Amazon to launch its own chain of supermarkets
Dyson sticking to electric appliances not automobiles
The Battle of Big Beer Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors continues
O nline returns cost companies, like Amazon millions in additional expenses and create billions of pounds of waste that goes into our landfills. Well Amazon is trying to combat this by making the process more efficient in hopes of enticing customers with easy returns. Forrester Research estimates 25% of items bought online are returned, with $207 billion in returned commerce goods expected this year. Amazon was dumping millions of pounds of this unused inventory, but last month the company started instead donating some of it to charities in the U.S. The company is now offering free return options on almost all Amazon orders, with a newly expanded partnership that allows customers to return unboxed items at any Kohl’s store for free. Amazon says the majority of returned goods are resold to other consumers or liquidators, returned to suppliers or donated. Redefining the expensive and wasteful process of online returns
B ritish appliance maker Dyson has scrapped its plans for an electric vehicle saying that the company, “simply can no longer see a way to make it commer- cially viable.” James Dyson, CEO of Dyson, said that he and the board of directors decided to stop the project after failing to find a buyer for it. The $2.7 billion originally intended for the electric car project will be spent developing other products for the privately held company, including on battery tech- nology, Dyson said. Dyson originally planned to unveil the electric car in 2020, but last year that was pushed back to 2021 after the company announced it would build a manufacturing plant in Singapore, but with the announcement to scrap the project, plans for that plant have now been canceled. The company stressed that the cancellation of the project was not because of a lack of research and development saying, “This is not a product failure, or a failure of the team, for whom this news will be hard to hear and digest. Their achievements have been immense – given the enormity and complexity of the project.” The company has said that it is working to find “alternative roles” within Dyson for as many of the 523 people that we part of the electric car project as possible and has said that it had sufficient vacancies to absorb most of the people into our Home business.
A mazon is planning to open its own grocery stores in the U.S. at a lower price point than Whole Foods. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is planning to open dozens of the stores, with the first one opening in Los Angeles as early as the end of this year. Amazon is reportedly getting ready to expand even further in early 2020 with two more leases already signed for other grocery locations. It’s unclear whether the new stores will be branded as Amazon markets, though the Journal reported the chain will be separate from the Whole Foods brand. Amazon is also interested in possible acquisitions to strengthen its supermarket strategy, according to the Journal. Regional grocery chains with around a dozen operating stores would be the ideal candidates for acquisi- tion should Amazon choose to take that route, Amazon initially made waves in the grocery industry when it announced in 2017 its plans to buy Whole Foods, a high-end retailer that prides itself on upscale produce. Amazon’s newest grocery venture will offer products at a more affordable price point, which are not meant to compete with the Whole Foods brand directly. The move marks another shift for Amazon from the digital to the physical world.
I nthelatestescalationofthelegalbattlebetweenAnheus- er-Busch InBev and MillerCoors, the Bud Light brewer is accusing its rival of stealing secret recipes for its beers, including Michelob Ultra and Bud Light. MillerCoors, the U.S. subsidiary of Molson Coors, first filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch in March after its rival aired a Super Bowl commercial that shamed Miller Lite and Coors Light for using corn syrup. In September, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunc- tion against Anheuser-Busch, preventing the beer giant from using Bud Light packaging that says “no corn syrup.” Anheuser-Busch is appealing the decision. In a counterclaim now filed by Anheuser-Busch, the company alleges that a former employee who now works at a MillerCoors brewery in Colorado was obtaining infor- mation from current Anheuser-Busch employees who were violating confidentiality agreements in the days before and after the Super Bowl regarding the use of corn syrup in the brewing process, Anheuser-Busch claims in the filing.
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NOVEMBER 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • NOVEMBER 2019
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