Tag: holiday retail

'Tis the season for family holiday projects and gifts that give back | CNN

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Whether you’re hoping to do something more meaningful with your kids than just hitting the mall, or if you’re just looking for some gifts that give back, here are some ideas that could bring more joy this holiday season.

Gathering friends or family together to assemble a gift box for a needy recipient could be a new, purposeful holiday tradition that you start this year.

Kynd Kits are an activity for the whole family. You choose a cause or group of people important to you, and then request the corresponding kit.

Each kit will contain items specifically requested by people in those groups. You assemble the pieces together, write a card, then send it off. Among the recipients you can choose from this year: the homeless, victims of domestic violence, senior citizens, LGBTQ people and foster children.

If your family would like to help a foster child this holiday season, Together We Rise is helping kids without permanent homes by providing colorful bags to tote their items around in. (Many foster kids lug their worldly possessions around in trash bags.) They send you a panel to decorate, that you then send back. They attach each artwork panel to a duffel bag, which is stuffed with a teddy bear, a blanket, a hygiene kit and a coloring book.

A family art project can brighten up the walls of a long-term care facility. The Foundation for Hospital Art will send you a kit, complete with pre-drawn canvases and art supplies. You color it in, create one panel of your own design and send it back with the pre-addressed UPS label.

If you can knit or crochet, consider helping Knots of Love. You could knit a beanie to support a patient going through chemotherapy or a blanket to warm a baby in the NICU.

The Salvation Army’s “Angel Tree” program is online again this year, making it easy to shop for a child in need. Just enter your zip code, add the requested items from their registry to your cart, and the Salvation Army does the rest.

For your caffeine-loving friends, why not send them bird-friendly coffee? These coffee beans are grown under a forest canopy that provides a habitat for birds – important since the North American bird population has decreased by almost three billion birds since 1970.

And if you want to spend your money at a local bookstore but don’t want to leave the house, consider buying from bookshop.org. They partner with independent book sellers across the country to send your dollars to stores that really need it.

If you want to support Black-owned businesses this Christmas (or any time of year) the website and app https://www.supportblackowned.com/ helps you find shops and services all over the US.

The EatOkra app helps you find Black-owned restaurants and food services (buying a gift card helps keep small eateries in business).

You can also search Instagram by using the hashtag #SupportBlackBusiness.

Finally, many larger retailers are giving back this season. If you just want a name-brand gift sure to wow a picky tween or teen, many stores and brands partner with charities to give back over the holiday season.

Some companies even make it a yearlong mission to do good.

If you are looking for a present for someone worried about the environment, Patagonia gives a portion of all profits to environmental causes.

Ivory Ella donates up to 50% of its profits to charities helping elephants, including Save the Elephants.

Sock company Bombas donates a pair of socks to a needy person, for every pair sold.

And what Christmas stocking couldn’t use a fuzzy pencil case and some unicorn-themed erasers? Yoobi sells colorful pens, pencils and stationery, and for every item purchased, they donate a school supply to a child in need.

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December 18, 2023
Retail sales continued to fall in December as shoppers battled inflation | CNN Business

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Minneapolis
CNN
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It was a ho-hum end to 2022 for spending in America.

US retail sales continued their fall in December, dropping by 1.1% as inflation remained high, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

That’s the largest monthly decline since December 2021, and practically every category (except for building materials, groceries and sporting goods) saw sales drop from the prior month.

Economists had expected sales to fall by just 0.8% for the month, according to Refinitiv. The November number was revised down to -1%.

All in all, the final retail sales report for 2022 shows a muted finish to a holiday season that crept even further into October versus the traditional late-November and December.

October was the last strong retail sales month of 2022, as discounting and slowing inflation prompted consumers to shop more then, said Kayla Bruun, economic analyst at Morning Consult.

“I think the hope was that this was going to lead to a little bit more momentum heading into the holiday season,” she said. “But really, it turned out to be more of just an early bump that actually took away from some of the spending that otherwise might have happened in November and December.”

