Wendy's Roasts Trolls

Business Insider posted a video on Wednesday highlighting recent tweets by Wendy's. Apparently, the company has been roasting trolls.

On one hand, I love to see companies, especially large corporations, taking on more personality, but on the other hand, I'm concerned about the ramifications it will have on Wendy's culture. I wonder if this signals to the team that it's okay to treat customers this way, and if team members who are less adept at judging whether or not someone is a troll will ultimately end up roasting customers with legitimate concerns.

Amazon and Forever 21 Go After American Apparel

Both companies are in talks to make offers in the bankruptcy auction of the company. Amazon's possible  willingness to outbid Gildan Activewear's $66 million offer shows a major push for the company towards fashion and apparel.

If I were a third party seller on Amazon in the apparel category, I'd be closely watching this story, especially in regards to how it will affect Amazon's efforts at selling unbranded goods on the marketplace themselves. If Amazon acquires American Apparel, it could become the supplier and the marketplace for some sellers, which could be really scary.

Google Looks to Compete with Amazon, Kind Of

Most marketplaces have a long way to go before they can compete with Amazon, but that hasn't stopped Google from at least trying to catch up with them. Google is adding new features to capture the growing number of online shoppers.

The time to start thinking about optimizing for Google marketplace is now. The good news is that SkuVault is releasing a Google Merchants integration later this year that will help you to manage your inventory on yet another channel with no hassel.

Macy's Prepares to Close 100 Stores

After a disappointing holiday season, Macy's is closing 100 stores and cutting as many as 10,000 employees. They plan to funnel some of the money saved by shutting down the stores into their digital business.

This story confirms the continually growing trend of the Instant Gratification Economy not supporting brick-and-mortar retail stores, and our conflicting behavior of insisting as a culture that we support retail stores while abandoning them for online retailers.