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Independent bookstores have long been champions of community, curiosity, and cultureand on Saturday, April 26, they get their moment in the spotlight. Independent Bookstore Day, a nationwide celebration of indie bookstores, invites readers to shop locally and support the spaces that keep storytelling vibrant. But this year, the festivities come with a wrinkle: Amazon is holding a major book sale at the same time, and many booksellers and readers aren’t having it. Independent bookstores and users on BookTok are expressing their frustration with Amazon while encouraging readers to stay off of the online shopping site and instead make the trek to their local bookstore for the day. Some are even directly calling out Amazon and another large book retailer, Barnes & Noble, for having their sales so close to Independent Bookstore Day. So if you didnt knowand its okay if you didnt, because I feel like Amazon is working overtime to try and overshadow the whole daythis Saturday, April 26, is Independent Bookstore Day, TikTok user torithatnerd said in a video posted Thursday. Independent Bookstore Day began as California Bookstore Day in 2013, as a take on Record Store Day, according to Samantha Schoech in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Schoech wrote that it was a way for indie bookstores to band together and encourage a celebration of all things independent bookstores have to offer the public. Independent bookstores are not just storestheyre community centers and locals anchors, Schoech wrote. They are entire universes of ideas that contain the possibility of real serendipity. While the celebratory day started in California, sponsored by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, Schoech took the event nationwide in 2014. Soon after, the American Booksellers Association (ABA) began sponsoring the event, and this year a record-breaking number of stores are participating. Over 1,600 bookstores from all 50 states plan to celebrate on Saturday. Protecting books in a digital age Andy Hunter is CEO and founder of Bookshop.org, a website and business with a B Corp certification that works to acknowledge and encourage the convenience of online shopping for books while still supporting local bookshops. On the website, customers choose a bookstore theyd like to support when buying books, and the profits from orders are sent directly to the bookstore they selected. If customers opt not to choose a story, their purchases contribute to a profit-sharing pool that helps all associated bookshops affiliated with Bookshop.org. Every independent bookstore is kind of an advocate and activist for the importance of books and reading in our society, Hunter said. So we want books to survive. We dont want Amazons rise to be an extinction for local bookstores that are precious. In April 2024, the ABA filed a motion to intervene in the Federal Trade Commissions antitrust lawsuit against Amazon. The motion argues that Amazon has a monopoly power over books and can offer books at prices that independent bookstores find impossible to match. The motion, however, was eventually denied due to both the FTC and Amazons argument that ABAs claims were distinct from the FTCs allegations. For some BookTok-ers, though, the timing of Amazons sale feels intentional. Though Amazons books may be cheaper than an average independent bookstores prices, influencers are still encouraging their followers to avoid Amazon, or even go to their local library if independent bookstores are too far out of their price range. It feels like an intentional kick in the face to local bookstores, Hunter said regarding the Amazon sale. Independent bookstores generally have to charge full price because those margins are what help them survive. Amazon engages in predatory pricing. Amazon denied these allegations. A spokesperson said, The overlap was unintentional. The dates for our sale were set this year to accommodate additional participating countries. Whether intentional or not, Amazons sale dates seem to be callously ignoring the importance of Independent Bookstore Day, Hunter said. Books are really important, and theyre too important to society to entrust to a single retailer, whether or not that retailer has good intentions, he said. Independent bookstores are fighting to keep an independent marketplace for books and ideas alive, and Independent Bookstore Day is a day that everybody who supports that effort, who wants a diverse ecosystem around books, shows their support.
