One of the many strategies Amazon applies to win more leverage in its brutally competitive retail industry is organizing a whole day with nothing but appealing sales. This date doesn’t coincide with other national events that promote deals. Instead, this project represents this company only to the detriment of its rivals. The organization has just designated July 10^th as the third such Prime Day of the year.

The First Prime Day Celebrated Amazon’s 20^th Anniversary in 2015

Amazon Prime is getting ready its online platform to sustain lots of tempting sales and enthusiasts and not crack under pressure. At precisely 9 p.m. ET on July 10^th, the company will officially declare the opening of the third annual Prime Day. The grand event will be available in 13 countries and will last for only 30 hours.

This novel concept helped the company to attain even more awareness among potential clients. For instance, last year this event was 60% more successful than it was in 2015. In America alone, users ordered 50% more than usual.

The very first Prime Day occurred on July 15, 2015. It started off as a celebration of the 20^th anniversary of Amazon activities. However, its impressive performance convinced the company that this phenomenon has a lot of potential and needs to be repeated. As a consequence, one year after, the company held other 30 hours of sales in an effort to turn more enthusiasts into Prime members.

Amazon Is Willing to Go to Great Length to Convert as Many Shoppers into Prime Members

The company is extremely attentive when it comes to its Prime service. Amazon has numerous reports that show that Prime members are several times more valuable and loyal than the usual shoppers. As a consequence, the online retail platform is going to great strides to bring only delicious services and offers to them.

This year the company made sure clients will receive access to more deals than in the previous editions. Around 40% of the offers will come from small entrepreneurs. On top of that, the company wants to encourage clients to enjoy even grocery items from them. Giving the recent acquisition of Whole Foods, shoppers will get even 35% off discounts for edible products.

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The banking industry in U.S. has been working on a new project. This time, the theme of their work is a counterattack at the Venmo success with their own mobile payments app. However, thanks to their influence, the largest banks in U.S. might have just created the most impactful change in the way consumers conduct their digital fund exchanges.

The Ace up Banking Industry’s Sleeve Is Time Efficiency

In the course of next week, five largest banks in U.S. are going to open support for a new in-house payments system. This brand new app is called Zelle. Executives expect two dozen other financial institutions to join their project by the end of this year.

The new network is going to disrupt the time-consuming way people performed fund exchanges through their gadgets. Tens of millions of bank clients are going to receive access to this new resource. Through this mobile app, they can send money to others with just a few commands on their smartphones. The type of transactions that has just been streamlined is known as person-to-person payments.

The new Zelle is a direct attack to the growing popularity of Venmo. While this app offers almost the same services, time is not on their side. It takes longer for them to handle the requested funds between banks. Therefore, modern citizens who are always searching for new ways to save time might prefer the app belonging to the banking industry.

Wells Fargo & Co Is One of the Largest Banks in U.S.

The involved parties in this project are Capital One Financial Corp, US Bancorp, Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo & Co. An executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bill Wallace, stated that the new Zelle app works to the benefit of their clients.

“…we are providing a large majority of Americans with a safe, fast and easy way to move money.”

However, the efforts behind this project took years to achieve the necessary results. The most difficult issue was to find the right framework through which the fiercest competitors in the banking industry could develop a successful cooperation.

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Crew Group Inc. is a world renowned American specialty retailer. As of August 2016, the company has 450 points of operation throughout the United States. The retailer extended its services through catalogs and online websites. However, all these strategies might not be enough. Therefore, the company decided to refresh its own management. As a consequence, chief executive Mickey Drexler will soon be replaced.

Chief Executive Drexler Faced too Many Financial and Fashion Challenges

Crew is one of today’s retailers with quality experience that feel the impact of a new culture of fast fashion. Therefore, the apparel market turned into a stiff competition. Nonetheless, J. Crew didn’t manage to stay on top of the situation. Heavy debt loads coupled with an odd style direction that creative director Jenna Lyons pushed forward dragged the company down. As a consequence, chief executive Drexler had too many financial issues and fashion challenges to handle.

As of Monday, the company announced the departure of both Mickey Drexler and Jenna Lyons. This news comes as a surprise as Drexler managed to make quite a name for himself back days. He was behind the huge success that Gap recorded. Moreover, he managed to turn jeans and T-shirts into indispensable fashion items that are still a common presence in today’s world.

J. Crew Lost Influence by Raising

Even though J. Crew evolved as a high-end brand, it was still a challenge to other names thanks to Mickey Drexler. He wanted customers to know that he had great quality to offer at only half the price of its rivals.

However, the business became shabby. Last year, sales fell 6% while the debt amounted to a total of $2 billion. The company holds less than $150 million in cash. In a recent statement, Drexler confessed that the main mistake the retailer did was a price decision. The stores had their tag values increased at a moment when customers were becoming more aware of their expenditures due to the recession.

