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These are the top five trends shaping the future of digital health

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The healthcare industry is in a state of disruption. Digital solutions are becoming a necessary part of the new global standard of care for patients and regulation is being fast-tracked to catch up to digital health innovation.

Digital Health

These rapid changes will have ripple effects across the entire healthcare system, impacting incumbents and new entrants alike.

Based on our ongoing analysis, understanding of industry trends, and conversations with industry executives, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has put together The Top Five Trends Shaping The Future of Digital Health.

To get your copy of this free report, click here.

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I drove a $50,000 Ford Mustang GT and a $52,000 Chevy Camaro SS in a battle of all-American muscle cars — and the winner was clear (GM, F)

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Camaro SS

  • The Ford  Mustang GT and the Chevy Camaro SS are two of the USA's most famous muscle cars, but both icons have been updated for the modern world.
  • I drove both and was impressed with the staying power of their old-school V8 engines — but also the new technologies that Chevy and Ford have deployed.
  • Ultimately, I preferred the wilder Mustang GT, but the Chevy Camaro SS might be easier for some drivers to live with day-to-day.


Muscle cars are often characterized as uncompromising, given that these all-American machines are designed to serve up serious speed in a straight line.

But the truth is that for much of their multi-decade reign on the roads of the USA, that speed has been crude. Loud and proud, but if you asked a muscle car to gracefully negotiate a corner, well ... you'd have been far better off with a Porsche.

That's all been changing in the 21st century, however. With the Mustang and the Camaro, Ford and Chevy have engineered hybrids of a muscle car and a sports car. OK, they can't quite do it all, and if you want a car that's brilliant in the curves, German might still be your best bet. But Porsches and BMWs ain't cheap. Mustangs and Camaros aren't, either, but their price tags are many thousands below European coupés that match up on horsepower. 

Over the past year, I was lucky enough to be flipped the keys to both a Mustang GT and a Camaro SS, both rocking potent V8 engines, and outfitted in flashy colors. So did I favor the bright yellow 'Stang or the hot orange Camaro SS?

Read on to find out.

 

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Let's start with the Mustang GT. I sampled the 2018 re-fresh of the new 'Stang, which was rolled out in 2015. It was late 2017, and the setting was sunny Los Angeles.

Read the review.



The GT starts at about $35,000, but my options-packed test car was closer to $50,000. The yellow paint job definitely stood out, even in LA, land of flamboyant automobiles.



The Mustang looks good. Updates aren't radical: the front and back end have been made more sleek. The overall effect is to continue presenting the Stang, after over five decades, as a sports car with global appeal, versus a stonking old American muscle car.



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I tried Tesla's Navigate on Autopilot feature to see if it lives up to the hype — here's the verdict (TSLA)

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Tesla Nav on Autopilot

  • "Navigate on Autopilot" enables a properly equipped Tesla vehicle to follow a GPS navigation route on a highway.
  • The system can also merge onto highways, exit, and pass slower-moving traffic.
  • The system requires a relatively high level of driver engagement.


Tesla has rolled out a software update for its "Autopilot," a semi-self-driving technology. Called "Navigate on Autopilot," it enables a Tesla vehicle that's equipped with the requisite set of sensors, cameras, and radars — and that's had "Enhanced Autopilot" activated for $5,000 — to drive the car through a greater range of situations than before and to follow a route in the GPS navigation system.

About a month ago, I met up with several Tesla representatives and their brand-new Model 3 sedan in New Jersey to sample the upgrade. 

I'll cut to the chase. For years now, I've argued that Tesla Autopilot should be a hands-on-the-wheel-at-all-times technology, and that Tesla shouldn't let a new owner or lessee leave the store without an "Autopilot 101" tutorial. In practice, Autopilot does prompt drivers to periodically engage in steering-wheel inputs when Autopilot is active. But drivers can release the wheel for brief stretches.

Read more:I drove a $57,500 Tesla Model 3 for a week to see if it's practical for everyday driving — here's the verdict

I'll get into how Navigate on Autopilot works in a second. For now, the best thing about the new technology is that it raises the level of engagement required of the driver. The biggest risk of Autopilot and other semi-self-driving systems is that they reduce situational awareness, quickly removing drivers from the act of fully controlling their vehicles. Navigate on Autopilot brings situational awareness back.

So how does it work?

Tesla Nav on Autopilot

Well, for starters, it has to be enabled (by the way, I sampled the tech in New Jersey, but these images are from a drive in California and were provided by Tesla).

That's achieved via (in my case) the Model 3's central touchscreen. Once you give it the OK and input a route through the navigation system, Navigate on Autopilot will become active when Autopilot itself is in operation, and it's only available for highway operation. You have to touch the blue "Navigate on Autopilot" button on the turn-by-turn directions to make it work.

At a basic level, Navigate on Autopilot can drive a Tesla up a highway on-ramp, suggest lane changes and passing maneuvers while it follows a plotted route, and it can exit a highway prior to returning control to the driver. This makes Autopilot somewhat more "point-to-point" than it was before, and as CEO Elon Musk has noted, is a needed step toward full self-driving capability. 

Tesla Nav on Autopilot

NOAP, as I'll refer to it, benefits from a high level of fleet learning, and, as with anything a Tesla with the right sensor set has encountered, can be used to manage merging speeds and take a more intelligent approach to things like pre-exit lane changes.

NOAP will also suggest or deny passing maneuvers, and the boldness with which it approaches those moves can be set anywhere from Mild to "Mad Max," for impatient drivers (Average is in between.)

A double-pull-down of the transmission stalk on the right side of the Model 3's steering wheel brings Autopilot online, and we're off. Pretty quickly, the systems take over steering for an on-ramp, modulating speed to keep everything safe. I then have to increase the preset adaptive cruise-control speed to a highway velocity — and respond to the Autopilot prompts when it's time to provide a bit of steering-wheel engagement. 

Tesla Nav on Autopilot

The Autopilot screen, on the far-left side of the central touchscreen, draws a blue line in front of the vehicle, mimicking the route guidance on the navigation system. When a slow-moving truck appears in front of us, NOAP suggest a passing maneuver and draws it in gray. It's then up to me to confirm that it's safe to pass and use the turn signal to execute.

