The Kardashians continually extend their dynasty, promoting their own products while recommending others on social media using Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. They’ve also created their own apps, in their own images, to push their own line of products. Love them or hate them, the Kardashians’ countless business ventures are stimulating both the global app economy — and the larger world economy.
One result of the widespread acceptance of e-commerce and home delivery is a growing and urgent demand for drivers – at least for now.
Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade, vintage, or other unique items, is one of many popular Internet platforms where individual creators can sell their works. Nearly 15 million Americans earned a collective $6 billion using just nine of these platforms. Millions more did the same worldwide. And now many of these creators are also global traders.
In the wake of Psy and other K-Pop stars comes the next South Korean culture wave in the form of a 12-step regimen known as K-Beauty. Thanks to trade, more Americans every day are slathering exotic ingredients such as snail mucus, starfish extract, and donkey milk on their faces.
WTO Ministerial Conferences are held every two years. They aren’t really strategy retreats, like the management team off-sites that companies hold, but maybe they should be.
The trend to make your own slime is driving a surge in demand for gallons of school glue. It’s not just an American obsession, slime is having its day around the world. It’s a fun reminder that we can find trade stories in everything.
In 1994 – the year NAFTA went into effect – the Internet was still accessed through dial-up. Amazon, Google, and eBay were years away, while Facebook and the iPhone were a decade off. As the United States, Canada, and Mexico prepare to rethink NAFTA, they have an opportunity to write rules for digital trade, protecting North America’s lead as a digital pioneer.
The marriage of the physical and digital worlds has unlocked limitless economic opportunities, providing a boost to productivity and propelling us into the next industrial revolution. Policymakers will need to work to keep up by removing trade barriers that could limit the global reach of the Internet of Things.
Through a combination of automation, analytics, mobile payment and other digital technologies, the world’s leading food retailers are in a race for your “digitally-enabled” grocery business.
Digital trade is a boon to consumers and businesses all over the world. But cyberspace is a Darwinian environment with predators and victims. Cyber criminals are fast and innovative. Defenders are too often slow and reactive. The risks, however, can be reduced and managed.