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Little Caesars has been served with a $100 million lawsuit. The whole legal issue started off from one of its usual meal services. A Muslim man received its desired pizza. However, while the customer was consuming his meal, he got sick to his stomach. The religious man soon discovered that the pepperoni on his pizza had pork products. His Muslim religion prohibits the consumption of any part coming from pigs.

The Religious Man Claims that He Ordered a Halal Pepperoni Pizza

On Thursday, the deceived religious man filed a class action lawsuit in the Wayne County Circuit Court against Little Caesars. Majed Moughni is the lawyer who is going to represent the plaintiff, Mohamad Bazzi. The indictment claims that the company mislabeled its products as halal. This means that the meat comes from an animal that was sacrificed according to the religious laws.

The plaintiff ordered the same item for two separate times from the same restaurant. The religious man, age 32, stated that both times he visited the location, the window displayed an announcement indicating that they serve halal dishes. He specifically ordered the halal version of a pepperoni pizza. Moreover, the box the dish came in stated the same feature.

The Lawsuit Wants to Impair the Company from Deceiving Other Clients

Before they finished eating their ordered pizza, both Mohamad Bazzi and his wife started filling sick to their stomach. That abnormal reaction to the food they ate made them think that they consumed prohibited meat. As the wife was a Catholic woman converted to Muslim, she managed to identify the taste of pork.

To hinder the restaurant from tricking other customers into thinking that they are eating halal meals, the religious man decided to take this incident to court. Majed Moughni advised his client to return to the restaurant and record his conversation with the employees. The dialogue revealed the manager stating that his client wanted a Hot-n-Ready pepperoni pizza with a halal sticker on the box.

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Retailers, grocers, restaurants, and other businesses cheered a recent dodge of a possible injurious change for them. On Thursday, Republicans didn’t support hard enough a cap elimination of debit card fees. This decision would have allowed banks to charge retailers more whenever customers paid their products with a debit card.

Hensarling Considered the Debit Card Fees too Controversial

Republican Jeb Hensarling from Texas is the chairman of the Financial Services Committee. He was the main character who put in a lot of efforts to strangle the Dodd-Frank law. This is a strict series of rules instated to mitigate the 2008 financial crisis. Despite the end of those challenging times, they continue to regulate the financial industry. Banking institutions have been complaining that these stipulations are hurting their business while letting retailers move too freely on their territory.

However, not all Republicans were on board with allowing banks to proceed as they please with their debit card fees. As such, the house experienced a stark division of opinions. Eventually, Hensarling decided to cut this topic for good because of a lack of supporters. The Republican gave an additional explanation for his actions.

This change of the cap on debit card fees is actually just one amendment in a broad financial reform bill. Since this one point in a comprehensive bill stirred such controversies, Jeb Hensarling decided to put an end to it altogether. This way, the rest of the bill remains with a more balanced content.

“We won’t let this one provision hinder passage of an important priority bill.”

Banks Will Continue to Charge Retailers only Half of Their Actual Fees

Trade lobbyists were happy to hear the news. Austen Jensen from the Retail Industry Leaders Association is one of the authorities that cheered the decision. He claimed that this was enough of a sign for banks to back off. On the other hand, the president of the American Bankers Association, Rob Nichols, declared that the banking world would continue to fight for a change.

The Dodd-Frank law impairs banks from charging the fees they consider right for operations done through their debit cards. As such, instead of receiving an average of 45 cents per transaction, they only get 24 cents.

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The United States has finally settled a few aspects in its commercial relationship with China. The two countries negotiated a number of preliminary agreements. These talks were focused on different American merchandise such as poultry, beef, and electronic payment systems. On the other hand, there are still urgent matters to clarify which were left as they were during these negotiations.

China’s Preliminary Agreeements Concern American Beef , Financial Services, and Poultry

On Thursday, representatives summoned the press to discuss recent preliminary agreements between The United States and China. This disclosure also contained an announcement according to which President Trump is going to send his spokespersons to Beijing.

This is where they are going to support President Xi Jinping in his efforts for international investment, called One Belt, One Road. All these recent events indicate that President Trump is trying to get on the good side of China.

According to these recent deals, China is going to accept trades of American beef within its own territory by a preliminary deadline. Moreover, the country is going to emit a verdict soon on whether to accept bioengineered seeds or not. Not only this, but China also promised to consider allowing foreign financial companies to offer payment services there.

Trump Recognizes China as an Influential Power in World’s Economy

As a consequence, in the upcoming months, two U.S. financial firms might receive Chinese licenses to underwrite bonds. If this happens, the United States is bound to enable China to trade its exports of cooked poultry.

Moreover, Matthew Pottinger, who was chosen by Trump to supervise Asian affairs in America, is going to take part in an official event in Beijing. Pottinger will represent the United States. He will be by the side of the Chinese President during one of his important foreign policies. This move translates in Trump’s recognition of the importance of China in consolidating economic balance across the Mideast, Eastern Europe, Eastern Africa, and China.

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