The Daily Valet. - 10/12/23, Thursday
✔️ Is It Too Soon?
Thursday, October 12th Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
Are you an early holiday shopper? I tend to wait until crunch time … I like the adrenaline rush.
Today’s Big Story
Unexpected Early Birds
How early you start holiday shopping may depend on age
How early is too early to start your holiday shopping? Halloween is still weeks away, but younger consumers are hungry for holiday deals and not opposed to an earlier start to the shopping season, according to a new Gallup survey. In fact, some have already started.More than one in four holiday shoppers began buying gifts by the end of September. However, 59% will wait until November or even December to start, the survey found. Shopify researchers discovered that young adults are especially open to being persuaded to start sooner if the holiday deals were rolled out earlier. And more than a third of them will do some of that seasonal shopping directly from social media platforms.Perhaps retailers had this information already, because some of the biggest brands—from Costco and Walmart to Best Buy and Amazon—are among the stores with early sales this week. Which, if you're keeping track, is still more than six weeks before Black Friday. Inflation is part of the reason for the earlier start to help consumers stretch out purchases. “This is the first holiday season amid a consumer slowdown and high inflation for many years, so there is no recent precedent to learn from,” one analyst told Axios.Stores will, of course, use promotions to drive traffic this year and discount levels will depend on consumer demand. After years of booming, double-digit online growth, this year sales are expected to only mildly rise 9.4% to around $1 trillion, Bloomberg reports. Not bad, but those sitting on mountains of inventory are worried.Discounts are expected to hit record highs this season, peaking at 35% off toys, 30% for electronics and 25% off apparel prices, Adobe said in its annual forecast. Expect additional rounds of sales before Thanksgiving and in the weeks leading up to Christmas and Hanukkah (which begins on December 7 this year).
Meanwhile:
Popeyes is already taking orders for its Thanksgiving Cajun-Style Turkey. Pre-order it now, or you will miss out.
Israel’s New Unity Government Pledges to ‘Crush’ Hamas
Prime Minister Netanyahu joins a top rival to form emergency unity government, says fighting will intensify
Israel carried out heavy bombardments across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday for the fifth day as more than 2 million Palestinians lost electricity after Israel put the territory under full siege. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a fiery speech Wednesday evening ahead of an anticipated ground assault into the Gaza Strip, saying “every Hamas member is a dead man.”The Washington Post reports that Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, leader of the opposition National Unity party, reached an agreement Wednesday to form a unity government. The two leaders said the new government would pursue only bills or government decisions concerning the conflict, which has prompted Israel to mass troops near Gaza and call up 360,000 reservists—an unprecedented number in recent history. Israel’s standing army, air force and navy comprise 150,000 members.Hamas said Wednesday that Israeli strikes targeted the leader of its military wing, killing his brother, as Israel pledged to focus its fire on Hamas leaders. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who U.S. officials believe Hamas is holding hostage is “very small,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday, but he cautioned that could change. President Biden said that “there's a lot we're doing” to try to bring Americans held hostage by Hamas home, but he did not go into specifics.
FYI:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to visit Israel in a show of solidarity with the country and boost international support.
What’s the Future of Remote Work?
A Lot of companies reneged on their remote work policies, but the fully in-person workweek is almost extinct
It's hard to grasp just how tectonic a shift our move to remote working really is. During the early days of the pandemic, Americans working exclusively from home rose to 54% in 2020 from about 4% the year before. And according to a new ZipRecruiter survey, fully in-person work has gone just about extinct. Only 15% of remote-capable companies require five full days a week of in-office work.That's a response to the pandemic-era discovery that flexible work arrangements will reap huge recruitment and retention benefits, Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter's chief economist, told Fortune. If bosses doubted their effectiveness two years ago, ZipRecruiter wrote, they can't anymore. About 75% of remote-capable companies allow at least two remote days per week, and ZipRecruiter reports that companies attempting to call workers back to their desk despite their desires suffered a “heavy cost” to their morale and workforce—namely losing top talent.But that's not to say this new arrangement isn't reshaping workers' lives and the economy as a whole. Three years into a mass workplace experiment, the New York Times reports that research on productivity in work-from-home arrangements is still all over the map. But studies show that working mothers have generally benefited from hybrid arrangements, while men appeared more comfortable asking clarifying questions even if they weren't physically near colleagues. One of the few downsides is that urban/downtown shopping cores have yet to recover.
FYI:
Remote workers can have a 54% lower carbon footprint compared with onsite workers, according to a new study by Cornell University.
Birkenstock’s Big Business Now
The German Brand’s IPO turned south slightly on the first day of trading, but they still made $500 Million
It's no secret that Birkenstocks are hot. And as a longtime symbol of the counterculture, going public on Wall Street was not something most of us would've expected. The German brand was founded by cobbler Johann Adam Birkenstock in 1774 and remained under family control until 2021 when a majority stake was acquired by a private equity firm.So, of course, they're betting big in a bid to capitalize on the momentum. They company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday under the ticker symbol “BIRK”, which is actually how I refer to my beloved Boston clogs. Some traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange donned the iconic cork-soled footwear, and Birkenstock CEO Oliver Reichert rang the opening bell, with people around him waving sandals in the air. But it was a tough first day for the legendary shoemaker.Shares opened at $41 after the company priced its IPO at $46 per share and more than 32 million were sold, giving it a market value of $7.55 billion. And then shares slid even further, closing down by almost 13%. Some analysts wondered if an IPO at the height of a trend made for overpriced shares. Others wonder if the brand can continue to grow, while others chalked it up to footwear just being an unreliable stock. Both AllBirds and Doc Martens both had IPOs in recent years, with mixed results. Then again, if you'd bought Crocs stock when they went public in 2006, you'd be pretty happy now, right?
Meanwhile:
GQ says Timothée Chalamet is retrofitting summer's socks-and-sandals look for fall.
In Other News
But Republicans are struggling to unite quickly and officially make him the next House speaker.
The Smallest Planet in Our Solar System, Mercury, Is Still Shrinking After Billions of Years, and Scientists Can See Its ‘Wrinkles’
Have you heard about ...
Clean Your Place
a five-step game plan to efficiently clean your home
When the world feels chaotic, a deep clean of your environment and round of organizing can make you feel in control. And truthfully, your place could probably use it. According to a recent survey by the American Cleaning Institute, which focused heavily on millennial respondents, 40% of people don't clean their home if it “doesn't look dirty.” But then nearly 80% said that their home isn't as clean as they'd like it to be.And here's the good news: Deep cleaning your home isn't near as intense as it sounds—especially once you break it down into manageable steps. And it's a proven stress-buster. After all, haven't you watched enough Netflix and YouTube? Put your phone down, put on some music and let a clean, organized home help clear your mind. Here's how.
Get Started:
Shopping
What We’re Buying
a shoe organizer
Can you have too many shoes? No. But can you have too many to store responsibly? Yes. That's why you need clever shoe storage, like this mid-century-inspired cabinet. Available stained in black or a rich walnut, the doors are accented in natural woven rattan. Each of the three shoe cabinets folds out to house eight pairs of shoes (meaning this will comfortably hold 24 pairs), while the tall door conceals a cabinet with three shelves to store taller boots, umbrellas and other items you'd want near the door. Once everything is behind closed doors, your place looks a whole lot bigger and tidier.
Get It:
Rattan shoe cabinet, $359 by Giratree
Morning Motto
Get living.
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