If an obstacle shows up on the Tesla's sensor range — such as another vehicle off our starboard side — NOAP creates a red line that prohibits the pass.

Then, when it's time to line up in a lane for exiting, NOAP also offers that indication. When it hits the exit, it slows for the curve, then returns control for slower driving (it gives the driver a distance countdown).

Tesla Nav on Autopilot

On balance, I can do all of this more seamlessly myself, but it's early days for this type of semi-autonomous technology. For now, NOAP is fairly impressive for what it can do, and more importantly, for how much safety it brings to the process.

What it can't do

What it can't do is mainly apply old-fashioned driving habits, learned by me decades ago — such as changing lanes to the left around on-ramp merges to allow new traffic onto the highway. Or to shift to the left when stopped cars or emergency vehicles are on the shoulder. Those are very, very human situations, however. I wouldn't expect a self-driving car with far more advanced aspirations that a Tesla using NOAP to be able to handle them.

A human situation that NOAP goes a long way toward improving is simply dealing with following a route. Even with modern GPS, it's easy to screw up, miss a turn, and become frustrated. NOAP alleviates some of that stress. Add this to Autopilot's already noted ability to deal with slow, stop-and-go traffic and you have a helpful, stress-reducing technology that will likely alleviate mishaps.

I'm not really a heavy-duty Autopilot user, mainly because I like actually driving Teslas too much (to be fair, I don't make much use of old-school cruise control unless I'm on long highway jaunts). For Autopilot enthusiasts, I can easily see how NOAP will initially demand a learning curve, but over the long term will prevent the temptation to let the system take over too much of the driving act. 

That's a big deal. NOAP definitely improved Autopilot, but also fixes what I think is the technology's main drawback.

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NOW WATCH: We drove a brand-new Tesla Model X from San Francisco to New York — here's what happened

The Future of Payments 2018

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The payments industry is transforming.

Noncash payments methods are quickly becoming the norm.Future of Payments

Business Insider Intelligence projects digital payments to continue to grow through 2023 and beyond.

This shift has created a battle between incumbents and startups vying to become the leaders of the future of payments.

While incumbents have massive scale to lean on, startups typically offer a much friendlier user experience. Whoever can master both first will win the battle.

That will require navigating four key digital transformations: diversification, consolidation and collaboration, data protection and automation.

In this FREE section of The Future of Payments 2018 slide deck from Business Insider Intelligence, we look at the first key digital transformation: diversification.

Subscribe to Business Insider Intelligence today for full access to the complete deck.

As an added bonus to this FREE section, you will gain immediate access to our exclusive BI Intelligence Daily newsletter.

To get your copy of this free slide deck, click here.

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Here's what the NFL playoff bracket would look like if the season ended today

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Week 16 NFL playoff bracket 4x3

  • This is what the NFL playoff bracket would look like if the season ended today.
  • The Philadelphia Eagles are chasing the Minnesota Vikings for the final spot in the NFC.
  • In the AFC, the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans will play each other in a win-or-go-home Week 17 matchup.

Heading into the final week of the NFL regular season, a few teams are still fighting for their spot in the playoffs.

In the NFC, the Vikings are attempting to hold off the Eagles to remain the final wild-card team in the bracket. If they can win, they're in, but if they lose and Philadelphia beats Washington, the Eagles will get their chance to repeat as NFL champions.

The Vikings will host the Bears for their final game, with Chicago still hoping for a shot at a first-round bye should they win and the Rams lose.

In the AFC, it's a slightly different story. The Chiefs currently sit atop the conference, but still need to win on Sunday, as they could quickly fall into the Wild Card round if the Chargers jumped them in the AFC West standings.

Two other spots in the AFC are also still up for grabs — the Ravens jumped the Steelers last week to take the lead in the AFC North, but could give it back just as easily if they lose on Sunday, and on Sunday night, the Titans and Colts will play what amounts to a play-in game for the final spot in the postseason.

There's still quite a bit of NFL action left before we know what the bracket will look like, but as things stand, we're shaping up for quite a compelling postseason.

SEE ALSO: The 40 most dominant athletes of 2018

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NOW WATCH: I'm a diehard iPhone user who switched to Android for a week — here's what I loved and hated about the Google Pixel 3 XL

An 8-year-old Guatemalan child died on Christmas while in Border Patrol custody, agency says

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border patrol

  • An 8-year-old child from Guatemala died at a hospital in New Mexico while in Border Patrol custody on December 25, the agency said in a statement.
  • The statement said a Border Patrol agent first noticed the child showing signs of potential illness on Monday while in custody, and that the father and child were "promptly transferred" to a hospital.
  • The child was initially diagnosed with a common cold, the statement said, but hospital staff later found he had a fever.
  • After being held for observation for an hour and a half, the child was released from the hospital on Monday afternoon, then brought back later that evening after displaying nausea and vomiting.
  • The child's identity and cause of death is unknown.

An 8-year-old migrant child from Guatemala died at a hospital in Alamogordo, New Mexico, shortly after midnight on December 25 after being apprehended by US Customs and Border Protection, the agency said in a statement that was first reported by the San Antonio Express News.

The statement said a Border Patrol agent noticed the child showed signs of potential illness while in custody on December 24. It went on to say boy and his father were "promptly transferred" to the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo.

Though the child was initially diagnosed with a common cold, the statement said, hospital staff later found he had a fever. After being held for observation for another 90 minutes, the child was released from the hospital on Monday afternoon with prescriptions for amoxicillin and ibuprofen.

Later that same evening, the statement said, the boy began vomiting and was brought back to the hospital, where he died shortly after midnight on December 25.

The child's identity and cause of death is unknown.

CBP's statement said both Congress and the Guatemalan government has been notified of the boy's death, and the Department of Homeland Security will review the incident.

The death of the Guatemalan child comes just weeks after a 7-year-old migrant girl, Jakelin Caal Maquin, died in Border Patrol custody. A CBP timeline showed she had not been able to access emergency medical care until roughly 90 minutes after she first began showing symptoms.