The Commerce Department’s retail sales data is not adjusted for inflation, which reached a 40-year high in June before falling during the second half of 2022, hitting 6.5% for the 12-month period ending in December, according to the latest Consumer Price Index reading released last week.

Wholesale price growth is also cooling significantly: The Producer Price Index for December measured 6.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday.

During the November and December holiday season, retail sales grew 5.3% over 2021 to $936.3 billion, the National Retail Federation reported Wednesday.

The holiday total, which is not adjusted for inflation and excludes sales at auto dealerships, gas stations and restaurants, falls short of the trade association’s projections of 6% to 8% holiday sales growth.

“We knew it could be touch-and-go for final holiday sales given early shopping in October that likely pulled some sales forward plus price pressures and cold, stormy weather,” said Jack Kleinhenz, NRF’s chief economist, in a statement. “The pace of spending was choppy, and consumers may have pulled back more than we had hoped, but these numbers show that they navigated a challenging, inflation-driven environment reasonably well. The bottom line is that consumers are still engaged and shopping despite everything happening around them.”

Consumer spending has remained robust despite inflation, rising interest rates and recession fears. However, some economic data suggests that activity may be losing some steam and that Americans are running out of dry powder.

“I think the consumers has gotten very active in managing their household budget and what they’re willing to spend on,” said Matt Kramer, KPMG’s national sector leader for consumer and retail. “They’re spending more time looking for the deals and being thoughtful about when they make purchases.”

That’s seen in the monthly sales declines in categories like motor vehicles, which were down 1.2% from November; furniture, down 2.5%; and electronics, down 1.1%, according to Wednesday’s report.

“Certainly on those large purchases, financed purchases where interest rates play in, the consumers are pushing those decisions out and extending their buying cycles around the larger categories,” he said.

The next few months are traditionally the slowest for retailers, but headwinds like credit card debt and stubborn inflation may exacerbate that, said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst for Bankrate.

“A further slowdown in purchasing appears likely, at least in the near-term,” Rossman said in a statement.

Discretionary spending is usually the first to go, with people typically cutting back on travel, eating out and other expenditures, said Amanda Belarmino, assistant professor of hospitality at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

However, the post-pandemic pent-up demand that fueled strong services spending in 2022 is still going strong. Spending on food services and drinking places was up 12.1% in December from the year before.

“What we’ve seen in restaurants, tourism, hospitality is completely contrary to what we normally see in an economic slowdown,” Belarmino said. “We have seen consumers continue to make that spending. But where you’re seeing those slowdowns are things like people canceling their streaming services, canceling their Peloton, canceling their home services. So it seems that consumers are making those trade-offs.”

However, shifts in tipping activity could be harbinger of shifts to come.

“The average tip rate in the US had gone up to about 18% to 20%, and there are some indicators that’s going to be falling back down toward the 15% range,” Belarmino said. “It’s not a huge thing, but it’s a way for consumers to save money.”

How spending activity holds up in the service industries will be a critical indicator in the coming months, Morning Consult’s Bruun said, adding that a strong labor market should help to prevent a dramatic collapse in spending.

“That has been the component of consumer spending that’s been driving growth,” she said. “And it’s going to need to, going forward, because we’ve really seen that goods demand has been tapped out to a large extent.”

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January 18, 2023
Macy’s says its holiday sales will be lower, citing inflation pressures | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Turns out inflation may have put a damper on the holidays.

Macy’s chair and CEO Jeff Gennette said lulls during the non-peak holiday weeks “were deeper than anticipated” and that consumers will continue to feel pressured into 2023, in a Q4 update Friday.

Macy’s said Friday its net sales from the holiday quarter will likely be at the low-end to mid-point of its previously issued range of $8.16 billion to $8.4 billion. The retailer said its adjusted diluted earnings per share are expected to be between $1.47 to $1.67.

In last year’s fourth quarter results, Macy’s earned $8.67 billion, above analysts’ forecasts, and had an adjusted earnings per share of $2.45.

