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anthonybialy · 1 year

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Casual Embargo

I’m not buying that. Commercial opposition happens as quickly as it does naturally during an era where every purchase seems political. Reacting to harangues has replaced bagging items as the transaction’s last step. Democrats got just the economic system they wanted. You’ll have to seek riches internally.

A boycott sounds a bit too involved. Will there be meetings? I’d rather keep pace with the DVR than gather to review who’s presently been red-flagged. I’ll just not purchase from any storefront whose primary product is gender dysphoria.

Liberals can’t comprehend lots of things, which in this case specifically means personal decisions about procuring stuff. Like everything else, indignant liberal preeners think empty aisles at social justice-pimping stores are organized artificially. But the audience is simply responding to incentives, which stands in defiance to one party’s platform.

Appealing to the public now applies to brands who’ve decided they need to flaunt ideologies. Make a quality commodity available at a fair price and consumers will decide it’s worth the exchange. By contrast, bottle a beer not fit to serve raccoons endorsed by a dude prancing around while flaunting the lamest stereotypes of women imaginable and wonder why delivery drivers don’t seem as busy.

Condescension takes different forms depending on bank balances. Americans are officially fed up with a sermon accompanying buying. Exhausted virtual mall walkers who look at stupid junk a company puts on exhibition and just decide they will keep credit cards holstered have made a loudly quiet statement. Notice what isn’t being bought.

An organic process frightens control freaks who demand political oversight over every transaction for peace of mind. You wouldn’t understand what good insurance includes, so economic wizard Joe Biden will select a caring plan on your behalf.

Present examples could be taught in business classes. Bud Light says it’s a real beer, and I believe that as much as I do that its most prominent spokesperson switched sides. The frat swill’s value remains diluted to the point that you’d think they had brewed it.

Meanwhile, Target just can’t stop stocking merchandise that guilt those looking for throwback t-shirts into tolerance. A display that’s designed to hector and not hawk leads to fewer dollars per customer than anticipated.

Your Doritos dealer wants to shame you for believing gender is predetermined. Companies never realize that they could sit out divisive culture wars initiated by lunatics who oppose the one we presently have. This particular battle can be waged by not fighting back.

Ignoring tantrums is the most peaceful path too victory. Curiously self-righteous dry goods purveyors simply must share opinions about how the Supreme Court voted. Making it slightly harder to kill babies outraged some vendors to the point they alienated those in opposition. Enterprises that should welcome money from anyone instead ask that you take what keeps them afloat elsewhere.

Opponents of political lectures to those pushing shopping carts emphasize knowing your audience. But avoiding forcing baffling notions should be universal. Your business’s new fans won’t be expressing their fondness with acquisitions. As with pretending an invasive government causing harm actually helps, the support is symbolic. Leftists believe in patronizing of a different kind.

Entrepreneurial entities haven’t been harmed enough. Ridiculous wages to stack shelves with costly goods that aren’t even available was just the start. Chronic protesters never create anything worth advertising themselves. Trying to shut even more storefronts is how Democrats finish the job.

The nastiness of organized assaults on particular commerce stands in contrast to getting socks somewhere other than the gender-bending swimsuit peddlers. Blacklist hobbyists engage in perpetual maneuvers against Chick-fil-A for the crime of being Christian. Picket any family member who attends regular church services while you’re at it. Not splashing a rainbow over a logo through June is the woke religion’s unforgivable sin. It takes quite a bit of vitriol to oppose alleged hate. Giggling during the sermon will get you damned.

Simply resisting unscientific pernicious frenzies is labeled an act of defiance. But we were just shopping. Liberals hate open bartering because people decide what and what not to buy. You’re not being guided by a carefully-elected professional, and such unhinged chaos leads to angry right-wingers driving past places that sell creepy reflections of grotesque adult delusions to kids.

Retailers are not obligated to offer anyone anything, which is the most offensive idea of all to leftists. Your subversive autonomy prevents humanity from enjoying unity through very optional forced compliance. Pesky dissent means a conglomerate could go the entire month without sharing a rainbow. The worst blasphemy possible is permitted because of some amendment. Legalities prevent us from all being eternally blissful through undisputed tolerance.

You can’t have your brats read anything different than what older whippersnappers once did, you book-burning censor. Changing one’s mind about a reading list equals incineration. Alleged bans are simply editorial discretion. Deciding a different title may be more appropriate for a certain grade is the free market in action, and schools want to avoid teaching their charges to think for themselves. Government is supposed to be the only option, which is the whole furtive point of public education.

Smirking about the right to not buy something is the only response from those who actually loathe the process. The only time fans of the Cold War’s wrong side are interested in voluntary trade is when they can exploit it. Such inherent selfishness explains why control freaks are so distrustful. Possessing no useful skills to create something in return will drive the affected to compensate by dragging down others.

Everyone’s presently confused about how buying works on account of how there are so few examples on shelves paired with the de facto worthlessness of the paper slips used to obtain them. But conglomerates should still know better.

Equating buying things with sanctimonious social media replies will not increase sales. Swapping currency for woke approval better help the balance, as appeasing people with no earning power who’d never shop there fails to enhance profitability. Leftist advocacy will never go far enough for anti-consumers who don’t believe in the process at all. No longer carrying parachute pants is just one way to dodge playing along with cultural fads.

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kurel-andiel · 7 years

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A Current State

“I can handle it or we can handle it.”