Read more:Migrant father contradicts US officials, says his 7-year-old daughter who died in Border Patrol custody was given no water for 8 hours

Jakelin died on December 8, shortly after she and her father were apprehended while illegally crossing into a remote area of the desert in New Mexico as part of a group of 163 migrants.

The Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, drew backlash in recent weeks after appearing to blame Jakelin's death on the family members who brought her across the US-Mexico border.

In an interview with "Fox & Friends," Nielsen told the hosts that the girl's death "is just a very sad example of the dangers of this journey" migrants take.

"This family chose to cross illegally," she said. "What happened here was that they were about 90 miles away from where we could process them. They came in such a large crowd that it took our Border Patrol folks a couple of times to get them all."

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NOW WATCH: Anthony Scaramucci claims Trump isn't a nationalist: 'He likes saying that because it irks these intellectual elitists'

How Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and other popular apps are upending the e-commerce space (FB, GOOG, GOOGL)

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Growth in Share of Retail Site Visits

This is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here.

Social media is becoming increasingly influential in shoppers' purchasing decisions. In fact, the top 500 retailers earned an estimated $6.5 billion from social shopping in 2017, up 24% from 2016, according to BI Intelligence estimates.

In addition to influencing purchase decisions, social media is a large part of the product discovery and research phase of the shopping journey. And with more and more retailers offering quick access to their sites via social media pages, and shoppable content becoming more popular, it's likely that social media will play an even larger role in e-commerce. 

In this report, BI Intelligence examines the advantages and disadvantages of each platform, and reviews case studies of successful campaigns that helped boost conversion and increase brand awareness. Additionally, we explore how retailers can bring social aspects into their own sites and apps to capitalize on consumers' desire for social shopping experiences.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

  • Social media is becoming more influential in all aspects of the purchasing journey.
  • Facebook is the clear winner in social commerce, with its huge user base and wide-ranging demographics.
  • However, retailers should have a presence on every platform their target market is on. Each platform will require a different strategy for retailers to resonate with its users.
  • Retailers can also benefit from bringing social aspects in-house. They can do this by building their own in-house social networks, or by embedding social media posts into their sites.

In full, the report: 

  • Provides an overview of the top social media platforms — Facebook, YouTube, Instagram — that retailers should be using, the demographics of each platform, as well as their individual advantages and disadvantages. 
  • Reviews tools recently developed by these platforms that help retailers create engaging content.
  • Outlines case studies and specific strategies to use on each platform.
  • Examines how retailers like Sephora, Amazon, and Poshmark are capitalizing on consumers' affinity for social shopping by creating their own in-house social networks.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

  1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
  2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

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Raise is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell gift cards — and it has saved members a total of $150 million since 2013

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The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

raise main

  • Few of us ever use all the gift cards we receive. Instead of letting them go to waste, you can sell them for free on an online marketplace called Raise.
  • You'll be able to set your own selling price, and after Raise takes a 15% commission from the sale, the rest of the money is yours. 
  • You can also buy discounted gift cards to the places you really want. They're shipped to you for free or made available in your account instantly. 
  • The well-designed website decreases your gift card clutter and helps you spend your money more productively. 

There's a drawer in my house that's unofficially known as the Gift Card Graveyard: It's where all the gift cards we've received over the years go to die. On the off chance we remember we have a gift card for that coffee chain we haven't visited in years, it attracts some attention, but for the most part it remains untouched and hundreds of dollars go to waste. 

Gift cards aren't useless. They're easy, last-minute gifts for anyone in your life and a convenient way to pay at your favorite stores. The problem, however, is when you receive a gift card for a store, restaurant, or website that you don't intend on visiting and is of no use to you. 

A website called Raise is the best way to get rid of your Gift Card Graveyard and make some extra money, with little effort. Raise is an online marketplace where you can sell your unwanted gift cards for cash at whatever price you choose and buy discounted gift cards to the places where you actually shop. 

Here's how Raise works

To sell a card:Visit the Sell page and enter the name of the store. You'll be taken to a page that looks like the below, where you'll enter all your gift card information and set your selling price.

It's free to list a card, but once it sells, Raise will take a 15% commission from the selling price. Raise tells you what your total earnings will be after the commission cut, so you know exactly what to expect. 

After you submit your listing, it takes up to 24 hours for the gift card to be verified and approved. Once it's sold, you can get paid out through three different methods: ACH Direct Deposit, PayPal, or check ($30 fee).

raise desktop sell listing

To buy a card: Visit the Buy page and search for your desired store, or filter by price, category, and sale specials. Raise offers thousands of brands that you shop regularly, including Target, Macy's, Nordstrom, Wayfair, Sephora, Airbnb, Starbucks, and Chipotle. 

If you don't see a price you like, you can set up Brand Alerts that will notify you when a card in your desired price and discount range is available. 

Physical gift cards are shipped to you for free in three to 14 business days, while most electronic gift cards are delivered instantly (processing can take up to 24 hours). 

You can buy and sell with confidence because of Raise's one-year money-back guarantee. 

Every order is backed for one year after the purchase. Raise will cover: 

  • Cards that are not active
  • Cards with an inaccurate balance
  • Cards delivered as a different brand than ordered
  • Physical cards not received within 30 days from the date of purchase

Other than the desktop site, Raise also has iOS and Android apps, which let you instantly use your gift cards online or in-store through the Raise Wallet. 

Since 2013, Raise has attracted more than 2 million buyers and sellers, and saved its users a total of $150 million. Though the savings on each gift card might seem minimal, the platform is still a smart way to find cash in unexpected places and save money where it matters. 

Buy and sell gift cards at Raise here

SEE ALSO: 13 easy, legitimate ways to make extra money this month — that you probably haven't considered yet

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35 Big tech predictions for 2018

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35 big tech predictions for 2018Technology is increasingly disrupting every part of our daily lives.

Smart speakers and voice assistants let us interact with our homes and with retailers in new and seamless ways.

Smartphones are taking over as the dominant shopping device.