Category:
E-Commerce
Meta profits, kids pay the price, was the message delivered by dozens of grieving families at the doors of Meta’s Manhattan office on Thursday. Forty-five families traveled from across the U.S. and as far as the United Kingdom to hold a vigil outside the East Village headquarters of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Holding photos of their children, they spoke about lives lost to cyberbullying, sextortion scams, and suicide-glorifying contentcalling on Meta to take immediate action to protect children on its platforms. On a pile of rose bouquets, the families and demonstrators placed an open letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg. Signed by more than 11,000 individuals and 18 safety organizations, the letter urges Meta to “end the algorithmic promotion of dangerous content to children under 18, including explicit and sexualizing content, racism and hate speech, content promoting disordered eating or self-harm, dangerous viral challenges, and content promoting drugs and alcohol.” The letter also calls for concrete steps to prevent nefarious actors including sexual predators, sextortionists, and drug dealers from finding, meeting, and grooming children and teens across all Meta platforms,” along with faster, more transparent responses to reports of harmful content or behavior. The vigil was organized by Heat Initiative, ParentsTogether Action, and Design It for Us. Among those in attendance was Tammy Rodriguez, a mother from Connecticut, whose 11-year-old daughter died by suicide after becoming addicted to Instagram and later being groomed by men on another platform. In an effort to understand her daughters experience, Rodriguez created a fake Instagram account as a 12-year-old. “Within weeks the whole algorithm changed, I would never have received that on my own, just suicide content, self-harm content,” Rodriguez said, per ABC 7. Mary Rodee, another mother who lost her 15-year-old son in 2021, shared that he was coerced into sending intimate photos by a sextortion scammer on Facebook. My kid is dead. I have nothing else to lose, Rodee said at the vigil, according to Bloomberg. Like so many other families, Ive been trying to meet with Mark Zuckerberg for years on this issue, but he refuses. Were all here to show that were willing to do whatever it takes. “We know parents are concerned about their teens’ having unsafe or inappropriate experiences online,” a Meta spokesperson told Fast Company. “It’s why we significantly changed the Instagram experience for teens with Teen Accounts, which were designed to address parents’ top concerns. Teen Accounts have built-in protections that limit who can contact teens and the content they see, and 94% of parents say these are helpful. We’ve also developed safety features to help prevent abuse, like warning teens when they’re chatting to someone in another country, and recently worked with Childhelp to launch a first-of-its kind online safety curriculum, helping middle schoolers recognize potential online harm and know where to go for help.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Starting today, shopping on Shein and Temu is going from dirt cheap to slightly less dirt cheap. In updates to U.S. customers last week, the rival retailers shared similar announcements that their pricing would go up beginning on April 25, citing rising operating expenses from global trade rules and tariffs. The retailers even encouraged shoppers to get one last order in before it was too late: Until April 25, prices will stay the same, so you can shop now at todays rates, Temu wrote in its announcement. Weve stocked up and stand ready to make sure your orders arrive smoothly during this time. By this morning, that shopping window had passed. Heres what we know so far about the price hikes, and how they might impact your favorite TikTok influencers next haul: Why is this happening now? This update from Shein and Temu doesnt exactly come as a surprise. Since early February, President Trumps new tariff policies made it clear that neither companys business model could survive unchanged for long. Both Shein and Temu operate by using labor in Chinese factories to manufacture ultracheap goods and ship them abroad. But unlike other companies with a similar manufacturing strategylike Gap or H&MShein and Temu cut the middleman of stocking in U.S. warehouses by shipping goods directly from China to shoppers doors. This strategy has historically allowed them to take advantage of a tax code loophole called de minimis, which allows all packages under $800 to ship into the U.S. duty-free. In early April, Trump signed an executive order thats set to end the de minimis loophole starting on May 2. That means that Shein and Temus packagespart of a total of four million low-value packages that arrive in the U.S. every daywill no longer be exempt from duties. For companies relying on Chinese-made goods, that’s an especially heavy financial burden, given that Trump also recently slapped a 145% tariff on most products made in China. As experts predicted back in February, Shein and Temu are unable to absorb the major costs associated with Trump nixing the de minimis loophole. Now, theyve been forced to forfeit some of their competitive advantage by offloading costs onto consumers. How will this affect pricing? So far, its not entirely clear what those added consumer costs will look like. Neither Shein nor Temu provided specific price hike rates or an idea of how shipping might be affected, and its not immediately evident whether markups are the same across the board or variable based on items. Pricing on Shein and Temu is difficult to navigate at the best of times, given that both sites rely on a nightmarish UX of constant promotions, markdowns, and discount codes to obscure the actual cost of individual items and make them appear even cheaper than they already are. To get some sense of how costs have increased, Fast Company took a look through TikToks that track Shein orders from earlier this week (when customers were flocking to place their last orders) and compared them to prices on the sites today. On Tuesday, creator Chiara Aceto made a video showing followers what to add to your Shein cart before you place that order on April 25th. In the TikTok, she recommends a $21.59 yellow two-piece set, a $17.86 pair of heels, and an $8.79 sparkly tank top, among other items. Those pieces are now $44.71, $22.90, and $17.69, respectively, with both the set and the tank top nearly doubling in price. Other pieces, like a relatively pricey ($63.80) knockoff Miu Miu handbag only went up by about $1, while still others, like a Stanley cup dupe, have gone down slightly in price. Aceto followed up with another video on Wednesday sharing her favorite bags on the site. Most of the bags are hovering around the same prices today, while a few have shot up considerably, like one Prada dupe that was $36.85 and is now $56.20. Overall, nearly all of the items mentioned by Aceto in the two TikToks are at least slightly more expensive today than they were earlier in the weekthough, given that Sheins prices are known to fluctuate on a regular basis, its difficult to tell how much of the change can be attributed to tariff price hikes, and how much is just par for the course. Nvertheless, customers appear to be noticing a difference today. In a video posted on Wednesday, creator @lifeoqhi0js, who is a Shein ambassador, also warned followers to get their orders in before April 25. Several commenters under the video reported seeing prices go up this morning, including one user who wrote that their cart had increased by $60 overnight, and another who asked, why did a $3 shirt go up to $11? Shein and Temus futures are currently looking relatively bleak, given that their business models revolve almost entirely around offering the lowest possible prices compared to competitors. To be clear, both retailers prices are still unbelievably cheap. But for consumers, the difference between a $3 T-shirt and an $11 T-shirt might be enough to abandon a $700 Shein haul in favor of investing in fewer pieces that will last a bit longer.