That decision was a hard one to carry with the weight of everything else that had transpired. Kurel’s reaction to Celestine’s death had been a calm one. Whatever emotion he felt towards her passing was buried beneath the consideration of threats that one of her own had made with demands and an ultimatum if he refused to cooperate, but the thing was he hadn’t cooperated at all. Velerodra had wanted to meet with Phlare of her own volition. That was her choice before he had even a chance to deliver the shadowmancer’s message.

His stoicism to the loss was simply natural. People died. It happened. You moved on. It was just that simple to the Tanari born elf. But maybe there was some resentment, some anger and frustration beneath that facade. Talk was that she would be brought back, had been brought back many times before now, but this time. This death of her’s had caused a significant problem. It brought the attention of Silvermoon and of the Magistrate directly into Sunspire.

People were fleeing in drones as the small relations in which Phlare had mocked swarmed to guard the bay, the streets and the sky above. Despite these forces and the imposing magical dome that dampened the use of magic within, there was still rumor and sightings of known vessels that terrorized the sea to be heading their way. New small relations to be forged to better bolster their defenses and strengthen their commerce.

‘You can never have too many friends on the sea.’

Fleet Ring Exchange closed down early that night. The old goblin couple who ran The White Strider had quickly run out of rooms to rent and drink to serve. A Sloop had been dispatched to Dead Sun Harbor to retrieve a haul of the Taldrassil Whiskey from The Empress, but it would be two days before they returned.

All that remained was a report to be written and filed. With sheets of paper laid out across a cluttered table, Kurel laid his enchanted quill upon it and instructed it to write.

Date: April 26th. Year 635 of the King’s Calendar

Formal Report of Trade Lord Kur’elnth An’Diel

The series of events began when Miss Velerodra of Crimson Wings approached me. She declared to have in her possession a vial of General Celestine Winters’ blood which was given to her by the General herself and confessed that a recent evening at The Broken Chain, the General served her a drink spiked with that same blood. Miss Velerodra confessed prior to having been told that the General’s blood ‘tastes like bliss’, but was given no further information in regards to what that meant exactly. Upon sampling her drink, she described the after effects as being addictive and feeling herself easily persuadable by the General.

These effects wore off after sometime, but Miss Velerodra found concern in both light of the situation and even for the fact that she, herself was mildly eager to receive more. It was at this time that I began to speculate the strong possibility that General Celestine Winters may have been a San’layn.

Following my discussions with Velerodra, I sought the advice of Lord Lledwyn Lomeriel of Scions of Antiquity. I inquired of his sister’s abilities, Ilyea Lomeriel, to alchemically study blood and the chance she could decode a sample inorder to understand what it was that made those who ingested so suggestive to the whims of General Winters. His assurance was strong at which time I divulged what I had connection to and my concerns of a San’layn with the ability to distribute this property through her tavern and potentially infect the denizens of Sunspire Port, in order to sway their favor to her for any given reason or purpose.

During this time Purveyor Blaque was absent from his post. He was unreachable and untraceable, thus the entirety of Sunspire’s safety fell wholly to me.

I confronted General Winters during a private meeting regarding a number of things I found concerning and potentially threatening to the well being of the Port and its people. A Scry of this meeting has been provided for clarity. It was during this discussion that The General confessed to having met with and secured an alliance with Lord Feloirus Firavel, whom the Captains Council had unanimously agreed was a threat to the future of Sunspire and should therefor have his trade of goods which he intended to supply for his livelihood be disrupted. General Winters attended this meeting and too was in agreement.

When directly asked if she were San’layn, she quoted “I am not San’layn, but I am not entirely Sin’dorei.” To which she followed up with challenging me by stating that ‘someday I would figure it out’. Impling that someday I would uncover what ‘other than Sin’dorei’ she was.

It was at this time that I instructed Miss Velerodra to hand the vial of blood over to Miss Ilyea Lomeriel for testing. The results were curious, but inconclusive and Miss Lomeriel required more samples inorder to continue her research. The acquisition of this I charged to Miss Velerodra, who felt confident she could accomplish the task. Security measures were put into place, in the event something or she was compromised and too did I begin to establish fail safes in an effort to assure that all blame and attention would fall to me. This, however, was not the case.

I was advised by both Lomeriel’s to withdraw Miss Velerodra from her task citing danger. However, the risks were known and Miss Velerodra felt confident of her abilities and I too felt confident in her to complete this task on behalf of Sunspire Port and myself. Regrettably, she was compromised. How, remains unknown.

Little more than a week ago from the date of this report, General Celestine Winters put a gun to Miss Velerodra’s head and took her hostage while on Erudition property. She threatened to execute the Crimson Wings Director if demands were not made. She was talked out of this hostility and released Miss Velerodra without harm, before being escorted off Erudition Property. At that time, I instructed Rig-Master Riz to take Miss Velerodra and Miss Leona to a fallback for safety. Meanwhile, Miss Ilyea Lomeriel went into hiding by order of Magistrix Demytrya Wintersong and her brother, Lord Lledwyn Lomeriel.

A day later, General Winters’ loyalist known by the moniker as ‘Phantom’ contacted me through the snowflake comm and requested a meeting. A Scry of this encounter has been provided with this report. During that meeting he made veiled threats towards the life of Sunspire Benefactor, Magistrix Demytrya Wintersong and direct threats towards Sunspire Port and its people. He demanded I make Miss Velerodra meet with him, as he had been unable to locate her to do so himself. His extortion was, if I failed to make this happen he would destroy the Port by means of an unknown number of explosives planted around the bay and would instruct Lord Firavel and his forces to invade Sunspire on false claims of terrorism.

