Amazon Prime Day breaks sales record
Amazon.com said its third Prime Day, held Tuesday, broke records and was the biggest day of sales in the company’s history.
The e-commerce giant didn’t disclose a figure but said purchases made by members of its Prime loyalty program, to whom the discount extravaganza is geared, were 60 percent higher than last year. Amazon also said more people joined the $99-a-year loyalty program on Tuesday than on any other single day in the company’s past.
The success of the self-proclaimed retail holiday – designed to lure new members into the Prime ecosystem and to stress-test Amazon’s logistics capabilities ahead of the key holiday shopping season – was boosted by the popularity of the company’s gadgets.
The item that sold the most was the Echo Dot, a device that connects to speakers and harbors Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated digital assistant. The Dot’s bigger cousin, a speaker called the Echo, was also a hot-selling item, and so were Fire tablets and Kindle e-book readers, the company said.
Amazon’s blockbuster sale broke a record set on last year’s Prime Day, which is estimated to have topped $1 billion in revenue.
Local counties win Three-Star grants
The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development said Wednesday it is awarding grants totaling $975,000 to 63 of the state’s 95 counties for local programs that aid economic development, public safety, health, education or workforce development under the state’s ThreeStar program.
In Southeast Tennessee, the state is giving $25,000 grants each to Bledsoe, Grundy and Van Buren counties, $15,000 grants each to Marion, Meigs and Polk counties, and a $5,000 grant to Sequatchie County.
“The projects that each awarded county will be working on are innovative and show that these Tennessee counties are committed to improving as a community, which, in turn, will make our state succeed as a whole,” said Bob Rolfe, commissioner of economic and community development for the state of Tennessee.
Teamsters official charged in Chicago
A high-ranking union leader in Chicago faces federal charges for allegedly threatening to harm a local business if it didn’t pay him $25,000 every quarter.
A Wednesday statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago says the attempted extortion by John T. Coli Sr. started in 2016 when the 57-year-old served as president of Teamsters Joint Council 25. It represents more than 100,000 workers in the Chicago area and in northwest Indiana.
The grand jury indictment charges Coli with one count of attempted extortion and five counts of demanding and accepting a prohibited payment from the undisclosed business. A conviction on the attempted extortion charge alone carries up to 20 years in prison.
Visa aids firms to go cashless
Visa is looking to push more small businesses into updating their digital payment technology, offering up to $10,000 each to 50 U.S.-based small business owners that are committed to going cashless.
The program will focus on restaurants and food establishments, Visa said Wednesday, with the expectation that Visa will expand the program in the coming months and years to other industries and possibly other countries as well.
Despite the proliferation of credit and debt cards, and the advent of technologies like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, cash remains a significant method of payment in many industries across the U.S. and around the world. Going completely cashless often requires upgrades to current point-of-sale systems, which remains an impediment for many small businesses, which is largely where cash remains king.
“We are declaring war on cash,” said Andy Gerlt, a spokesman for Visa.
To participate in Visa Inc.’s Cashless Challenge, small business restaurants, cafés or food truck owners will need to describe what cashless means for them, their employees and customers.
The world’s largest processor of credit and debit cards takes a fee from every payment that runs on its network. The more payments done through them, the more revenue Visa gets.