Google Parent Alphabet Forms New Driverless-Car Company

A Google parent company called Alphabet Inc. is starting off its own "driverless-car technology." The article shows that the company is finally ready to move out of the labs and into the field. The article actually shows that the company has already tested a product of theirs on the road in Austin, Texas, where a blind man rode in the vehicle on the road. Alphabet Inc.'s announcement is a huge since it directly shows a shift in technology and a sneak peak at what driving in the future holds.

Amazon is working on at least three grocery store formats

           Amazon, one of the major leaders of E-commerce, where almost anything and everything that you could want is available for purchase has just announced that it will be joining the grocery market. Amazon is working on a number of grocery store formats that will overcome the traditional formats we are all used to. So far it has released details on two of its current plans and they have us excited to see their ideas become a reality.
         The first of the two is Amazon Fresh, where you can go onto the Amazon app make a grocery store list of the items that you require and go through the whole purchasing process right through your phone. Once the Checkout is complete, the groceries will be delivered to your door in a matter of a few hours by a Amazon delivery truck who picks up all the items from local vendors.\
        The second is a bit more complex but much more exciting, Amazon wants to place physical stores in our communities where we would be able to walk in, grab what we need and walk out! Yes! just walk out, no lines, no waiting, no annoying checkout staff. The physical store would be equipped with an array of different technology to make this happen. You enter the store by scanning your phone at the door which allows the store to connect to your Amazon app. Once connected, you walk through the store and grab what you need off the shelves, all the items in the store have RFID chips which once picked up and placed into your cart, it is added directly to your virtual shopping bag on the Amazon App. Once you are done with your shopping all you have to do is walk out the front door and your amazon account is automatically charged for everything that was placed in your cart. This is an idea that might take some getting used to and will take a while to be implemented but it is something that I am looking forward to.
        This Article ties in with the new product chapter in our text, Amazon is releasing details about its new service and measuring just how much interest there is before it makes it happen. Once the physical stores are implemented it will have to market them through advertising and bring in customers.

IKEA Adapts to Growing Urban Populations

     This past Wednesday, a top executive at IKEA announced that the company will begin to build stores in central locations. This announcement by the Swedish company was due to research that has emerged which shows 70% of the world's population will live in cities by 2050. Currently the company has stores that are built outside of urban centers because of their incredibly large size. The new store design that IKEA wants to embrace is a retail store that is also a hotel, and a commercial and residential living space. IKEA says that it will be able to afford the expensive real estate in major cities by transforming their property into a multi-functioning space. The high land costs will be offset by the hotel revenue, as well as the commercial and residential space. IKEA already owns 66 retail centers in 15 different countries.
     IKEA announced that their net profit for the year ended on August 31 rose 20% to $4.5 billion. Their large increase in net profit was a result of the 14% rises the company experienced in the German and U.S. markets. Germany and the United States are IKEAS two largest markets; Europe made up 69% of their sales, and the U.S. made up 18% of their sales. The company has began to store their products closer to customers so that they can deliver faster and less expensively. They have also began to build multifunctional distribution centers that are capable of directly delivering to their retail locations as well as customer's homes.
This article is relevant to our marketing class because it relates to the place aspect of the marketing mix. The IKEA company is trying to increase their profits by increasing the efficiency of how they deliver their products to consumers.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ikea-adapts-to-growing-urban-populations-1481112341