General Celestine Winters was reportedly killed days following this encounter at her Sunspire establishment, The Broken Chain.

Claim is that the tampering of her blood lead an unknown individual into finding her and committing the murder.

My involvement of the investigation into the slaying remains obtuse. General Celestine Winters was an ally, if even a questionable one at her end. My actions taken from the information brought to me by Miss Velerodra to the middle of having the vial of blood investigated to the decision through reconnaissance to acquire a secondary sample for further investigation, were done as no malice towards General Celestine Winters or her organization. But were instead done so to protect the denizens and the commerce of Sunspire Port.

Sunspire Port Trade Lord Kur’elnth An’Diel.

Kurel plucked the quill from the air to cease its scripture and laid it flat beside the many pages of the report. A wax seal of a scarab was boldly pressed beside his name and he sat back into his chair to reflect on the entire thing.

“There is no place in the deser’ for the weak.” He muttered and from outside his cabin on Sunspire hill he could hear the morning song of the gulls as they circled the fishing boats preparing to set out for their daily catching.

@velerodra @shaded-hawke @wolf-queen @roewyn @thebuildingcacophony @sunspireport @lledwynlomeriel

#Delivery to Purveyor Hawke #This was way longer than I originally started out for it to be

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antifra · 4 years

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Is Celebrity Influence in Earnest?: Re-examining Our Brand Loyalty as it Relates to Inclusion

The following is my final project for my Fashion Journalism course I took the semester before last. Getting to know my classmates was hugely beneficial to opening my eyes to the abuse of language and lack of objective observation among young, prospective journalists. There was a palpable absence of integrity among my peers during discussions about current events, celebrities, and a controversial FIT runway show that was falsely deemed to feature racially insensitive accessories. I read this article aloud along with an explanation of what motivated me to bring this manipulation to the forefront, and both were received well, though I wonder if my words were enough to pull anyone out of the endless trance of misattribution and mindless consumerism.

Disclaimer: I've mentioned that I was in the habit of pulling random statistics to support baseless ideas, and this article features a few that I hyperlinked in the original, but have purposefully plucked out. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain and take from it what you will.

Is Celebrity Influence in Earnest?: Re-examining Our Brand Loyalty as it Relates to Inclusion

Since the initial launch of the notoriously diverse array of shades offered by Fenty Beauty’s Pro Filter foundation in September 2017, award-winning recording artist Rihanna has been the subject of praise. Surely, as a woman of color, she’s well aware of the historic inflexibility of complexion product ranges. The brand bears her namesake, after all. Not only that, but Fenty, who also dabbles in size-inclusive clothing and lingerie, cares deeply about those who feel excluded or exoticized in the makeup industry. Rihanna has said herself that she launched the brand “so that women everywhere would be included.”

This sentiment is largely felt by those who patronize her brands as well as other emerging lines like the Kardashian sisters’ jeans and shapewear, hawked by Khloe Kardashian and Kim Kardashian-West, respectively. All three share a similar mission statement that revolves around empowering women who are misrepresented in or completely absent from the media, and subsequently, seemingly, from a highly visual society itself.

The message is clear and agreeable: we don’t typically see average women portrayed in print, on television, or online, which adversely warps the public’s perception of what the female body is supposed to look like, therefore it is necessary to bend this mass misconception back into a place based in reality, and in trying to do so, one is exercising great virtue.

This idea gives way to a slew of sociological probings, but for the sake of celebrity’s influence on inclusive fashion, it’s two-prong. First, in examining widely accepted appearances, it isn’t known that there was a place based in reality to begin with, nor that it has ever been the intention of fashion designers or beauty entrepreneurs to align themselves or their creative executions with it. Second, in fostering a close association with a brand because of the perceived virtue of shared beliefs, one can become blindly loyal and misattribute multiple facets of the brand to its figurehead.

Fashion is no stranger to fantasy. In fact, it serves as an avenue by which people who don’t otherwise have the means to express their innermost desires can do so in the privacy of their bedrooms, among family members, or in the public eye. The idea evokes a sense of exclusivity for a particular time, place, and person, and, not coincidentally, so does traditional fashion media and advertising.

The accessibility and interactivity of sites like Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest make it so that users can curate their lives to look however they wish others to perceive it. It is more possible than ever to literally and figuratively “follow” a person’s every move and milestone, however heightened or contrived they may be. Private citizens have used this to further their personal fantasies without the promise of financial gain. Advertisers have also utilized this, but as a means of pushing products and services. A curious dynamic has taken form from the convening of celebrity, consumer, and corporation on the same virtual playing field, insinuating a sense of false intimacy between the three. Where does the product end and the person begin?

Distinctions between Instagram pages of those who are paid to post and those who are not are slowly fading. The line between aspirational and attainable has become increasingly blurry. A study done by researchers at the Manchester School of Business in 2012 concluded that millennials often do indeed develop their personalities around that of celebrities. In an effort to imitate influencers, adolescents and young adults are deliberately positioning themselves alongside products, in places, and with similar production quality as those who monetize their social media. This is accomplished by complying with what will create direct value--in this case, social currency--according to a social marketing report published by the Journal of Business Research in 2010. It isn’t uncommon to hear one refer to maintaining their personhood as upholding their “brand.”

