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  • The ‘Engagement Gap’: Ring sales stall as the pandemic put love in limbo | CNN Business

    The ‘Engagement Gap’: Ring sales stall as the pandemic put love in limbo | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    It seems to be a turbulent time for retailers who cater to couples in love.

    On the heels of David’s Bridal, the largest seller of wedding dresses declaring bankruptcy last week, another big seller of symbols of enduring love, like rings, disclosed that their business has not yet recovered from Covid-19.

    According to Signet Jewelers, the largest jewelry company in the United States, the pandemic dented sales of engagement rings as relationships faltered or never even blossomed in the first place due to the lockdowns.

    Signet Jewelers

    (SIG)    , with brands including Zales, Jared, Kay Jewelers and Diamonds Direct under its corporate umbrella, said a lot of early relationships in particular faded as lockdowns began in the winter and spring of 2020, only to be followed by a dramatic decline in dating.

    This created, it said, an “engagement gap.”

    “We’re still seeing it today,” Jamie Singleton, Signet Jewelers’ president and chief consumer officer, said during the company’s investor day last week.

    Citing company research, Singleton said couples, on average, get engaged about 3.25 years after they begin dating.

    “So what’s happened over the past couple of years is what we anticipated and what we planned for,” she said. “Engagement jewelry sales were lackluster in fiscal 2023, and we expect them to remain so for the balance of fiscal 2024.”

    The category will need to grow approximately 25% by calendar year 2026 just to return to prior engagement levels, she said.

    But there’s some evidence of a turnaround, said Singleton. And it’s vital for Signet’s business, because 50% of the company’s merchandise sales come from the bridal segment.

    “As people begin getting back out after the lockdowns, we monitored the return of dating…. Dating, in fact, is up 8% to pre-Covid.”

    It doesn’t mean engagements will suddenly rebound overnight, but that the potential is promising for a coming pickup in engagements. “We’re confident in the turn that’s coming,” she said.

    Signet Jewelers CEO Virginia C. Drosos told investors that the company is striving to reach a $9 billion to $10 billion revenue target annually in the next three to five years “as engagements return to normal levels.” Signet, she said, currently has 30% share of the bridal jewelry market.

    “We’ve been anticipating this coming tailwind,” she said. “We expect this to drive significant upside in our business over the coming years.

    Meanwhile, the pandemic also walloped sales of wedding dresses as social gatherings of all kinds came to a standstill, and couples postponed their weddings.

    As dates were re-booked coming out of the pandemic, brides-to-be have had to contend with inflation and economic uncertainty bearing down on expenses.

    David’s Bridal said these macro trends, as well as competition from more affordable online and secondhand retailers, hurt its business.

    “An increasing number of brides are opting for less traditional wedding attire, including thrift wedding dresses. These shifting consumer preferences have significantly exacerbated the company’s financial crunch,” David’s Bridal said in a bankruptcy filing.

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  • Why ‘Ring Nation’ may be the most dystopian show on TV | CNN Business

    Why ‘Ring Nation’ may be the most dystopian show on TV | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    Anyone watching the first episode of “Ring Nation” this week would have seen short clips of a man finding out his wife was pregnant with triplets, an uninvited iguana showing up at someone’s front door and an unsuspecting teenage boy being chased down by a crane in his driveway.

    “Ring Nation,” marketed as a modern take on the classic “America’s Funniest Home Videos” franchise, quietly premiered on Monday on dozens of cable channels in over 70 US cities. But despite the light subject matter, it may be among the most controversial productions currently on television.

    The show repurposes clips captured by Amazon-owned Ring doorbell cameras, as well as other home videos, and is produced by Amazon-owned MGM Studios. Advocacy groups have criticized “Ring Nation” both as an example of the e-commerce giant’s vast reach into consumers’ lives and for effectively making light of surveillance technology.

    Ring devices, which are intended to provide additional security at home, have long faced scrutiny from lawmakers for how their footage can be accessed and used by law enforcement. As of July, Ring had provided surveillance footage to law enforcement without a warrant or the consent of doorbell-owners 11 times in 2022, according to a letter Amazon sent to Congress that month.

    Ahead of the show’s premiere, tens of thousands of people signed an online petition calling for “Ring Nation” to be canceled.

    “The show is making a mockery of the very real harms caused by Ring devices by essentially rebranding surveillance as entertainment,” said Myaisha Hayes, an organizer with MediaJustice, one of the creators of the petition. “With ‘Ring Nation,’ they’re trying to make viral videos trendy and entertaining this way, so more people buy these devices.”

    Beyond that, Hayes also said the show highlights “Amazon’s monopoly power.” As she put it: “This is an Amazon-owned studio producing a show about an Amazon surveillance product.”

    A Ring spokesperson told CNN in a statement that the program “showcases a wide variety of videos like the silly ways a dad picks up his daughter from school recorded on a smart phone and a man telling jokes to his family via video doorbell.” The spokesperson added: “We think that viewers will be delighted by these memorable moments shared by others.”

    The company said privacy is foundational to the show, and “Ring Nation” secures permission to use the video from both the owner and anyone identifiable in the clip.

    Still, privacy advocates say these cameras can potentially be used to capture far more sensitive footage than cute animal interactions and dad jokes. The show’s debut also comes at a time when the stakes for digital privacy have arguably never been higher. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, privacy experts have warned that digital data could be used to punish abortion seekers.

    Evan Greer, the director of digital privacy group Fight for the Future, which is also sponsoring the petition calling for the show’s cancellation, said much of Amazon’s business depends on collecting data and engaging in forms of surveillance, whether it be through its website, smart speakers or doorbell cameras.

    “Surveillance as a kind of ethos really runs throughout every single thing that Amazon does,” Greer said. With that in mind, Greer argues the light-hearted format of “Ring Nation” is an “incredibly insidious attempt” to make this mass surveillance “feel not just normal, but fun.”

    Ultimately, Greer views the growing surveillance network of Ring cameras as “a threat not just to our civil rights, but to our understanding of what type of future we want to live in.”

    In other words: It may make for entertaining TV, but it doesn’t make for a better society.

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  • Amazon’s $999 dog-like robot is getting smarter | CNN Business

    Amazon’s $999 dog-like robot is getting smarter | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    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.

    Kindle Scribe

    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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