Total end-of-quarter inventories are on track to fall slightly below last year and down mid-teens relative to 2019.

Gennette said its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales met expectations and the week leading up to and following Christmas beat them.

“Overall, our occasion apparel and gift-giving business were strengths, and inventory composition and price points aligned with customers’ needs,” Gennette said, noting that its high-end Bloomingdale’s stores and cosmetics line Bluemercury continued to outperform forecasts.

Macy’s warning may provide an early clue to investors wondering if high inflation has hampered shopping demand during the holidays.

Americans spent more this season to keep up with high prices. US retail sales increased 7.6% during the period between November 1 to December 24 compared to the same time last year, according to the Mastercard Spending Pulse. US retail sales were lower than expected in November, falling 0.6% during the month, which was the weakest performance in nearly a year.

Gennette warned that consumer sentiment is unlikely to change with the new year.

“Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data, we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and have planned inventory mix and depth of initial buys accordingly,” the Macy’s CEO said.

The company expects to report full results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 in early March 2023.

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January 7, 2023
The hottest holiday gift is a massive, half pound Fruit Loop | CNN Business

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Just in time for the holidays, artist collective MSCHF is releasing its newest playful art piece: a giant, 930-calorie, $19.99 fruit loop.

MSCHF, a Brooklyn-based group of artists, is no stranger to headlines documenting their provocative, irreverent releases. Most recently, they operated an ATM at Art Basel Miami Beach that displayed a public leaderboard of users’ bank balances, ranked from highest to lowest.

Their previous projects have also played with modifications of “ready-made” items – like the unofficial Nike shoes they released in collaboration with Lil Nas X, which triggered a lawsuit and recall.

The unauthorized massive fruit loop is the group’s latest lighthearted experiment with consumerism. As the name suggests, it’s a single loop of the classic cereal that’s big enough to fill the whole box. The giant cereal pieces will go on sale on December 19th for $19.99. Each one weighs “almost half a pound,” according to MSCHF’s website for the product.

Daniel Greenberg, MSCHF’s co-founder, told CNN that an extremely limited number of the huge loops will be released – and he expects they’ll sell out quickly.

The project was a natural extension of the group’s ethos, according to Greenberg. “We look at things in culture and figure out how to make a twist on it,” he said. “Cereal was definitely, you know, one of these cultural readymades in our mind. You could go anywhere in the world and show it to someone and they would know what it is.”

But fans looking for a deeper meaning might be out of luck. The intent, said Greenberg, was, “‘Just like, let’s make a big f—ing fruit loop and that was it.”

Developing the cereal, which the website specifies was not affiliated with or endorsed by Kellogg’s, required a months-long process of reverse engineering.

“We take everything we do extremely seriously,” Greenberg said. “The easy solution would have been like, basically making a cake or a doughnut.”

But instead of just making a doughnut or cake in the shape of the classic cereal loop, MSCHF worked to replicate the exact texture and taste of the real Kellogg’s cereal – and Greenberg says the final result is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Greenberg emphasized that MSCHF is fundamentally an art project that caters to collectors. They’re not trying to compete with Kellogg’s – and although the product packaging shown on the website is clearly riffing a real box of Fruit Loops, it also includes MSCHF’s logo and states the product is not associated with Kellogg’s.

That may be so but the cereal company doesn’t quite see it that way. In an emailed statement, Kellogg spokesperson Kris Bahner told CNN that the “Big Fruit Loop” constitutes copyright infringement.

“Kellogg Company does not have a relationship with MSCHF and we were not involved in the creation of the Big Fruit Loop. The campaign does not accurately depict the Kellogg’s brand,” said Bahner in the statement. “Given the trademark infringement and unauthorized use of our brand, we have reached out to the company seeking an amicable resolution.”

Because of MSCHF’s “robust fan base,” Greenberg thinks most buyers probably won’t actually be eating anything out of the boxes. “The majority of people will want to put it on their shelves and keep it,” he said.