A constant, in-depth conversation can be struck up with the previously unreachable rich and famous whereas before, an occasional surface-level interview and a “who are you wearing?” were commonplace. With this development, there appears to be little difference between big names and lay people at first glance. The introduction and continued endorsement of clothing, products, and services that celebrities lay claim to and purportedly use on a daily basis may add to the illusion that there is substance beneath the shine.

All of this serves to further the narrative that not only is inclusion something that is appreciated, but necessary. The public is privy to a whole host of information about who they’ve deemed to be their favorites and are equipped with the tools to take on their appearance, too.

Rihanna’s look has been heralded as on-of-a-kind, but her partnership with LVMH to create a fashion house inspired by her style has made it so that women from sizes 00-24 can be unique, too. But does that serve to uphold the concept of singularity?

To marketers, it doesn’t matter. Different facets of celebrities’ public lives are merely commodities. Chrissy Teigen’s Twitter-famous food photos can easily be recreated by taking a page from her two bestselling cookbooks. Kim Kardashian’s signature curvaceous figure is finally within reach with her new line of shapewear. Beyonce’s plant-based Coachella-performance body can be achieved by subscribing to her vegan meal delivery plan.

This isn’t subject to objection by the famed nor their fans. If there are financial gains to be made for the former and a perceived benefit to be had by the latter, then the project has served its purpose. Collectivism is essential to the bottom line. If crowds can get behind a product or service and its purveyor, then a loyal following has been formed, and a well known method of retaining this is by creating a sense of trust. Research published by Nielsen in 2015 has shown that millennials and members of Gen Z are more susceptible to trusting celebrity endorsements.

Rihanna and her Kardashian counterparts are regarded as “self-made,” but their projects are far from sole-proprietorships. There are teams upon teams of professionals behind them working to bring a definitive vision to fruition. Whether or not this vision originated in the minds of the “self-made” is neither here nor there, but certainly each part of the supply chain from an idea’s inception to its fulfillment has been facilitated by multiple people. The common misattribution of the fruit borne by brands to their figureheads creates an even stronger association where there may be none.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians has developed a cult following since its debut in October 2007. It has viewers into feeling as if they are witnessing the unfabricated woes and wonderments of the lives of American royalty. A bond has been forged between the viewership and the program’s cast of sisters. Those who tune in every week are under the impression that they know Kris, Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie on some level by virtue of what they’ve seen play out on screen and online. This superficial omniscience serves to ease some reluctance to invest in their lines of skincare, cosmetics, and clothing because it invokes the aforementioned evidence-based sense of familiarity.

The clan consists of polarizing figures who have not been immune to bad press, but a study done by Taiwanese researchers in 2011 revealed that consumers’ statuses as fans or foes is irrelevant when considering brand recall. Support from celebrities has been found to be chemically indistinguishable from the advice of a valued friend in the human brain. There remains a finite difference in the motivations of marketing teams and trusted companions: hopes for a return on investment. This isn’t to say that recommendations from stars are any less in earnest than those from the latter, but consciously discerning one from the other can lead one to question the former’s intentions, especially as it relates to inclusion.

Fashion relies on mimicry. If there weren’t muses, common threads among the masses, and a trickling of trends down, up, or across, the principle would be lost. Businesses would and have suffered from not conforming to the ever changing, largely digital landscape that lies before us. In an age when authenticity has become increasingly difficult to gauge with the proliferation of fake news but is still valued by consumers, companies have to follow suit in a way that is not construed as contrived.

Adding a human element to an advertising campaign, or attaching a big name to a product in some capacity instead of prompting the public to pay a faceless corporation has been found to alleviate fears of false promises, as evidenced by statistically-supported blind trust in celebrities. When humans themselves become brands, rely on the compliance of their followers for financial gain, and do so as a means of survival, one may think to revisit the rationale behind that initial fear.

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awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat · 6 years

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Online Shopping: The Complete Wired Guide

New Post has been published on http://webhostingtop3.com/online-shopping-the-complete-wired-guide/

Online Shopping: The Complete Wired Guide

Type “cheesecloth” into Google shopping. Hundreds of online shopping options pop up, in more than a dozen shades, at a range of price points. Many of the packages can be shipped to you in two days or less. In other words, shoppers live in a golden age of convenience. We’ve got more access to more stuff than ever before, at cheaper prices and ever-more-instant speeds. And the businesses who hawk us that stuff? They’ve got unprecedented levels of data on us, and they’re using it to target us in ever-more personalized ways.

As Americans, shopping’s in our bones. Patriotic fervor practically elevated consumerism to a religion after World War II, and today, we blur Jesus and Santa, ditch Thanksgiving for Black Friday, and mint new holidays (Cyber Monday) that give way to copycat holidays (Prime Day), all dedicated to buying stuff. Consumer spending on the “goods” portion of goods and services powers roughly one quarter of the economy, so it follows that retail is uber-susceptible to the technological, political, and economic forces that shape our society. Long ago, traveling peddlers were displaced by local merchants, who were supplanted by downtown department stores, which were upended by shopping malls, then big box chains, and now, the internet. And technology has armed today’s retailers with powerful tracking tools: We accept user agreements and pop-ups, trading gobs of valuable personal data in exchange for convenience—a commodity almost as prized as shopping itself.