Viewers continue to move away from traditional TV toward digital platforms.

And the list is growing.

Nearly every industry has been disrupted by digital technologies over the past 10 years. And in 2018, we expect to see more transformative developments affect our businesses, careers, and lives.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together a list of 35 Big Tech Predictions for 2018 across Apps and Platforms, Digital Media, Payments, Internet of Things, E-Commerce, Fintech, and Transportation & Logistics. Some of these major predictions include:

  • Cryptocurrencies will become more widely accepted
  • Google and Apple will challenge Amazon in the smart speaker space
  • The resurgence of the VR market
  • The real self-driving car race will begin
  • Drone regulations will relax
  • Alibaba’s international expansion
  • Gen Z will become a major focal point for media companies and advertisers
  • Payment security will become paramount
  • Smart home devices will take off

This comprehensive list of 35 predictions can be yours for free today. As an added bonus, you will gain immediate access to our exclusive free newsletter, Business Insider Intelligence Daily.

To get your copy of this FREE report, simply click here.

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How tech giants are using their reach and digital prowess to take on traditional banks (GOOG, GOOGL, AAPL, FB, MSFT, AMZN)

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

As headlines like "Amazon Is Secretly Becoming a Bank" and "Google Wants to Be a Bank Now" increasingly crop up in the news, tech giants are coming into the spotlight as the next potential payments disruptors.

Millennials Trust Tech Payments

And with these firms' broad reach and hefty resources, the possibility that they'll descend on financial services is a hard narrative to shy away from. To mitigate potential losses under this scenario, traditional players will have to grasp not only the level of the threat, but also which segments of the financial industry are most at risk of disruption.

Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft, collectively known as GAFAM, are already active investors in the payments industry, and they're slowly encroaching on legacy providers' core offerings. Each of these five companies has introduced features and offerings that have the potential to disrupt specific parts of the banking system. And we expect a plethora of additional offerings to hit the market as these companies look to build out their ecosystems.

However, it remains unlikely that any of these firms will become full-blown banks or entirely upend incumbents, due to regulatory barriers and the entrenched positions of big banks. Moreover, consumers still trust traditional firms first and foremost with their financial data. That means these companies are far more likely to rattle the cages of incumbents than they are to cause their total demise. That said, these companies have a proven capacity to revolutionize industries, making their entry into payments critical to watch for legacy players, especially as their moves demonstrate an intent to be a disruptive force in the industry.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence analyzes the current impact GAFAM is having on the financial services industry, and the strengths and weaknesses of each firm's position in payments. We also discuss the barriers these companies face as they push deeper into financial services, as well as which aspects of a bank’s core business provide the biggest opportunities for the new players. Lastly, we assess these companies' future potential in payments and the broader financial services industry, and examine ways incumbents can manage the threat.

Here are some of the key takeaways: 

  • GAFAM has been actively encroaching on the payments space. This includes offering mobile wallets for in-store and online payments, peer-to-peer money transfer services, and even loans for small- and medium-sized businesses. 
  • These firms' broad reach and hefty resources have put them in a strong position to take on legacy players. GAFAM has products that have been adopted by millions of users, and in some cases, billions. They also have access to a tremendous amount of capital — Apple, Microsoft, and Google had over $400 billion combined in cash at the end of 2016.
  • However, these firms have to overcome major barriers to compete against legacy players, which includes regulation and trust. For example, 60% of respondents to a Business Insider Intelligence survey stated that they trust their bank most to provide them financial services.
  •  As a result of these barriers, it's more likely that GAFAM will make a dent in very specific segments of the financial services industry rather than completely disrupt it. 

In full, the report:

  • Explains what GAFAM's done to place themselves in a position to be the next potential payments disruptors.
  • Breaks down the strengths and weaknesses of each company as it relates to their ability to build out an extensive financial ecosystem. 
  • Looks at the potential barriers that could limit GAFAM's ability to capture a significant share of the payments industry from traditional players. 
  • Identifies what strategies legacy players will have to deploy to mitigate the threat by these tech giants.

 

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The 7-year-old who told Trump she believes in Santa says she's still a believer

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trump christmas

  • President Donald Trump challenged a seven-year-old girl's belief in Santa Claus on Monday night.
  • "Are you still a believer in Santa Claus," Trump asked. "[Because] at seven, it's marginal, right?"
  • The girl told the Post and Courier that she still believes in Santa, and that she's shocked she spoke to the president.

The seven-year-old girl who spoke to President Donald Trump about Santa Claus Monday night says she still believes in Father Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Trump answered phone calls made by children to CONAD, a switchboard where members of the North American Aerospace Defense Command pretend to tell callers about Santa's whereabouts.

One exchange — where Trump challenged a girl's belief in Santa Claus — went viral.

"Are you still a believer in Santa Claus," Trump asked. "[Because] at seven, it's marginal, right?"

Read more:Trump challenges 7-year-old kid's belief in Santa during Christmas Eve phone calls

The Charleston, South Carolina-based Post and Courier caught up with Collman Lloyd, the seven-year-old caller in that exchange.

She said she didn't know what the word "marginal" meant and still believed in Santa.

Lloyd also said she was stunned that she was able to speak to the president.

"I was like, 'wow.' I was shocked," she said. "It wasn’t really (nerve-wracking), I just had to think of what the truth was."

Lloyd found a wrapped American Girl doll under the Christmas tree, according to the Post and Courier's report.

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NOW WATCH: Why Harvard scientists think this interstellar object might be an alien spacecraft

In 2018 alone, new EU regulations incurred an onslaught of rules and reporting — here's how regtech can address these new requirements

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Growth Regtech Firms

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Regtech solutions seemed to offer the solution to financial institutions' (FIs) compliance woes when they first came to prominence around 24 months ago, gaining support from regulators and investors alike. 

However, many of the companies offering these solutions haven't scaled as might have been expected from the initial hype, and have failed to follow the trajectory of firms in other segments of fintech.