Toyota Looks To Electric Cars

    Toyota's reported earnings fell due to a number of factors. These include: American consumers shifting their preference of what type of car they buy, and low gas prices in the U.S. With gas prices at all time low in the U.S., americans are buying more trucks and SUV's because they no longer have to worry about the price at the pump. This shift in opinion has led to their extremely popular Prius hybrid to plunge in the U.S. market. While many consumers are leaning toward large trucks and SUVs their is also a spike in electric car sales. Major players like Tesla have become exceedingly popular and many consumers are purchasing their first electric car and ignoring their loyalty to major brands like Toyota.
      What's even more daunting for Toyota is that the consumers lining up for their first Tesla, used to be Toyota's eco friendly clients that once owned Prius's. The Japanese auto maker has a solution but a long road lay ahead for them. Because of their original skepticism of electric-based vehicles due to their practicality and actual feasible mile range, Toyota is behind on their electric car endeavor. Another factor hitting Toyota is the Yen currency strengthening in their country. The Yen becoming stronger makes their brand at home less competitive which is making it harder for them to keep their foot in the automotive market. Toyota's response to the Yen strengthening is to manufacture a larger number of their vehicles and their parts in the U.S.
     The new technology Toyota has spent their time developing instead of electric-cars is their hydrogen-cell based technology. Toyota believes the interest and demand for their hydrogen-based vehicles will increase once consumers become aware of the hydrogen cars having similar milage and recharging times as electric cars. Toyota is already selling their hydrogen-fueled car, the Mirari, in California. However, with the delays in constructing the hydrogen gas stations the Mirari's sales in California have decreased dramatically. This is a dismal sign in as eco-friendly of a state that California is.
     Toyota is remaining hopeful and expects to sell 30,000 hydrogen fuel-cell cars by 2020. This large vehicle sales forecast will happen just in time for Japan's hosting of the 2020 olympics. The 2020 Olympics is when Toyota hopes to showcase their newly developed hydrogen technology.
This article is relevant to our marketing class because it relates to target market and a company trying to have a green, eco-friendly reputation. It also relates to trends in the market shifting a companies previous stance on a issue like electric cars.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-profit-falls-on-strong-yen-weak-u-s-sales-1478586115

Put a Drone into Your Pocket!

Reason why I have cargo pants Now I know: This is what I bring to my drones reconnaissance aircraft. Mavic Pro is the latest DJI flying camera can be installed with pocket or XL stripe package. It is also suitable for items that are too troublesome as a backpack.

Mavic Pro Magic Thousand $ - Refunds sold or purchased in many places - it is a transformer. It is not much bigger than a brick of fruit cake, it has expanded to part of the most advanced fraud flight technology. I actually tend to take a vacation or magnificent hiking to me.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dji-mavic-pro-review-a-drone-that-fits-in-your-pocket-and-your-life-1479757619

Using Trucks to Deliver Data! Amazon.

LAS VEGAS In Amazon Web Services, Amazon has built one of the world's most powerful computing networks to deliver more than $ 12 billion in revenue this year.

But the retail giant on Wednesday presented a stunning way to move data from large enterprise customer data centers to public cloud computing operations: through trucks.

The network can only move large amounts of data so quickly. The truck, as it turns out, can move it faster.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-extends-web-based-artificial-intelligence-1480529802

DraftKings and FanDuel Agree to Merge

Fan Duel and Draft Kings are fantasy sports websites. They offer daily fantasy sports contests in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, MMA, auto-racing and eSports for real cash prizes. These two companies are major competitors in their respective markets concerning daily fantasy sports. These two are major competitors like Coca Cola and Pepsi. This article tells us that the two competitors have decided to join forces for a better cause.

The two companies feel like they have spent so much time and money on advertisement instead of improving technicalities within their company. The two companies combined spent a little over 500 million dollars last year just on advertisement trying to build their own unique brand. Now that the two companies plan to merge, they will no longer need to spend as much money and time on advertisement. They will use all of that money and time innovating new ideas for their joint company. They will no longer have a major competitor so they can focus on giving the consumer the best product. Both companies have come out saying that they have one vision of where they want the joint company to go but haven't had the chance to invest in it. Saying that they have a lot of ideas, this should lead to great things for the company and the consumer.

This article shows us a whole lot about marketing. First off it shows us how these companies have spent a lot of their efforts on the promotion side of the target market. They no longer have to worry about a major competitor and are now able to focus on the product part of the target market. The joint company can now focus on their opportunities and strengths and not have to worry about weaknesses or threats very much. This move to combine companies will be very beneficial in being able to make money and give the customer a better product.