The History of Online Shopping

The age of internet commerce really kicked off with Sting. Back in 1994, a band of coders led by a 21-year-old Swarthmore grad named Dan Kohn lived together in a two-story Nashua, New Hampshire, house. Fueled by ambition and a roaring Coca-Cola habit, they launched an online marketplace called NetMarket. The site let users make secure purchases by downloading encryption software named PGP, for “Pretty Good Privacy.” At noon on August 11, a Philadelphia man named Phil Brandenberger logged on. Typing in his address and credit card number, he bought a CD of Sting’s “Ten Summoners’ Tales” for $ 12.48 plus shipping. Champagne corks flew. The New York Times called it the first secure purchase of its kind. “Attention Shoppers,” a headline announced. “The Internet Is Open.”

Years later, Randy Adams, CEO of another online store called the Internet Shopping Network, claimed to have beaten out Kohn’s group by a month. In either case, the ecommerce floodgates didn’t quite fly open. The Unix-based programs required some tech know-how, and computers were a lot slower back then.

While we wait for modem speeds to rev up from bits to megabits, then, let’s review some retail history. Back in the ’80s, shopping largely centered around malls. Post–World War II migration to the ‘burbs had gutted downtown shopping centers and the sprawling department stores that served as their nuclei. Tax breaks and car culture spurred mass development of new big box stores and suburban shopping malls, and these parking-flush spaces recreated sanitized versions of urban retail corridors, writes Vicki Howard in From Main Street to Mall. Giant discount shops devoured local mom and pops. By 1990, Walmart had become the nation’s largest retailer.

Consumers were spoiled for choice, and they could get it on the cheap. But big box shops were laid out to maximize in-store time, turning shopping into a time-gobbling, endurance event. In the 2003 comedy Old School, Will Ferrell’s character Frank the Tank played this suburban ritual for laughs: “Pretty nice little Saturday, actually, We’re going to go to Home Depot…Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll have enough time!”

Online shopping, by contrast, offered the promise of near-limitless choice at relatively snappy speeds. One of the earliest pre-Internet shopping ventures to test the online waters, CompuServe’s “Electronic Mall,” opened in 1984, offering stuff from more than 100 merchants, from JC Penney to Pepperidge Farms. Next to today’s sleek web pages, CompuServe’s command line interface looks positively primitive. But it worked, and it saved a trip to the mall. (As one early adopter told his local newscaster: “I just don’t like crowds.”) When it opened, only eight percent of US households had a computer, and at dial-up rates starting at around $ 5 an hour, the mall enjoyed limited success. E-shopping was still a decade away from going mainstream.

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In 1988, a CompuServe competitor named Prodigy sprung up, the product of a partnership between Sears and IBM. Alongside news, weather, email, banking, and bulletin boards, the service included a store. Jaunty illustrations accompanied item descriptions, but as Wired noted in 1993, “the service’s cartoon-like graphics proved far less useful to purveyors of items that consumers wanted to see before buying, such as clothing and home furnishings.” A short-lived grocery service folded “because consumers were uncomfortable using a PC to select food.”

Until the World Wide Web debuted publicly in 1991, online shopping remained the province of services like Prodigy. That year, the National Science Foundation, which funded the networks that made up the backbone of the Internet, lifted its ban on commercial activity. Merchants were free to register domains and set up cybershop, but a problem lingered: Shoppers were—rightly—suspicious of handing over credit card data to remote, faceless webmasters. No mechanism existed to verify the sites’ authenticity.

In December 1994, a 23-year-old University of Illinois grad named Marc Andreessen released Netscape 1.0. The web browser featured a protocol called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which let both sides of a transaction encrypt personal information. From there, ecommerce began to take off.

Without the cost of maintaining physical stores, online retailers could offer lower prices and larger assortments than their brick and mortar counterparts, and people could by them in less time than it took to gas up the minivan. A “nice little Saturday” no longer had to entail epic marathons to warehouse-style superstores. If Sting knocked on the floodgates, Amazon was the wave that was about to burst them open.

In July 1995, a hedge fund VP named Jeff Bezos opened an online bookstore. He named it after the world’s largest river, after deciding against Relentless.com. (The domain still redirects to Amazon.) The site carried a million titles, and Bezos billed it “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” Within a month, Amazon.com had sold books to buyers in every US state, plus 45 countries.

Bezos recognized that shopping online at the time carried so-called pain points. Gauging quality could be difficult. Shoppers had to manually enter lines and lines of payment and shipping info each time they wanted to buy a nut sampler. High shipping costs could cancel out savings. Such headaches led shoppers to abandon their carts at distressing rates.

Amazon knew these minor irritations could add up, spelling major revenue losses. From the beginning, “Bezos was maniacally focused on the customer experience,” says retail expert and Wharton professor Barbara Kahn. No more cartoonlike graphics: Books were fully digitized, and shoppers could flip through the pages like they could in a physical store. Books were searchable by title, browsable by category, and readers could post reviews. In 1999, Amazon famously patented one-click ordering. This seemingly minor innovation slashed shopping cart abandonment, convinced customers to fork over their data, and helped cement Amazon as the go-to one-stop-shop for hassle-free shopping. Shipping got faster and cheaper, becoming free for orders above $ 99 in 2002, then for all Prime members in 2005.

Sites like Amazon and eBay, which also opened in 1995 as “AuctionWeb,” proved you didn’t need a physical store to give customers what they wanted. A lot of what they wanted. In 1999, Zappos (since acquired by Amazon) opened one of the first online-only shoe stores, enticing shoppers with free shipping, a generous (and free) return policy, and legendary customer service (one call famously lasted ten hours). The internet promised riches, and investors exuberantly, sometimes irrationally, supplied the funding.