This unexpected inertia in the regtech industry is likely to resolve over the next 12-18 months as other factors come into play that shift FIs' approach to regtech solutions, and as the companies offering them evolve. External factors driving this change include regulatory support of regtech solutions, and consultancies offering more help to FIs wanting to sift through solutions. Startups offering regtech solutions will also play a part by partnering with each other, forming industry organizations, and taking advantage of new opportunities.

This report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, provides a brief overview of the current global financial regulatory compliance landscape, and the regtech industry's position within it. It then details the major drivers that will shift the dial on FIs' adoption of regtech over the next 12-18 months, as well as those that will propel startups offering regtech solutions to new heights. Finally, it outlines what impact these drivers will have, and gives insight into what the global regtech industry will look like by 2020.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

  • Regulatory compliance is still a significant issue faced by global FIs. In 2018 alone, EU regulations MiFID II and PSD2 have come into effect, bringing with them huge handbooks and gigantic reporting requirements. 
  • Regtech startups boast solutions that can ease FIs' compliance burden — but they are struggling to scale. 
  • Some changes expected to drive greater adoption of these solutions in the next 12 to 18 months are: the ongoing evolution of startups' business models, increasing numbers of partnerships, regulators' promotion of regtech, changing attitudes to the segment among FIs, and consultancies helping to facilitate adoption.
  • FIs will actively be using solutions from regtech startups by 2020, and startups will be collaborating in an organized fashion with each other and with FIs. Global regulators will have adopted regtech themselves, while continuing to act as advocates for the industry.

In full, the report:

  • Reviews the major changes expected to hit the regtech segment in the next 12 to 18 months.
  • Examines the drivers behind these changes, and how the proliferation of regtech will improve compliance for FIs.
  • Provides our view on what the future of the regtech industry looks like through 2020.

     

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The government shutdown forced a couple to move their wedding from a national park with just 7 days of notice

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bride outdoor wedding bouquet

  • Amanda McLearn-Montz and Ian Buchta can no longer have their wedding at Cabrillo National Monument Park on December 29.
  • The federal government shutdown on December 22 over border wall funding forced the closure of all national parks, including their wedding venue.
  • The couple found a church to host their wedding ceremony on December 29, but they're disappointed they can't go through with their original plan.

Amanda McLearn-Montz had all the details for her wedding planned out. It would be an intimate gathering — just around 20 people — and it would be on the cliffs of Cabrillo National Monument Park, overlooking the ocean she and her fiancé both loved. The date was set: December 29.

And then the government shut down.

On December 22, after President Donald Trump rejected Congress's bill to fund the government for another year, the federal government stopped functioning. The shutdown includes national parks, so San Diego's Cabrillo National Monument Park was closed to visitors and the park rangers working there were sent home.

The news was particularly bad for McLearn-Montz and her fiancé, Ian Buchta, who had to find somewhere else to get married.

"During all of this, I've felt stressed and disappointed," McLearn-Montz told INSIDER in an email. "I'm still disappointed we will not exchange vows at Cabrillo. Cabrillo is a beautiful place; its gorgeous cliffs and wildlife fit my fiancé and me so well and would have been the perfect setting to make our promises to each other. But we're making the most of it."

Cabrillo National Monument park san diego

McLearn-Montz said she first heard their wedding plans would be ruined on December 20, when a park ranger working at Cabrillo called her and warned that a government shutdown might close down the park.

"We watched the news anxiously the next day and a half. We heard the update about the government's official shutdown and waited for the ranger's call," she said. "On Saturday morning (Dec 22nd and one week before our wedding), the ranger called and said the park would definitely be closed. He apologized and wished us well. We were heartbroken but knew our wedding would still happen, despite the relocation."

The only way the couple's wedding could still happen at Cabrillo National Monument Park on December 29 would be if President Trump sign's Congress's funding bill before then. That's unlikely to happen. The president trashed the bill because it doesn't include $5 billion he wants to help fund a wall of steel slats along the border between the United States and Mexico. And Congress doesn't seem interested in writing a new funding bill: It recessed for the holidays and isn't scheduled to resume until the new year, when the 116th Congress is sworn in. (Some states are using their own money to keep a selection of parks open, but Cabrillo National Monument Park isn't one of them.)

runaway bride

McLearn-Montz's parents came up with a backup plan. They found a church where they could do the ceremony. And the couple had a restaurant with an ocean view booked for a reception, so they could still take the photos they wanted.

"We plan to do the ceremony [at the church] unless Cabrillo magically reopens," McLearn-Montz said. "We will still do dinner at the restaurant on the bay and our photographer graciously said he would come to dinner so we can still get the gorgeous ocean wedding pictures."

But the couple is still disappointed they couldn't get the wedding they planned. The ocean is an important place for both of them, and they chose Cabrillo National Monument Park because of its coastal view.

anonymous bride

"[My fiancé] worked as a marine science teacher for two years, so the ocean is an important place to him and he would have loved to incorporate it into his wedding," McLearn-Montz said. "But he keeps reminding me that he doesn’t care what happens on the 29th as long as he gets to marry me. I think he’d marry me in a dingy basement as long as he knew we would get to spend the rest of our lives together."

And even though the government will likely be shut down through the new year, they're making the most of it.

"Despite my disappointment, I know I'll marry the love of my life on Saturday, December 29, 2018. And it'll be the happiest day of my life whether I'm on cliffs overlooking the ocean or in a Christmas decorated church," she said. "The most important thing is that I get to marry my best friend."

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The Digital Media Forecast Book: Top trends in consumption habits, US ad spend, and global ad spend

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This is a preview of The Digital Media Forecast Book from Business Insider Intelligence. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Media consumption has changed rapidly over the past decade, with digital increasingly claiming a larger share of the daily time spent with media. Increased mobile usage is driving much of the growth in digital time spent, as smartphones become more powerful and capable of handling tasks otherwise completed on desktop.

Digital Media Forecast Book 2018

Meanwhile, cord-cutting and cord-shaving will continue as consumers seek more affordable alternatives to traditional pay-TV. Marketers need to understand the underlying consumer trends that are driving billions of dollars in global advertising, and how those behaviors are likely to play out in the near term.

