Sam Blumenthal

Even a small rise in score, such as an increase from 4.2 to 4.4 stars, often produced a meaningful improvement in sales. Across the 55 categories, the total growth opportunity—the cumulative sales increase that could be attributed to improvements in products’ star ratings—was 37 percent over the span of the growth horizon. This opportunity varied... See more

Third-party seller acquirers will continue to be popular because many of the large consumer packaged goods companies aren’t as good at selling online, according to Jason Stoffer, general partner at Maveron, a venture capital firm investing in consumer products and services.  “These aggregator companies are good at the online perspective with... See more

Young viewers “have a strong connection to our boys; they wanted to dress like them and play along,” Vashketov says. “They believe Vlad and Niki to be their friends. Creating merchandise was a very natural and organic step for our brand.” After selling T-shirts and blankets, the family is branching out. Up next: toy lines from Playmates and Zuru... See more

Current events and an accelerated consumer shift to ecommerce are fueling Amazon’s growth in a highly competitive market. As consumers turned to online stores (and Amazon in particular) for their everyday essentials during the COVID-19 pandemic, brands and retailers followed with a greater ecommerce presence and competition for shoppers’ dollars.... See more

Many DeFi advocates anticipate a future world of peer-to-peer uncollateralized lending on blockchains, allowing crypto holders to lend and cut out fees charged by banks for credit scoring, monitoring and payment. Good luck with that. Fintech lending holds some clues since the industry uses AI tools to make uncollateralized lending decisions, and... See more