Not every digital store survived that first boom. Cash-flush e-tailers like pets.com and grocery deliverer WebVan poured millions into ad campaigns, expanding rapidly before realizing that customers didn’t always want what they offered. Less than a year after the pets.com mascot soared over Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, the company learned that plenty of pet owners in the already crowded space didn’t mind picking up dog food and kitty litter from the grocery store, especially if that meant avoiding shipping costs and long waits. The company closed in 2000. Not long after erecting state-of-the-art fulfillment centers in ten cities, WebVan discovered that the cost-conscious shoppers they targeted weren’t ready for what amounted to an upmarket service: Customers didn’t spend enough to subsidize the trips; they preferred coupons and economy sizes, which WebVan didn’t offer; they often weren’t home during the short delivery windows. The grocery business’s paper-thin margins provided little room for error, and the company declared bankruptcy in 2001, near the height of the dot-com crash. These failures, however, would become instructive for the next generation. “Get Big Fast” gave way to “Minimum Viable Product.”

The Latest Shopping Tech

Stock Bots Walmart partnered with Bossa Nova Robotics to deploy inventory-tracking droids in 50 stores this year.

Virtual Showrooms Hardware giant Lowe’s debuted its “Holoroom” last year, which guides headset-clad DIYers through home improvement projects in VR.

Face Time Gourmet confectioner Lolli & Pops recently installed facial recognition cameras in stores to flag regulars and compile customized shopping recommendations.

Mirror, Mirror Fashion retailer Farfetch unveiled touchscreen mirrors and clothing racks that sense when an item is removed—then beam a virtual version to the shopper’s smartphone.

Cinderella Scanners New Balance and Fleet Feet Sports recently introduced scanners by Volumental that generate a 3D virtual model of your feet in five seconds. An AI algorithm extracts 10 measurements, from length to arch height, to recommend a perfectly fitting shoe. No disposable sock required.

Swipe and Shop Through Instagram’s new shopping feature, users can tap stickers on Stories to display merchandise details and shopping links. The Facebook-owned social media platform is reportedly developing a standalone shopping app.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, “digitally native vertical brands” (DNVBs) like Bonobos (menswear) and Warby Parker (eyewear) spun up their own direct-to-consumer models. By controlling the entire process from factory to sale and reaching consumers directly through websites and social media channels, these brands could keep prices down, collect extensive data on their customers, and test new products. Last year, DNVBs grew three times faster than ecommerce as a whole. The more data companies swallowed up, the better they got at personalizing their recommendations. They burrowed their way into our inboxes and onto our social media pages. Their algorithms knew what we wanted and predicted what we were going to want. It started to seem like brick and mortar didn’t stand a chance.

Indeed, by the mid-2010s, tax breaks and a hunger for growth had led US retailers to build stores at rates that eclipsed Europe and Japan by a factor of six. This “over-storing,” combined with ecommerce competition, set the stage for the so-called “retailpocalypse.” In 2017, an estimated 7,800 US stores shuttered, and 3,600 were forecast to close in 2018.

If big box stores were going to survive, they needed to reinvent themselves. Consumers had grown to expect all the convenience, selection, and low prices of online shopping. To compete, brick and mortars had to act a little more like websites. Hardware giant Home Depot saw its stock price shoot up after integrating its desktop, mobile, and physical stores, introducing options like Buy Online, Pick-up In Store. By 2016, 61 percent of retailers offered some version of the service. Curbside pickup flourished, flying in the face of the old ethos of maximizing in-store-time.

For those that adapted, a retail future exists outside of bits and bytes. The web may know your habits better than any store clerk, but that’s starting to change. IRL stores aren’t headed for the deadstock pile. They’re just going to look a bit different, get a bit smarter. Some may ditch cashiers, or cash registers altogether. Others will employ robots. And those cameras—they’re not just for catching shoplifters anymore, either.

The Future of On- (and Off-) Line Shopping

The retailpocalypse, in fact, has come full circle. In 2015, Amazon opened its first physical bookstore, then followed it up with 17 more (then raised that by a Whole Foods acquisition). The shops aren’t particularly high tech. No holograms, no VR, plenty of good old-fashioned paper. The shops occupy modest footprints, carrying only four star-and-above-rated books. Squint, however, and you can see the future: Prices are not on display, and customers must log onto Amazon’s smartphone app to see them. Prime members get lower prices, of course. “They train you when you go in the store to open your app,” says Kahn. This lets them merge your online and in-store data. More data equals better personalized marketing, tighter inventories, and lower costs.

Of course, Amazon isn’t the only one corralling your digital data to optimize your in-store experience. Personalization companies like AgilOne and Qubit have sprung up to vacuum all our clicks, tweets, and e-communiques and merge them into individual profiles that stores like Vans and Under Armour use to better target their marketing. And some are going a step further.

Earlier this year, gourmet confectioner Lolli & Pops installed facial recognition cameras in its stores’ entryways. The cameras alert clerks when VIPs (who’ve opted in) enter, then call up their profiles and generate recommendations. In the future, face-identifying cameras could track shoppers throughout stores, noting where they linger and where they don’t. Retailers could use this to maximize purchasing by, say, rejiggering floor layouts and product displays. But some businesses fail to disclose cameras, inflaming privacy defenders.

When the ACLU asked 21 of the nation’s largest retailers if they were using facial recognition, presumably for theft prevention, all but two refused to answer. (Lowe’s owned up to it.) The organization warned of “an infrastructure for tracking and control that, once constructed, will have enormous potential for abuse.” Meanwhile, other companies have convinced shoppers to knowingly trade privacy for convenience.