In this three-part forecast book, Business Insider Intelligence forecasts how much time users spend consuming each format as we approach peak media, and how those changes reflect how advertising dollars are spent globally and in the US.

 

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A woman's phone automatically made a cheery video from her car crash photos — and the result is morbidly hilarious

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  • iCloud turned photos of a woman's car crash into a cheery video with the Vengaboys song "We Like to Party!" playing over it.
  • The video went viral on Twitter. It's morbidly hilarious.
  • "I took it as a sign of the universe trolling me," the woman told INSIDER.

On Christmas Eve, Karla, a woman living in Los Angeles, got into a car crash. She took photos of the damage to her car and videos of herself describing what happened, then put them in a folder for an insurance claim.

She tried to share the folder with her dad, but accidentally hit the "slideshow" button instead of the "copy iCloud link" button. iCloud turned the images into a video. As a backdrop, it used the upbeat late 1990s hit "We Like to Party!" by the Vengaboys.

"We like to party!" the refrain goes, played over Karla's testimony about the accident. Karla posted the video to Twitter, where it went viral.

"I took it as a sign of the universe trolling me," Karla told INSIDER in a Twitter direct message.

Karla told INSIDER she knew the song has been used as a meme. She purchased it months ago, but was bewildered that iCloud chose it as the soundtrack for her car crash.

"I have no idea why out of all of my songs in my phone it chose that. So I just thought it was ironic that such a party song would be background music to a really sucky situation," she said. "I posted it on Twitter thinking just my friends were going to see how ridiculous it was and it went viral."

People were shocked by the song's horns in particular. No one was hurt in the crash, Karla said, but the combination between the song and horns gave the video a grim humor.

"It's hilarious how when the damage is shown on the car the two horns in the song start blaring," Karla said. "I just had to show the irony of my misfortunes with such an iconic song blasting in the background!"

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The three types of Amazon buyers — and how other e-tailers can lure them away (AMZN)

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Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That’s the strategy e-tailers will have to adopt if they want to compete with Amazon. To fight back against the e-commerce giant’s expanding dominance, other online retailers must understand exactly why and how customers are buying on Amazon — and which aspects of the Amazon shopping experience they can incorporate into their own strategic frameworks to win back customers.

Why Amazon First

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has obtained exclusive survey data to give e-tailers the tools to figure out how to do just that with its latest Enterprise Edge Report: The Amazon Commerce Competitive Edge Report.

Enterprise Edge Reports are the very best research Business Insider Intelligence has to offer in terms of actionable recommendations and proprietary data, and they are only available to Enterprise clients.

Business Insider Intelligence fielded the Amazon study to members of its proprietary panel in March 2018, reaching over 1,000 US consumers – primarily hand-picked digital professionals and early-adopters – to gather their insights on Amazon’s role in the online shopping experience.

In full, the study:

  • Uses exclusive survey data to analyze the factors behind Amazon’s success with consumers.
  • Segments three types of Amazon customers that e-tailers should be targeting.
  • Shares strategies on how e-tailers can attract shoppers at key moments.

First, why is Amazon so popular?

Amazon is ubiquitous. In fact, a whopping 94% of those surveyed said they’d made a purchase on the site in the last twelve months. And of those who did, the vast majority believed Amazon’s customer experience was simply better than its leading competitors’ — specifically eBay, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target.

The biggest contributor to Amazon’s superior experience? Free shipping, of course. According to Amazon’s 2017 annual report, the company actually spent $21.7 billion last year covering customers’ shipping costs, a number that’s been compounding over the past few years.

Not only is free shipping included for all Prime members as part of their subscriptions but, of all e-tailers listed in the survey, Amazon also offers the lowest minimum order value for non-subscription members to qualify for the perk (just $25). The pervasiveness of free (and fast) shipping is steadily heightening customer expectations for the online shopping experience — and forcing competitors to offer similar programs and benefits.

Who exactly is shopping on Amazon?

The survey results showed that across generations for a large minority of respondents, Amazon is a standard part of their typical shopping process. Nearly a third (32%) of respondents said they begin their online shopping process on Amazon. Of those who do start their journeys elsewhere, 100% ended up purchasing something from Amazon at some point over the last 12 months.

Based on the trends in responses, Business Insider Intelligence segmented out three different types of Amazon shoppers, each with unique implications for how competitors could evolve their strategies:

  • Amazon loyalists: This group of consumers is most committed to shopping on Amazon. E-tailers must understand what has made Amazon their default experience — and how they could be pried away.
  • Comparison shoppers: This consumer segment looks at other sites before ultimately completing a purchase with Amazon, which could allow e-tailers to find success at the bottom of the purchase funnel. E-tailers should focus on what they can do more of to steal sales away at the end of the purchasing process.
  • Open-search shoppers: These consumers start their online product search away from Amazon, often with specific reasons including what they’re looking for and why they’re not looking on Amazon. Other e-tailers have the opportunity to attract these shoppers from the beginning of the purchase funnel — keeping them from ever venturing to Amazon.

Want to learn more?

Business Insider Intelligence has compiled the complete survey findings into the four-part Amazon Commerce Competitive Edge Report, which dives deeper into each of these consumer segments to give e-tailers an intricate understanding of Amazon’s role in their purchasing processes.

The report presents actionable strategies for retail strategists and executives to zero in on three individual consumer segments at critical shopping moments, and empower them to win sales in an Amazon-dominated world.

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I never thought I'd pay $150 for smart light bulbs, but the Philips Hue starter kit is the best upgrade I've made in my small apartment

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  • For personal luxuries, I'm pretty cheap. But getting the seemingly ridiculous $150 Philips Hue White Ambiance Starter Kit has actually improved my quality of life.
  • You can control all your Philips Hue bulbs by an app or by voice using Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, or Google Assistant. 
  • The app lets you set schedules so lights automatically come on at any time of the day and for any specific need (reading, focus, relaxation, etc).
  • If you love ambiance, you will love these. 

I am probably more surprised to find myself writing a story about how wonderful expensive light bulbs are than you are to find yourself reading it.

