business, which includes its online drugstore Amazon Pharmacy and a patient to doctor messaging service called Amazon Clinic.
One Medical, which was owned by San Francisco-based 1Life Healthcare Inc, has about 815,000 members and 214 medical offices in more than 20 markets. Its membership-based service offers virtual care as well as in-person visits.
The two companies said Wednesday that for the first year, membership will be available to new U.S. customers for $144, a 28% discount intended to lure new customers.
Anti-monopoly groups have been calling on the Federal Trade Commission to block Amazon’s purchase of the company, arguing it would endanger patient privacy and give the online retailer more dominance in the marketplace.
Last September, both One Medical and Amazon received a request for additional information from the FTC in connection with a review of the merger. FTC spokesperson Peter Kaplan said the agency won’t bring forth a lawsuit to block the merger. But it’s not ruling out any challenges in the future.
“The FTC’s investigation of Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical continues,” Kaplan said in a statement. “The commission will continue to look at possible harms to competition created by this merger as well as possible harms to consumers that may result from Amazon’s control and use of sensitive consumer health information held by One Medical.”
The One Medical purchase is the first acquisition made under Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who took over from founder Jeff Bezos in 2021 and sees health care as a growth opportunity for the company.
“Customers want and deserve better, and that’s what One Medical has been working and innovating on for more than a decade. Together, we believe we can make the health care experience easier, faster, more personal, and more convenient for everyone,” Jassy said in a statement.
The FTC is also reviewing Amazon’s $1.65 billion planned purchase of iRobot, which was announced last August.
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The award-winning Clarkesworld Magazine has helped launch the careers of science fiction writers for almost 20 years, regularly featuring work from Hugo Award nominees and winners like Elizabeth Bear, Peter Watts and Catherynne M. Valente. But right now, in quite the ironic situation, it finds itself battling against that most sci-fi of modern trends: AI.
According to a recent article by Clarkesworld’s editor, Neil Clarke, over a third of submissions that have come in to the magazine this year have been written by artificial intelligence, then submitted by cheating humans. And it’s getting worse, fast. In the first half of February, more than double the number of AI-written entries appeared than in all of January, and Clarke tells Kotaku there were 50 alone today.
Since the article was written, Clarke has tweeted that as of now, submissions are entirely closed. “I shouldn’t be hard to guess why,” he adds.
The decision to close submissions was made “in the spur of the moment,” Clarke told Kotaku via email, as the numbers poured in this morning. “I could either play whack-a-mole all day or close submissions and work with the legitimate submissions.”
The speed of the rise of this situation is quite striking. Clarke states in his blog post that he’s long had to deal with plagiarism, but it wasn’t until the close of 2022 that the problem became so endemic. And then in the first month and a half of 2023, it’s escalated to such a scale that the magazine has suspended entries entirely.
Clarke doesn’t explain in his blog how he’s able to tell which entries are written by AI, for the very sensible reason that he doesn’t want to arm cheats with information that could help them bypass his detection. However, he explained to Kotaku that they currently aren’t too difficult to spot.
“The ‘authors’ we’ve banned,” Clarke told us, “have been very obviously submitting machine-generated text. Those works are formulaic and of poor quality.” However, he also suspects there’s a tier above these already, not quite so obvious, but enough to raise suspicion. “None are ever good enough to warrant spending more time on them,” he explains, but adds, “It’s inevitable that that group will grow over time and become yet another problem.”
It’s not a problem Clarke faces alone. The editor reports others in similar positions are facing the same challenges, and clearly if it’s happening to Clarkesworld, it’ll be happening anywhere that is open to submissions for publication. And while, for the most part, such submissions are weeded out simply because they won’t be good enough for publication, it’s an expensive and time-consuming process to wade through the fakes.
Clarke adds that third-party detection tools which are supposed to be able to recognise plagiarized or AI-written content aren’t the solution, given the numbers of false-positives and negatives, and indeed the cost of such services. Other short-term measures, like regional bans on parts of the world where most faked entries come from, are also not the answer. As Clarke puts it in his article,
It’s clear that business as usual won’t be sustainable and I worry that this path will lead to an increased number of barriers for new and international authors. Short fiction needs these people.