MSCHF fans can expect more Alice-in-Wonderland-esque drops in the future. Next year, the collective plans to introduce another familiar product made “microscopic,” although Greenberg wouldn’t specify what it was.

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December 17, 2022
In Britain, nearly 200,000 workers are striking on Black Friday | CNN Business

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London
CNN Business
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Britain’s cost-of-living crisis is already taking the shine off Black Friday. Now, the annual shopping bonanza faces an additional threat from strikes that could disrupt deliveries, subdue online sales and deliver another blow to the slumping economy.

Some 235,000 workers have gone on strike across the United Kingdom this week, encompassing schools, universities and the postal service. Workers are demanding better pay and working conditions as they struggle with soaring food and energy bills.

Strike action by as many as 115,000 Royal Mail staff on Thursday and Friday threatens to disrupt Black Friday sales and deliveries at a crucial time of the year for retailers.

Small businesses in particular are suffering “enormous damage” as a result of the postal strikes, as they “rely on an efficient mail service for so much of their trade,” according to a statement posted to LinkedIn and signed by Murray Lambell, eBay

(EBAY) UK general manager, Martin McTague, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, and Michelle Ovens, founder of campaign group Small Business Britain.

Postal workers are planning further strike action for November 30 and December 1, following walkouts in August and September.

“Customers should expect delays to items posted just before, during or just after strike action,” Royal Mail said in a statement.

Strikes have swept the United Kingdom this year, as workers grapple with a worsening cost-of-living crisis and an economy that is sliding into a recession. Wages have stagnated and failed to keep pace with inflation, now at a 41-year high, setting the stage for clashes between employers and employees.

Those clashes have already caused widespread disruption, including to train travel, and are now spreading to even more sectors, such as education and healthcare.

More than 70,000 university workers went on strike over pay, working conditions and pensions on Thursday and Friday at 150 universities across the United Kingdom.

The strike is the biggest in the history of British higher education, affecting over 2.5 million students, according to the University and College Union, which organized the strike. Another strike is planned for November 30.

In Scotland, every school on the mainland was shut Thursday after walkouts by as many as 50,000 teachers in the first day of national strike action over pay in almost 40 years, according to the Educational Institute of Scotland, a trade union.

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Nursing, which has more than 300,000 members, said Friday that nurses would hold a strike on two days in December — the first in the union’s 106-year history — in support of its call for higher pay. Unison, a labor union representing nearly half a million health service workers, will complete its own strike ballot on Friday.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 356,000 days were lost to strike action in August, not far off the previous high recorded in July 2014, when 386,000 days were lost. That number dipped to 205,000 in September.

But the picture could get worse again before it gets better, with disruption stretching beyond Black Friday and well into the holiday season. Strike action will also add to losses facing companies and could prompt further job cuts.

RMT, Britain’s largest transport union, on Tuesday announced four 48-hour strikes in December and January after talks with Network Rail collapsed. Network Rail’s chief negotiator, Tim Shoveller said that striking makes the “precarious financial hole” in which the company finds itself bigger and “the task of finding a resolution ever more difficult.”

Drivers for Best Food Logistics, who deliver fresh food to restaurants including KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut, have also voted to strike, according to a statement from the GMB Union on Thursday. No dates have yet been announced and a company spokesperson told CNN Business it is committed to “reach a way forward.”

The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents striking postal workers, has announced additional walkouts on December 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24, which could jeopardize Christmas deliveries. Royal Mail says it has not yet been formally notified of these dates.

Relations between the company and the union have deteriorated after they failed to reach an agreement on pay and changes to working terms and conditions during talks lasting seven months.

According to Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson, the strikes have added £100 million ($121.3 million) to Royal Mail’s losses so far this year and could lead to further job cuts on top of 10,000 already announced.

“The CWU’s planned strike action is holding Christmas to ransom for our customers, businesses and families across the country, and is putting their own members’ jobs at risk,” Thompson said in a statement.