As someone who almost exclusively subsisted off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in college without complaint, I can tell you I’m not exactly a high maintenance person. In fact, where my needs are concerned, I’m pretty cheap. I moved myself into my first post-grad apartment using suitcases and Uber pools.

But, I recently got the Philips White Ambiance Starter Kit (currently $144 on Amazon) in a bid to mitigate the many annoyances I had gotten used to living around rather than solving. When you interact with slightly-too-short phone cords and mismatched Tupperware every day, the little things start to add up.

The Philips White Ambiance Starter Kit may seem like a ridiculous, unjustifiable cost, but they're the best upgrade I've made to my apartment all year. They just make life easier and better.

Basically, the kit is made up of four Alexa-compatible, smart light bulbs with many light variations. The kit I got includes four A19 LED bulbs and a Philips bridge (which connects it all). And though the upfront cost is high, it's nice to note that each bridge should be able to control up to 50 lights — so you won’t have to buy that most expensive piece of tech again if you want to add more Philips accessories to your home to synchronize. You can just buy the (comparatively) much cheaper bulbs

Installation is as easy as screwing in the light bulbs, downloading the Hue app, and pairing the bulbs to your Hue Bridge (which is included). It took me all of five minutes.

From there, you can control your lights from the app or just by voice control using Alexa, Apple HomeKit, or Google Assistant, and you can set schedules in the app for things like waking up in the morning, going to sleep at night, or making it seem like somebody's home when you're out of town for the weekend.

You can also adjust them to very specific needs: energize, read, focus, and relax. And, as you might have guessed given the name “White Ambiance,” you can play with 50,000 shades of white light. If you love anything even remotely “atmospheric,” you will love these, and they are worth it.

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There are many practical implications of these features for lots of different people, but for me, it made getting up in the morning easier, made me more relaxed, and made me enjoy and love my living space more.

It fixes a common small apartment annoyance; My room has one master switch, so either everything is on or everything is off, unless you use their individual switches. But since my room is small, most outlets are covered by furniture. Having to shut the master switch off to control the lights at the expense of my Amazon Echo and fail-safe alarm weren’t options, so virtually every night I would have to cram my hand behind my dresser to click the light off. I can’t explain how nice it is to be able to control the lights from an app or by voice commands — even dimming.

It also means that I can be in my space for virtually every mood — I can use bright lights for reading, and varied levels of dimmed for activities like relaxing, watching a movie, or lulling myself to sleep.

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I don’t get a ton of natural light in the heart of NYC, and I was missing the little joy of waking up to sunlight. I set a schedule in the app, though, and now I wake up to my favorite type of warm light every morning at the same time. It actually puts me in a better mood. And it’s nice to have that be the first thing I notice rather than just the Alexa alarm.

And since it makes waking up early feel more natural (and much less gloomy), I’ve felt better about getting up early for workouts. I still rely on (healthy) pre-workout to actually get me going, but the mimicked sunlight gets me out of bed much more consistently.

So, all in all, even though these light bulbs are definitely more expensive than anything I would have normally bought for myself, they’ve absolutely been worth it for me. They've also functioned as a nice lesson that sometimes just judging things by how cheap they are kills the very necessary fun of “joie de vivre." When it almost laughably affects your quality of life, it's really not so hard to justify.

If you appreciate mood lighting, waking up to sunlight-like light instead of just your alarm, or are similarly cramming your hand behind your bedside table every night just to turn off the lights, I really recommend the Philips Hue White Ambiance starter kit. Even at $144, it's one of the best value buys I made for my apartment in the last year. Sometimes, it's worth it to spend a little more for a lot more comfort.

SEE ALSO: 13 organizing ideas that'll help you make the most of your space

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Beyond Bitcoin: Here are some of the new use cases for distributed ledger technology

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DLT TAXONOMY NEW

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Of the many technologies reshaping the world economy, distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are among the most hyped. DLTs are most often associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but such coverage sidelines the broader use cases of DLTs, even though they stand to make a far bigger impact on the broader the financial services (FS) industry.

DLT's value lies in its ability to centralize record-keeping, while cutting out the need for authorization by an overseeing party, instead allowing a record to be confirmed by multiple parties with access to the database. This means DLTs have the potential to streamline financial institutions' (FIs) operations, boost data security, improve customer relationships, and drastically cut costs. But many FIs have struggled to implement DLTs and reap the rewards, because of organizational obstacles, but also because of issues rooted in the technology itself. There are a few players working to make the technology more usable for FIs, and progress is now being made.

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence takes a look at what DLTs are and why they hold so much promise for FS, the sectors in which DLTs are gaining the most traction and why, and the efforts underway to remove the obstacles preventing wider DLT adoption in finance. It also examines the few FIs close to unleashing their DLT projects, and how DLTs might transform the nature of FS if adoption truly takes off. 

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

  • DLTs are proving attractive to FIs because of their ability to act as a single source of truth, distribute information securely, cut out middlemen, improve transaction times, and cut redundancy and costs.
  • DLTs like blockchain and smart contracts stand to save the FS industry up to $50 billion a year through improved operational efficiencies, reduced human error, and better regulatory compliance. 
  • The technology is being explored actively across FS, with trade finance, insurance, and capital markets proving especially active. Overall adoption is still low because of organizational and technical hurdles, but these are now being eliminated, promising to boost implementation.
  • A few FIs have pulled ahead of the curve and are very close to taking their DLT projects live, if they haven't already. These players can serve as useful case studies for other institutions in getting their DLT solutions live.

In full, the report:

  • Looks at what DLTs are, and why the FS industry is working hard to make use of them. 
  • Gives an overview of the financial segments which are seeing the most DLT activity, and what they stand to gain.
  • Outlines efforts being made to make DLT more approachable and usable for the FS industry.
  • Examines use cases in which FIs have managed to take their pilots live, and what they can teach their peers. 

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Here's how Amazon could dethrone UPS and FedEx in the US last-mile delivery market (AMZN)

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.

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Outside of the US Postal Service (USPS), FedEx and UPS have dominated the domestic logistics industry — and in particular, the last-mile of the delivery — for decades. On a quarterly earnings call in 2016, FedEx estimated that itself, UPS, and USPS executed a whopping 95% of all e-commerce orders.