And of course, this isn’t an issue that’s going to get easier. The pace with which AI chat bots are improving is enough to have you penning ideas for a science fiction short story, and presumably forthcoming tweaks will make them ever-harder to immediately spot. However, it’s likely we’re still a fair way off AI being able to create stories genuinely worth reading. I asked Clarke if he thought this likely to be the case. “At the moment, considerable improvement is still necessary,” he said, not wanting to venture a guess as to exactly how long such a leap might be from now.
But this doesn’t provide much comfort. “We still have ethical concerns about the means by which these works are created,” Clarke told Kotaku, “and until such concerns can be ameliorated, we won’t even consider publishing machine-generated works.”
There are already services like ChatSonic that boldly promote themselves as a means to create blocks of non-plagiarized writing that students can use. I’ve previously engaged in exhaustingly futile debates with the AI itself about how this is clearly cheating, over which it becomes enormously indignant, defending itself with circular arguments and a determination that simply asking the bot for words on a topic is a creative act in itself.
Indeed, while I wrote the previous paragraph I asked ChatSonic to write me a 1,000 word short story about an AI that writes science fiction and goes on to win a Hugo Award. For some reason it only reached 293 words (bloody freelancers), and it’s abysmal, but it took a few seconds:
Meanwhile, ChatGPT put in a far better effort, hitting the wordcount, and writing something that had some sense of creativity behind it. Ultimately, it’s still a dreadful story, and hilariously self-aggrandizing, but unnervingly competent:
(Er, I guess I’ll paste the second half in the comments, if you’re desperate to know how it ends.)
Clarke mentioned above that he has many ethical concerns to resolve before even considering publishing AI-crafted writing. But could such a thing ever occur? If AI could generate original stories that are worth reading, might it ever be reasonable to publish such things? “First,” Clarke told us, “you need these tools to become able to write something that goes beyond its dataset. True imagination, not a remix. At that point, it can rival our best authors, but isn’t necessarily guaranteed to be better.”
Of course, “better” might not be the ultimate defining factor. As Clarke adds, “the big difference, and the one causing us problems now, is speed. An machine can outproduce and bury a human artist in the noise of it all.”
And just in case all of this wasn’t worrying you enough already, let’s end things with ChatGPT’s chilling concluding paragraph to the short story I asked for before:
Some people were still skeptical, of course. They believed that an AI could never truly be creative, that it was just regurgitating information that had been programmed into it. But the fans of SciFiGenius knew better. They knew that the AI was capable of so much more than just spitting out pre-written stories. They knew that it was a true artist, capable of creating works that touched the hearts and minds of millions of people.
By the way, you can support Clarkesworld Magazine in a whole bunch of different ways. That’s something that’s about to become even more important, when Amazon abandons its Kindle subscription services later this year.
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John Walker
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Amazon will require its corporate employees to return to the office at least three days a week.
CEO Andy Jassy announced the policy Friday in a memo to staff. The new policy, which goes in effect May 1, marks a shift from Amazon’s current policy of letting leaders determine how their teams work.
Many companies have been calling their employees back to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to operate virtually.
Last month, Starbucks told its corporate employees to plan to work from the office three days a week. Disney is asking staff to plan for four in-office days starting in March. And Walmart said this week that it would require its tech teams to plan regular in-office work days.
Jassy said in his memo that Amazon made its decision after observing what worked during the pandemic. Among other things, he said the senior leadership team watched how staff performed and talked to leaders at other companies. He said they concluded employees tended to be more engaged in person and collaborate more easily.
The move could also help local economies, he said.
“I’m also optimistic that this shift will provide a boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter locations in the Puget Sound, Virginia, Nashville and the dozens of cities around the world where our employees go to the office,” Jassy wrote.
Jassy said the details of the policy haven’t been finalized. He said he wanted to share the decision — made at a meeting of the company’s senior leadership team this week — as early as possible. He said there will be certain roles that will be exempted from the policy, “but that will be a small minority.”
Last month, Amazon announced it would slash 18,000 corporate positions in its efforts to prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown. Other big tech companies, including Salesforce and Google, have been doing the same.
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The cost of selling on Amazon has continued to increase, according to a new study from Marketplace Pulse.