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Trump administration is loosening rules to help U.S. automakers like Elon Musks Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals. U.S. companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the Transportation Department said Thursday. The department also said it will streamline crash reporting requirements involving self-driving software that Musk has criticized as onerous and will move toward a single set of national rules for the technology to replace a patchwork of state regulations. Were in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldnt be higher, said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a statement. Our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard. The new exemption procedures will allow U.S. automakers to apply to skip certain safety rules for self-driving vehicles if they are used only for research, demonstrations and other noncommercial purposes. The exemptions were in place previously for foreign, imported vehicles whose home country rules may be different than those in the U.S. The decision comes a day after Musk confirmed on a conference call with Tesla investors that the electric vehicle maker will begin a rollout of self-driving Tesla taxis in Austin in June. Its not clear how the exemptions from National Traffic Safety Administration rules will affect Tesla specifically. The company has pinned its future on complete automation of its cars, but it is facing stiff competition now from rivals, especially China automaker BYD. The crash reporting rule being changed has drawn criticism from Musk as too burdensome and unfair. Tesla has reported many of the total crashes under the rule in part because it is the biggest seller of partial self-driving vehicles in the U.S. Traffic safety watchdogs had feared that the Trump administration would eliminate the reporting rule. The transportation statement Thursday said reporting will be loosened to remove unnecessary and duplicative requirements but that the obligation to report crashes will remain. Bernard Condon, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Wall Street’s big three-day rally is running out of steam, and U.S. stocks are drifting in mixed trading Friday as they near the end of another roller-coaster week. The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in midday trading, as nearly three out of every four stocks fell within the index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 237 points, or 0.6%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher thanks to gains for a handful of influential Big Tech stocks. Intel weighed on the market after the chip company said its seeing elevated uncertainty across the industry and gave a forecast for upcoming revenue and profit that fell short of analysts expectations. Its stock fell 6.8% even though its results for the beginning of the year topped expectations. Eastman Chemical fell 5.9% after it gave a forecast for profit this spring that fell short of analysts expectations. CEO Mark Costa said that the macroeconomic uncertainty that defined the last several years has only increased and that future demand for its products is unclear given the magnitude and scope of tariffs. Skechers U.S.A., the shoe and apparel company, pulled its financial forecasts for the year due to macroeconomic uncertainty stemming from global trade policies even though it just reported a record quarter of revenue at $2.41 billion. Its stock fell 4.3%. Theyre the latest companies to say the uncertainty created by President Donald Trumps trade war is making it difficult to give financial forecasts for the upcoming year. Stocks had rallied earlier in the week on signals that Trump may be softening his approach on tariffs and his criticism of the Federal Reserve, which had earlier shaken markets. The hope is that if Trump rolls back some of his stiff tariffs, he could avert a recession that many investors see as otherwise likely because of his trade war. But Trumps on-again-off-again tariffs may nevertheless be pushing households and businesses to alter their spending and freeze plans for long-term investment because of how quickly conditions can change, sometimes seemingly by the hour. Business owners scrambling to figure out their supply chains and exposure to tariffs is more than just a distraction, according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. It could be an existential threat, especially for smaller businesses that dont have the scale or resources to have the same supply chain flexibility as larger firms. Helping to keep Wall Streets losses in check was Alphabet, which rose 2.2%. Googles parent company reported late Thursday that its profit soared 50% in the first quarter, more than analysts expected. Alphabet is one of the biggest companies on Wall Street in terms of size, and that gives its stock’s movements extra influence on the S&P 500 and other indexes. Another market heavyweight, Nvidia, also helped push the S&P 500 index upward after the chip company rose 2.2% In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly across much of Europe following more mixed movements in Asia. Tokyos Nikkei 225 jumped 1.9%, but stocks in Shanghai slipped 0.1%. In the bond market, Treasury yields eased some more, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.28% from 4.32% late Thursday. Its been generally falling since approaching 4.50% earlier this month in a surprising rise that had suggested investors worldwide may be losing faith in the U.S. bond markets reputation as a safe place to park cash. Yields have dropped as several reports on the U.S. economy have come in weaker than expected, raising expectations that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates later this year to support growth. A report on Friday morning said sentiment among U.S. consumers sank in April, though not by as much as economists expected. The survey from the University of Michigan said its measure of expectations for coming conditions has dropped 32% since January for the steepest three-month percentage decline seen since the 1990 recession. The value of the U.S. dollar meanwhile strengthened against the euro and other rival currencies. It’s been recovering some of its sharp, unexpected losses from earlier this month that rattled investors. Stan Choe, AP business writer AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.
Category:
E-Commerce
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