Also on Friday, thousands of Amazon

(AMZN) warehouse workers plan to take part in protests and strikes in around 30 countries, including the United States, Britain, Japan, India, Australia, France, Germany and South Africa, according to UNI Global Union.

This is the third year that the Make Amazon Pay campaign has organized a global day of action on Black Friday. Protests due to take place between shifts at an Amazon warehouse in Coventry, England on Friday evening are not expected to affect Black Friday deliveries.

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November 25, 2022
Consumers continue to lack confidence in the US economy ahead of holiday shopping season | CNN Business

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Minneapolis
CNN Business
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Heading into the all-important holiday shopping season, American consumers still aren’t feeling very confident about the state of the US economy.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index landed at 56.8 in November, up from the preliminary reading of 54.7 measured earlier this month but lower than the 59.9 recorded in October.

Economists were expecting a reading of 55, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv.

The month-over-month decline in sentiment offset about one-third of the gains made since the index bottomed out in June, according to Joanne Hsu, director of the university’s Surveys of Consumers.

“Headwinds to consumer strength have started to emerge. Strong incomes have thus far helped consumers, particularly lower-wage workers, cope with high inflation,” Hsu said in a statement. “However, their perceptions of weakening labor markets could make them pull back their spending in the future. Wealthier households are experiencing declining stock markets and home values, which would also produce drag on their willingness to spend.”

Consumers surveyed also highlighted the effects of rising interest rates on their desire to buy homes, cars and other big-ticket items. The Federal Reserve, in efforts to combat decades-high inflation, has enacted a series of steep interest rate hikes.

About 83% of respondents to the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers said that it was a bad time to buy a home. That’s the highest share ever recorded, according to the university.

The survey also showed that consumers’ inflation expectations for this year and five years out remained relatively unchanged at 4.9% and 3%, respectively. This is a key data point for the Federal Reserve. If consumers believe prices will remain high, that could factor into increased wage demands, which could cause businesses to raise prices.

Earlier this month, when the preliminary survey data was released, Hsu noted that very few consumers were front-loading purchases to avoid higher interest rates in the future. That was an indication that expectations aren’t worsening, she stated at the time.

Still, Hsu noted Wednesday, uncertainty over these expectations remains at an elevated level, “indicating that the general stability of these expectations may not necessarily endure.”

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November 23, 2022
Amazon stock falls 14% on light holiday quarter sales forecast | CNN Business

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Amazon

(AMZN) stock fell some 14% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company forecast its holiday quarter sales would be lighter than analysts had expected.

The e-commerce giant said it expects revenue for the final three months of the year to be between $140 billion to $148 billion, significantly below the $155 billion analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had expected. The weaker forecast comes as rising inflation and looming recession fears weigh on consumer purchasing decisions.

Amazon reported revenue of $127.1 billion for its third-quarter, a 15% increase from the prior year but just missing Wall Street estimates.

“There is obviously a lot happening in the macroeconomic environment, and we’ll balance our investments to be more streamlined without compromising our key long-term, strategic bets,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement accompanying the earnings release.

The company reported its Amazon Web Services segment sales increased 27% year-over-year to $20.5 billion – representing a slower pace of growth for a closely-watched business unit than Wall Street had expected.

But Amazon’s cloud computing division continues to be a strong profit driver for the company. Amazon posted a $2.9 billion profit for the three-month period, much improved from the prior quarter when it posted $2 billion net loss largely due to its investment in electric vehicle maker Rivian.

The latest results comes at a precarious time for the e-commerce giant. Amazon initially saw its business boom during the pandemic, as more consumers relied on online shopping. This year, however, the company is confronting a shift back to in-person shopping as well as a souring economic outlook has hampered consumers’ demand.

Jesse Cohen, a senior analyst at Investing.com, said Amazon’s earnings report “proves it’s not immune to the challenges facing the tech industry at large as it struggles in the face of worsening macroeconomic headwinds, such as soaring inflation and worries about a possible recession.”

