In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche
The major reason Jack Ma will stay away from mass retail in the U.S. is that the cost of entering in the market could simply be too high. The revenue from a large-scale U.S. retail operation might not justify the cost of setting up such a venture.
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Operating a bank would also allow Kroger to interphase directly with apps like Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Venmo and avoid the fees charged by the financial services industry. That alone might be enough to entice Kroger into banking.
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It looks as if the purveyors of digital wallets are going to have to do a lot of old fashioned marketing if they want to get the public to accept their products. That might give Current C an advantage in the digital wallet wars because some of the companies behind it, such as Kroger, are very good at marketing.
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Americans now have less economic freedom than Danes, Chileans, Canadians, Swiss, New Zealanders, Australians and even Estonians, according to the Index. In fact, the level of economic freedom in the USA is only slightly higher than that in the United Kingdom, which American conservatives love to disparage as a bastion of socialism.
Read MoreGoogle (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been experimenting with Google Express, a delivery service that picks up orders from stores and takes them to customers, for some time. Google Express even offers a same-day delivery service in some U.S. cities, including San Francisco. Big name retailers participating in Google Express include Target (NYSE: TGT), Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA), Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFM), Costco (NASDAQ: COST), Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS), PetSmart (NASDAQ: PETM), REI, and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS).
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A very dark horse contender for an eBay acquisition would be Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BERK.B). Uncle Warren is famously technology adverse, but eBay does meet some of his criteria: it’s a good company with a strong brand that’s well respected on Main Street but undervalued by the market. It also has a business model that generates a lot of float and cash—two of Buffett’s favorite things.
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The retail environment has changed dramatically because of the value shopper. Those investors that realize it and invest accordingly will profit.
Read MoreJPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) reported that one million of its account holders are now using Apple Pay at its Investor Day on Tuesday, February 24, 2015. That means one million customers of one of the nation’s largest banks are using an alternative to traditional banks. Bank consumer behavior is changing faster than we thought.
Read MoreMusk intends to compete with the utility industry as well as the auto industry. He’s already competing with oil companies; Tesla even operates filling stations. Now Tesla intends to be your electric company as well as your car company.
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WWE needs to demonstrate that it can buck this trend if it wants to be taken seriously as a company with a lot of float. We need to see more than numbers from WWE; we need to see some serious increases in cash flow to justify this new business model.
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