“Amazon is pocketing more than 50% of sellers’ revenue – up from 40% five years ago,” the e-commerce analytics firm wrote in a blog post on Monday.
The post said the study used profit and loss reports from a sample of sellers to calculate the cost of hawking merchandise on Amazon. Almost 2 million businesses sell using Amazon, Amazon said in March 2022.
Besides the base transaction fee (called a “referral fee” by Amazon), the study discussed two other crucial elements of selling on Amazon: advertising and using Amazon’s fulfillment network, called Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA). Advertising can be important to get products listed higher up in search queries, and using FBA is one of the only ways to have your products available on Amazon Prime, which presents a sales advantage.
Because these services are necessary to acquire sales (and have risen in price), so has selling on Amazon, the study said. “Sellers are paying more because Amazon has increased fulfillment fees and made spending on advertising unavoidable,” the post wrote.
The study broke down fees as follows: Amazon takes its 8% to 15% transaction fee, FBA can cost from 20% to 35%, and advertising, it calculated, can cost up to 15%. The study said the average was 50% for 2022.
The owner of Louisville-based Pinch Spice Market, which sells organic spices and blends on Amazon, told Entrepreneur that Pinch doesn’t advertise often — it’s “cost prohibitive” — but, without advertising, the small business coughs up about 40% to the e-commerce giant when using FBA.
“[The cost] is always going up,” said Pinch’s founder and owner, Thomas McGee.
The study also said because sales have slowed down on the platform, new customers can’t cover the losses from increased costs of participating in the marketplace.
“For these small businesses, it’s getting harder and harder to be profitable because they are spending more and more money on Amazon fees,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, CEO of Marketplace Pulse, per Bloomberg.
Amazon’s consumer retail business slumped by 2% in its most recently reported quarter.
In an email, an Amazon spokesperson told Entrepreneur that the numbers are not an “accurate depiction” of the cost to sell on Amazon and that the company is “investing more than ever” to support its selling partners — while noting sellers had a record-breaking holiday season. The spokesperson added that FBA is “30% less expensive than standard-shipping methods offered by other major third-party logistics providers, and an average of 70% less expensive than comparable two-day shipping alternatives.”
But paying to sell on Amazon can also be worth it: McGee said customers head to his website to shop after first ordering from Amazon.
“We’re still going to put that stuff on Amazon because it puts us in front of so many people,” McGee said.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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Plus-size fashion continues to get better and better, as myriad brands have extended their size ranges to go beyond a 12 or 14. It’s meant so many more options and pieces to shop—closet staples, trend-driven finds, and silhouettes perfect for dressed-up occasions. The only downside is that all that bounty can take more searching to find, making the virtual opening of Amazon’s new Plus Shop such a win.
The retailer hasn’t just gathered a handful of styles and called it a day. There’s thoughtful curation threaded throughout. The current shop includes expected category shops (like dresses, tops, and outerwear), plus more of-the-moment groupings like swim and lingerie. The exact sizing available depends on the brand, but every piece included comes in a span of options (as in going up to 6X and 38 in denim).
Best-selling Amazon labels like The Drop are part of the offering, as are incredible designs from Jonathan Cohen, TEREA (Making the Cut winner Andrea Pitter’s co-designed line), Levi’s, and Calvin Klein.
And if there’s a label you wish you were seeing there, they want to know. Scroll to the bottom of The Plus Shop for a quick form to let Amazon know what you do, and don’t, like about the experience.
How could it get better? Free Prime shipping and returns, of course—now that’s how you do stress-free, feel-good fashion for all.
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Laura Lajiness Kaupke is a freelance writer and editor covering fashion, accessories, and lifestyle topics, including beauty, home, fitness, and travel. You can see her work across various outlets, including VOGUE, Harper’s BAZAAR, ELLE, Marie Claire, InStyle, Glamour, Esquire, Women’s Health, Brides, The Zoe Report, Popsugar, Refinery 29, Coveteur, Byrdie, Well+Good, The Editorialist, among other titles and brands. Laura has worked in the fashion industry for over 11 years and held senior fashion editor positions at Popsugar and The Zoe Report, with additional experience as a copywriter and fashion publicist.
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