Bed Bath & Beyond poaches Wayfair, Walmart execs to help it grow online at CNBC. “Jill Pavlovich, previously head of exclusive brands and merchandising for the online furniture retailer Wayfair, has been named senior vice president of digital commerce at Bed Bath. Jake Griffith, previously a general manager for sports and fitness at the big-box retailer Walmart, has been named vice president of product management.” Read more | Press release

 

US home prices soared 11.1% in January – the most in seven years at AP. “The biggest price gain was in Phoenix, where home prices jumped 15.8%, followed by Seattle, with a 14.3% gain, and San Diego, at 14.2%.” Read more

 

PayPal launches crypto checkout service at Reuters. “The service, which PayPal revealed it was working on late last year, will be available at all of its 29 million merchants in the coming months, the company said. “This is the first time you can seamlessly use cryptocurrencies in the same way as a credit card or a debit card inside your PayPal wallet,” President and CEO Dan Schulman told Reuters ahead of a formal announcement.” Read more

 

GameStop hires Amazon executive as chief growth officer in e-commerce shift at CNBC. “…appointed Amazon executive Elliott Wilke as chief growth officer. Wilke, who has spent nearly seven years at Amazon and last led its Fresh Stores business, will oversee growth strategies and marketing at GameStop, the company said.” Read more

 

Amazon union vote enters final stretch in watershed moment for U.S. labor at Reuters. “Tallying votes might not begin until later this week or next, after both Amazon and the union check the eligibility of ballots cast, said a person familiar with the process. Subsequent procedures and objections could further forestall a certified result, the person said.” Read more

 

…For union battling Amazon, victory could bring a stalemate at Politico. “…initial collective bargaining agreements usually take years to hammer out at the negotiating table. More than half of workplaces that form unions are unable to reach an initial contract within a year, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, and 37 percent of newly formed private-sector unions still have no contract after two years.” Read more

 

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Biden administration’s federal vaccination sites a bust as Americans prefer local pharmacies at Fox Business. Read more

 

Cameo Aims to Connect Celebrities With Fans and It’s Now Worth $1 Billion at Wall Street Journal. “Rivals are circling. A smaller San Francisco-based company, Vidsig Inc., features some of the same celebrity talent and specializes in live-video conversations…Facebook Inc.’s new product lab began development on a Cameo-like service called Super last year and is now running public tests of the platform.” WSJ subs.

 

TONIGHT – Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette on Mad Money at 6P ET

 

Tracy Sun, co-founder and SVP of new markets at Poshmark, on why community is the future of retail at The Verge. “You go to the local farmer’s market and you like to know who grows your lettuce, or you like to speak to the shopkeeper at a store, to find out how to style things. And with the rise of e-commerce, what’s happened is a lot of that human connection gets stripped out…But what Poshmark does is it brings back a lot of that really innate human connection that happens around shopping and combines it with e-commerce.” Read more

 

Petco pushes its health and wellness transformation in first work from Droga5 Ad Age subs.

 

Amazon employees, bots or trolls? New Twitter bios emerge to speak out mostly against union effort at GeekWire. “Gizmodo wrote about Amazon’s “anti-union Twitter army” on Monday, and said that Darla’s profile pic was almost certainly created using the website Generated Photos. Gizmodo said it was able to almost create the same Darla image using the website’s AI.” Read more

 

Tipsheet Extra

15,000 bees invade car while owner shops at Albertsons

Google Maps to start directing drivers to ‘eco-friendly’ routes

Americans want the government to buy U.S.-made goods, even if they cost more

Sprouts Farmers Market founder dies at 52

Dog who stole purple unicorn from Dollar General store gets adopted

Read Tipsheet Extra Stories

 

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