But rapidly rising volumes have put the pair of legacy shippers in a bind. E-commerce sales have risen over 50% and are projected to continue their ascent into the next decade. High volumes are already straining shippers' networks — UPS struggled to bring consumers their parcels on time due to higher-than-anticipated package volume, which upset some big-name retail partners, including Macy's, Walmart, and Amazon. As online sales surge further, package volumes will outstrip legacy shippers' capacities, creating space for new entrants. 

Amazon is uniquely well-positioned to dethrone UPS and FedEx's duopoly. It's built up a strong logistics infrastructure, counting hundreds of warehouses and thousands of delivery trucks.

Further, as the leading online retailer in the US, it has a wealth of data on consumers that it can use to craft a personalized delivery experience that's superior to UPS and FedEx's offerings. Amazon must act soon, however, as UPS and FedEx are hard at work fortifying their own networks to handle the expected surge in parcel volume.

The longer the Seattle-based e-tailer delays the launch of a delivery service, the more it runs the risk that these legacy players will be able to defend their territory. 

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, explains how the age of e-commerce is opening up cracks in UPS and FedEx's duopoly. We then outline how Amazon's logistics ambitions began as an effort to more quickly get parcels out the door and fulfill its famous 2-day shipping process and how it'll be a key building block for the company if it builds out a last-mile service. Lastly, we offer concrete steps that the firm must take to maximize the dent it makes in UPS and FedEx's duopoly.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Alibaba, Amazon, FedEx, and UPS.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

  • While UPS and FedEx have dominated the US last-mile delivery market for the last few decades, the surge in e-commerce is creating more volume than shipping companies can handle.
  • Amazon is uniquely well-positioned to put a dent in UPS and FedEx's duopoly due to its strategic position as the leading online retailer in the US.
  • Amazon can carry its trust amongst the public, a wealth of consumer data, and its ability to craft a more personalized delivery experience to the last-mile delivery space to ultimately dethrone UPS and FedEx.
  • The top priority for Amazon in taking on UPS and FedEx needs to be offering substantially lower shipping rates — one-third of US retailers say they'll switch to an Amazon shipping service if it's at least 20% cheaper than UPS and FedEx. 

In full, the report:

  • Outlines Amazon's current shipping and logistics footprint and strengths that it would bring to the last-mile delivery space in the US.
  • Lays out concrete steps that Amazon must take if it wants to launch a standalone last-mile delivery service, including how it can offer a more memorable, higher-quality delivery experience than UPS and FedEx.
  • Illustrates how Amazon can minimize operating costs for a delivery service to ultimately undercut UPS and FedEx's shipping rates in the last-mile space.

 

SEE ALSO: Amazon and Walmart are building out delivery capabilities

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Here's how retailers and logistics firms can solve the multibillion-dollar returns issue

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This is a preview of The Reverse Logistics Report from Business Insider Intelligence. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Returns

With e-commerce becoming a lucrative shopping channel, retailers and their logistics partners have been primarily focused on how to quickly move goods through the supply chain and into the hands of consumers — a process commonly referred to as forward logistics. However, the opportunities presented by the growing popularity of e-commerce also come with a challenging, multibillion-dollar downside: returns.

Return rates for e-commerce purchases are between 25% and 30%, compared with just 9% for in-store purchases. Turning reverse logistics — the process of returning goods from end users back to their origins to either recapture value or properly dispose of material — into a costly and high-stakes matter for retailers.

Not only are retailers experiencing more returns as a result of e-commerce growth, but consumer expectations also demand that retailers provide a seamless process. In fact, 92% of consumers agree that they are more likely to shop at a store again if it offers a hassle-free return policy (e.g. free return shipping labels). Some consumers even place large orders with the intention of returning certain items. 

And e-commerce sales are only going up from here, exacerbating the issue and making retailers' need for help more dire. However, for logistics firms that can offer cost-effective reverse logistics solutions, this has opened up a significant opportunity to capture a share of rapidly growing e-commerce logistics costs in the US, which hit $117 billion last year, according to Armstrong & Associates, Inc. estimates. 

InThe Reverse Logistics Report, Business Insider Intelligence examines what makes reverse logistics so much more challenging than forward logistics, explores the trends that have driven retailers to finally improve the way in which returns move through their supply chains, and highlights how logistics firms can act to win over retailers' return dollars.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

  • E-commerce is now a core shopping channel for retailers, and it's still growing. US e-commerce sales are set to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% between 2018 and 2023, surpassing $1 trillion in sales, according to Business Insider Intelligence estimates.
  • Booming e-commerce sales have driven product returns through the roof. Business Insider Intelligence estimates that US e-commerce returns will increase at a CAGR of 19% between 2018 and 2023, surpassing $300 million dollars. 
  • Consumers have high expectations about how returns are handled, and retailers are struggling to find cost-effective ways to meet their demands. Sixty-four percent of shoppers stated they would be hesitant to shop at a retailer ever again if they found issues with the returns process. And retailers don't have the expertise to effectively keep up with how demanding consumers are about returns — 44% of retailers said their margins were negatively impacted by handling and packaging returns, for example.
  • Logistics firms are well positioned to solve — and profit from — returns. These companies can take advantage of their scale and expertise to solve pain points retailers commonly experience as goods move through the reverse supply chain. 
  • Reverse logistics solutions themselves present a lucrative opportunity — but they're also appealing in the potential inroads they offer to supply chain management. The global third-party logistics market is estimated to be valued at $865 billion in 2018, according to Bekryl. 

In full, the report:

  • Explores the difficulties found in the reverse logistics process.
  • Highlights the reasons why reverse logistics needs to be a key focus of any retailer's operations. 
  • Identifies the specific trends that are leading to growth in reverse logistics, including changes in shopping habits, consumer expectations, and regulatory pressures
  • Pinpoints where along the reverse supply chain logistics firms have opportunities to attract retail partners by offering unique and helpful solutions. 
  • Outlines strategies that logistics firms can employ to capture a piece of this growing multibillion-dollar market.

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