👗 Amazon department store rumors

Disruption on Level 2 Women's... Amazon upended department stores by becoming a click-to-buy shopping behemoth. Now, the Zon reportedly plans to disrupt physical department stores again — by opening its own. Amazon tried to keep it hush-hush, but WSJ's "people familiar with the matter" (#PFWTM) revealed some juicy deets about the rumored stores...

• What: The Zon's own clothing brands would be featured front-and-center. Amazon launched private label apparel in 2016, and now has 100+ brands. This year, it surpassed Walmart as America's largest clothing seller (wild).
• Why: Amazon wants to see if stores can boost sales of private labels, while merging the digital and IRL experience. The first stores could open near San Francisco and Columbus, OH as early as next year.

Do you have this in size Prime?... The most disruptive part of the Zon's rumored stores: techy dressing rooms. According to WSJ, customers could scan QR codes of items they want to try via phone app, while associates gather the fits and deliver them to rooms. But what happens inside the dressing room is even techier:

• No awkward door-talking: Instead of calling for help through the door, you could request more items using a touch screen.
• No barefoot browsing: Instead of rushing out of the stall to dig for better items, the screen could recommend other clothes based on what you've scanned.

Where is my mined?… Ford partnered with battery recycler Redwood Materials to recycle EV batteries from its e-cars, like the Mustang Mach-E. Redwood, started by an ex-Tesla exec, is a Nevada-based “urban mining” startup. It extracts valuable metals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt from old cell-phones, appliances, and car batteries. One EV battery = 166 iPhones worth of cobalt. How it works:

1. Trash: Ford sends its old EVs to Redwood’s US processing facility.
2. Transform: Redwood recovers 95%+ of battery materials by “mining” metals, then sends them back to Ford.
3. Treasure: Ford and other car makers build new EV batteries from the reclaimed metals.

What’s yours is mine(d)… For a price. The metals in EV batteries and smartphones are already pricey because they’re globally sourced: Your iPhone could contain Congolese cobalt or Bolivian tin. But prices are spiking even higher. Lithium prices have doubled since November. Battery recycling is booming since it reduces production and transit costs:

• $25B: How much of its battery-recycling biz Redwood plans to shift from Asia to the US.
• $50B and $174B: Biden's commitments to the domestic chipmaking and EV industries, respectively. EV incentives could give the battery biz an energy boost.

• Deltout: Scientists are developing a new mRNA vax that specifically targets the Delta variant, which now accounts for 98% of US Covid cases.
• Funds: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is confident that Congress will agree on a new spending bill to avoid a potential government shutdown next week.
• Work: Salesforce shares hit an all-time high after the cloud giant boosted its revenue forecast for next year on software demand from the WFH boom.
• Hurdle: Nike shares slipped after the sports icon reported weaker-than-expected sales in North America and China, blaming supply chain woes.
• OhChip: The global chip shortage could cost automakers $210B worth of sales this year, and industry execs warn it isn't over.
• Cheer: Target plans to hire fewer holiday workers this year, and instead will offer more hours and higher pay to current employees.

• August new home sales

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: GM, Tesla, Walmart, Amazon, and Apple

ID: 1849638