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October 30, 2022
Amazon plans to hire 150,000 workers ahead of holiday shopping season | CNN Business

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CNN
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Amazon said Thursday it plans to hire 150,000 new employees across the United States to meet demand ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.

The openings, which include full-time, seasonal and part-time roles, range from packing and picking to sorting and shipping, the company said. The announcement comes just days before Amazon is set to hold another Prime Day shopping event.

Amazon ramps up hiring each holiday season, but this year it is doing so in a tight labor market and with rising inflation putting more pressure on companies to raise wages.

Last week, Amazon said it would raise hourly wages for warehouse and delivery workers. With the increase, Amazon employees can, on average, earn more than $19 an hour based on the position and location in the United States, up from an average of $18 previously.

On Thursday, the company said it will provide additional sign-on bonuses for the newly announced holiday positions, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 in select locations. Some of the states with the highest number of jobs available include California, Illinois, Texas.

The hiring news also comes amid multiple high-profile unionization drives at Amazon warehouses, including at facilities in Alabama and New York. The Amazon Labor Union secured a historic victory in forming the first US labor union at a facility in Staten Island, New York earlier this year. Next week, workers at a separate facility near Albany, New York, are slated to vote to join the same grassroots worker group.

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October 11, 2022
Amazon’s $999 dog-like robot is getting smarter | CNN Business

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CNN
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Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a collection of product updates that tie together its vast suite of services and help ensure it remains at the center of peoples’ lives and homes.

Nearly a year after Amazon

(AMZN) was met with criticism over its controversial vision for the future of home security, the company is doubling down on new features for Astro, its dog-like robot, to help it better patrol the household when the owners are away. Amazon

(AMZN) also announced a new sleep-tracking device as well as an updated Alexa-powered Fire TV that knows when you’re in the room, among a number of other products.

The new updates, announced at an invite-only press event, come a week after the company introduced four new Fire HD 8 tablet models and appear aimed at drumming up excitement for its products ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.

Amazon, like other tech companies, must convince customers to upgrade or buy new gadgets at a time when fears are mounting about a possible global recession. At the same time, Amazon must also confront shifting comfort levels with its growing reach into the lives of consumers and how closely its household products may be tracking them.

Last month, Amazon agreed to buy iRobot, the company behind the popular automated Roomba vacuums, in a $1.7 billion deal that quickly raised concerns. The Federal Trade Commission is now probing the deal after more than two dozen groups wrote to the agency alleging the acquisition could help Amazon “entrench their monopoly power in the digital economy.”

Amazon did not mention the Roomba at Wednesday’s event, but Amazon clearly remains committed to investing to make every home a little more of an Amazon home.

Here’s a look at what the company announced:

Amazon is rolling out its first major software update to Astro, an autonomous 20-pound dog-like robot with large, cartoon-y eyes on its tablet face, and a cup holder. The robot – not unlike an Alexa on wheels – uses voice-recognition software, cameras, artificial intelligence, mapping technology and voice- and face-recognition sensors as it zooms from room to room, capturing live video and learning your habits.

Soon Astro will be able to detect cats and dogs in the home, take short video clips of what they’re up to when owners aren’t around and watch and talk to them in real time. Amazon is also adding the ability to monitor if windows or doors are left open, building on what the company said users have been already doing, such as checking to see if the stove was left on.

Amazon is also opening Astro up to the developer community by offering tools that enable them to build software or specific commands for the robotic pup. And Astro will now work with a real-time subscription service from Amazon’s smart-doorbell company, Ring, to provide security monitoring to small and medium-sized businesses.

The company emphasized that Astro was conceived with security and privacy as a priority, with data processed on the device itself and the ability to restrict where Astro can go in the home.

Astro is currently available for $999, which includes a six-month free trial of Ring Protect Pro. (Pricing will later jump to $1,499.)

Amazon unveiled a new series of Fire TV Omni QLED models – the first Fire TV to ship with Dolby Vision IQ.