Visitors to the first Amazon Go store in Seattle said it felt like shoplifting: Walk in, grab what you need, and go without ever taking out your wallet. The shop’s balletic system of computer vision, motion sensors, and deep learning renders checkout lines obsolete. Amazon reportedly plans to open another 3,000 cashier-free stores by 2021, but it has some competition.

Zippin

In April, this San Francisco concept store became the first Amazon Go challenger to open in the States. The company aims to offer its cashierless platform to hotels and gas stations.

Bingobox

This company operates more than 300 RFID-powered human-free convenience stores throughout China, with plans to reach 2,000 locations by 2019.

Kroger

The supermarket giant’s “Scan, Bag, Go,” model, already used in nearly 400 stores, lets shoppers scan their barcodes on their groceries and pay straight from their smartphones.

Standard Cognition

This San Francisco startup has partnered with Japanese drugstore supplier Paltac to open 3,000 checkout-free shops by 2020.

This year, Amazon opened its first cashierless stores in the US, followed by a handful of smaller startups. Powered by hundreds of super-smart (but not face-recognizing) cameras and an array of weight and motion sensors, stores like Amazon Go and Zippin let shoppers simply grab what they want and leave. (Once again, Amazon customers must use their app, this time to swipe in.) The surveillance offers unprecedented intel about shoppers’ habits and supposedly prevents theft. Investors see the potential. CB Insights reports that over 150 companies are developing checkout-free technology.

In this new blended, digi-physical landscape, brick and mortar stores will leverage their physical advantages, while rendering unto the web that which is better handled digitally. This might mean smaller stores that act more like showrooms than storehouses. When digital-first brand Bonobos (now Walmart-owned) opened physical “guideshops,” they functioned more like fitting rooms-cum-hangout spots. Shoppers arrived by appointment, were offered a beer, tried on clothes, then had their orders shipped directly to them from an offsite warehouse. Other stores are fashioning themselves into tricked-out lounges and event spaces. Some won’t even sell you a darn thing.

It’s called “experiential retail,” In January, Samsung opened a 21,000-square-foot Experience Store in Toronto. Visitors can test out VR headsets and tablets, chat with tech pros, or partake in autumnal smoothie classes and artist demos. The one thing they can’t do? Buy stuff. Restoration Hardware has begun fusing retail with hospitality, outfitting luxurious furniture showrooms with rooftop restaurants, barista bars, and wine vaults. In a history-is-cyclical turn, Apple’s newest DC flagship will host concerts, coding classes, workshops, and art exhibitions, recalling the multipurpose, live-band- and tea-room-appointed department stores of the early 20th century.

The ultimate fusion of convenience and experience could lie in virtual and augmented reality. As with many things VR, it’s too early to predict the impact. You can imagine it though: endless stores featuring infinite inventory, all for zero rent. Walmart filed two patents this summer for a “virtual retail showroom system.” Headset- and sensor-glove-garbed shoppers would browse digital aisles selecting products, which would be packed and shipped from an automated fulfillment center. Ikea launched an AR app last year, letting shoppers “try” out true-to-scale virtual furniture models at home before buying. And Macy’s is already rolling out VR in 69 furniture departments this year. Shoppers can design their own room on a tablet, then traipse through the space in VR.

Some retailers are going all in on the Star Trek vision of shopping. Lowe’s launched its VR Holoroom last year, leading headset-clad in-store shoppers through DIY home improvement tutorials. A month later, fashion retailer Farfetch unveiled their “Store of Future.” Touchscreen dressing room mirrors let shoppers request new sizes, holograms help them customize garments, and smart clothing racks sense when items are removed, then beam virtual versions to a smartphone wishlist.

But much of the evolution is likely to happen behind the scenes. A lot of innovation will happen in logistics, with robot-staffed fulfillment centers and delivery drones, feeding appetites for ever-faster, cheaper shipment. This year, Walmart rolled out robots in 50 stores; the wheeled automatons scan shelves and notify employees when they need to be restocked.

Stores will seek out shoppers where they spend their time, increasingly cozied up to mobile devices and smart speakers. OC&C Strategy Consultants projects voice shopping in the US will reach $ 40 billion by 2022, up from $ 2 billion this year. Given that Echos comprise nearly two-thirds of smart speakers, with Google Home racing to catch up, Amazon is once again poised to dominate. Without infinite pages of cheesecloth to browse, voice shoppers will rely heavily on recommended products (a la “Amazon Choice”). And if the smart speaker company doubles as a private label (a la “AmazonBasics”), you can guess which brand they’ll suggest first.

It all adds up to an unnervingly creepy or fantastically convenient and curated world, depending on your vantage point. Or maybe it’s all the above. On the other end of that cart you casually abandon or that data you impatiently fork over sits a business that translates that behavior into real dollars and cents. Multiply that by thousands of shoppers and you’ve got a make-or-break bottom line. Times that by millions of businesses and you’ve got a fat chunk of the economy. No wonder retailers are doing backflips to make shopping as convenient, pleasurable—and quietly invasive—as possible. It’s up to shoppers to decide where to draw the line.

Learn More

Stepping Into An Amazon Store Helps It Get Inside Your Head Amazon’s new checkout-free stores may represent the future, but they’re just the latest in a long line of retail tech aiming to capture, digitize, and monetize your in-store behavior. One predecessor? Barcode scanners.

Welcome to Checkout-Free Retail. Don’t Mind All the Cameras Roam the aisles of Zippin, the cashierless store of the future, where smart shelves and cameras mean perfect inventory management. (And where you never have to speak to another human.)