Through adaptive technology, the 4K TVs know when you walk into a room and leave, so it can save on power and turn off when needed. It also features a gallery of 1,500 curated pictures that can be displayed when not in use – a concept similar to Samsung’s existing Frame TVs.

Its deeper integration with Alexa could be a true standout: with its built-in microphones, users can access widgets such as sticky notes, the calendar, the weather or dim the lights by talking directly to the TV. A 65-inch model costs $799 and 75-inch version costs $1,099.

Amazon is also rolling out a premium remote, called Alexa Voice Remote Pro, that includes a feature to make it easier to find when the remote gets misplaced.

Amazon is expanding its suite of Halo wellness products beyond wearables into sleep tracking. The new Halo Rise sits on the nightstand and monitors the sleeping and breathing patterns of the person closest. It also tracks humidity and light in the room, and presents a natural light to wake up to as an alternative to an alarm.

The device, which uses sensor tech and machine learning to approach sleep, works even if the person is turned in the other direction, or covered in pillows and blankets, as it can detect micro-movements, according to the company.

Amazon said it developed the product to offer consumers more choices around sleep tracking, noting many people don’t like sleeping with a wearable device and that batteries often turn off mid-sleep cycle.

Halo Rise is $139.99 and includes a six-month Halo membership, which provides workouts, insights and tools for health tracking.

Fifteen years after launching the Kindle, Amazon is introducing a higher-end version that also serves as a writing device.

With a 10.2-inch HD display and its first-ever Kindle pen, the Kindle Scribe allows users to write to-do lists, journal entries and review documents imported from their phone. Amazon said it will partner with Microsoft to support its suite of products on the Kindle Scribe early next year.

The new Kindle supports USB-C charging and has a battery designed to last for months. The device starts at $339 with a pen and 16 GB of storage and costs $369 for a premium pen and 32 GB. (The company did not go into specifics on the premium pen.) In comparison, a basic Kindle starts at $99, while its higher-end Kindle Oasis is $249.

Amazon updated its Echo Dot speaker lineup. The new devices feature twice the bass, updated processors and can serve as a Wi-Fi extender for the company’s Eero mesh system. Amazon is also rolling out a software update to its high-end Echo Studio speaker to include new spatial audio processing and improve sound quality. The speaker, which is $199, now comes in white.

The company is also taking another shot at getting Alexa into the car. Its Echo Auto device ($54.99) is now smaller, sleeker and can be more easily mounted in a vehicle. The gadget is intended to let users send hands-free messages, listen to music and podcasts, access navigation and seamlessly sift from the car to another device when you get home.

Amazon also announced a number of software updates coming to its existing Echo Show 15, a device the company said is especially popular in the kitchen.

The upgrade includes free access to Fire TV and a much more personal Alexa. The voice assistant can now rattle off a morning routine for each person in the home, including providing calendar updates, playing specific music and highlighting traffic reports for commuters.

Other new features include receiving alerts for weather forecast changes; the ability to record video messages that can be displayed on the Echo Show screen or via the Alexa app; asking Alexa to dim the lights up to 24 hours in the future; and receiving updates about when a Whole Foods Market curbside pickup order is ready. The updates will roll out in the coming months.

The Echo Show is also getting an interactive storytelling feature that lets kids pick from a handful of themes, such as an undersea or outer space adventure, and characters like an octopus or an astronaut, to create a story that is immediately animated on the gadget’s display and told by Alexa. The story is generated using a number of AI models that determine elements including the script and music, making it different each time.

“Amazon has invested in embedding more intelligence in its Alexa devices for awhile now and the ability to extend that capability into greater system-wide intelligence is significant,” said Jonathan Collins, a research director at market research firm ABI Research. “New functionality, including its Routines feature, could help make Amazon smart home systems more intelligent, responsive and helpful, and more tightly integrated with other Amazon offerings from grocery shopping and beyond.”

CNN Business’ Rachel Metz contributed to this report

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October 3, 2022