The Shopping Malls and Big Box Stores Gutted By E-Commerce A haunting photo essay portrays the blanched wreckage of the retail apocalypse. Photographer Jesse Riser traveled the American southwest, stopping at more than 150 shuttered or near-shuttered shopping malls and big box stores. He transforms eyesores into meditations on the internet’s impact on public spaces.

Your Online Shopping Habit Is Fueling A Robotics Renaissance The demand you’re creating with all your Prime orders and Birchboxes is poised to have ripple effects beyond the fulfillment center. Newer, more advanced, more collaborative robots are coming online, thanks to the packing and shipping needs generated by ecommerce. Before long, these roving, picking, super-sensing bots could move from the warehouse into our homes.

Inside Adidas’ Robot-Powered, On-Demand Sneaker Factory The future of shopping will play out largely behind the scenes, and Adidas is striving to lead the way. The German shoemaker’s on a quest to reinvent manufacturing in the age of 3-D printing, fast fashion, and hyper-personalization, then bring it to America.

Google and Walmart’s Big Bet Against Amazon Might Just Pay Off In its effort to retain the Nation’s Top Retailer crown, Walmart’s been pouring billions into ecommerce, including last year’s purchase of Jet.com. The company’s recent partnership with Google Home marks their foray into an arena Amazon has all but owned: voice shopping.

Turns Out the Dot-Com Bust’s Worst Flops Were Actually Fantastic Ideas Dot-com-era failures no doubt made some ill-advised business moves, but perhaps they were also ahead of their time. Now that the internet’s more integral to our lives, remarkably similar ideas are finding second lives.

The Next Big Thing You Missed: Online Grocery Shopping Is Back, and This Time It’ll Work When Amazon Fresh’s lime-green vans started rolling into neighborhoods, they brought back memories of WebVan’s epic bust. But changing times and hard-earned lessons set the stage for a grocery delivery success story.

Last updated November 19, 2018

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Online Shopping: The Complete Wired Guide

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Online Shopping: The Complete Wired Guide

The History of Online Shopping

The age of internet commerce really kicked off with Sting. Back in 1994, a band of coders led by a 21-year-old Swarthmore grad named Dan Kohn lived together in a two-story Nashua, New Hampshire, house. Fueled by ambition and a roaring Coca-Cola habit, they launched an online marketplace called NetMarket. The site let users make secure purchases by downloading encryption software named PGP, for “Pretty Good Privacy.” At noon on August 11, a Philadelphia man named Phil Brandenberger logged on. Typing in his address and credit card number, he bought a CD of Sting’s “Ten Summoners’ Tales” for $12.48 plus shipping. Champagne corks flew. The New York Times called it the first secure purchase of its kind. “Attention Shoppers,” a headline announced. “The Internet Is Open.”

Online shopping, by contrast, offered the promise of near-limitless choice at relatively snappy speeds. One of the earliest pre-Internet shopping ventures to test the online waters, CompuServe’s “Electronic Mall,” opened in 1984, offering stuff from more than 100 merchants, from JC Penney to Pepperidge Farms. Next to today’s sleek web pages, CompuServe’s command line interface looks positively primitive. But it worked, and it saved a trip to the mall. (As one early adopter told his local newscaster: “I just don’t like crowds.”) When it opened, only eight percent of US households had a computer, and at dial-up rates starting at around $5 an hour, the mall enjoyed limited success. E-shopping was still a decade away from going mainstream.

youtube

The Latest Shopping Tech

Stock Bots Walmart partnered with Bossa Nova Robotics to deploy inventory-tracking droids in 50 stores this year.

Virtual Showrooms Hardware giant Lowe’s debuted its “Holoroom” last year, which guides headset-clad DIYers through home improvement projects in VR.

Face Time Gourmet confectioner Lolli & Pops recently installed facial recognition cameras in stores to flag regulars and compile customized shopping recommendations.

Mirror, Mirror Fashion retailer Farfetch unveiled touchscreen mirrors and clothing racks that sense when an item is removed—then beam a virtual version to the shopper’s smartphone.

The Future of On- (and Off-) Line Shopping

Zippin

In April, this San Francisco concept store became the first Amazon Go challenger to open in the States. The company aims to offer its cashierless platform to hotels and gas stations.

Bingobox

This company operates more than 300 RFID-powered human-free convenience stores throughout China, with plans to reach 2,000 locations by 2019.

Kroger

The supermarket giant’s “Scan, Bag, Go,” model, already used in nearly 400 stores, lets shoppers scan their barcodes on their groceries and pay straight from their smartphones.

Standard Cognition

This San Francisco startup has partnered with Japanese drugstore supplier Paltac to open 3,000 checkout-free shops by 2020.

Stores will seek out shoppers where they spend their time, increasingly cozied up to mobile devices and smart speakers. OC&C Strategy Consultants projects voice shopping in the US will reach $40 billion by 2022, up from $2 billion this year. Given that Echos comprise nearly two-thirds of smart speakers, with Google Home racing to catch up, Amazon is once again poised to dominate. Without infinite pages of cheesecloth to browse, voice shoppers will rely heavily on recommended products (a la “Amazon Choice”). And if the smart speaker company doubles as a private label (a la “AmazonBasics”), you can guess which brand they’ll suggest first.

Learn More

Last updated November 19, 2018

Enjoyed this deep dive? Check out more WIRED Guides.

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