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XFive Ecommerce Trends from 2021 That Are Here to Stay
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Next year is expected to be the first trillion dollar year for U.S. ecommerce.
Adobe Analytics predicts that the online shopping growth witnessed this year – it jumped 42%– will only march on as consumer habits shift online.
The pandemic both accelerated these trends and sprouted new problems as supply chains bottlenecked and consumers often found products sold out. And as retailers scrambled to make up for inventory shortages, online retailing took new shapes as the crypto craze seeped into products and NFTs became popular among creators, collectors and investors and established a framework for artists to operate outside of the conventional art-world.
It’s the backbone of Los Angeles companies like Thrive Market and GOAT, the sneaker marketplace and it’s a bet that investors in DoorDash and Instacart to ChowNow are banking on.
Augmented Reality (AR)
AR has redefined how consumers shop. With this technology, shoppers can see the item they're shopping for, which helps the decision process. For instance, Warby Parker, the glasses retailer, allows customers to try on the frames virtually before they purchase. Specific industries like fashion and home decor have seen the biggest impact from AR technology because the customer can try it on before visiting the brick and mortar.
In May, Snap announced their creation of the AR Spectacles. The glasses –still in Beta– are meant to augment tours of certain locations and Snap’s technology can identify objects in the camera's field of vision. The device includes a touchpad at the frame's hingepoint, two cameras, four microphones and two speakers. This further cements AR technology to be a useful tool that brands will use to increase sales.
Cryptocurrency
Crypto is becoming mainstream. This year Mastercard began a partnership to offer crypto credit, PayPal began accepting the currency and it wasn’t unheard of to see crypto ATMs in malls. As if to underline the point, Staples Center is also being renamed Crypto.com after a Hong Kong based company that runs a crypto exchange.
What it all means is that there’s another payment form to match the digital age. But as its popularity expands, further regulations are likely to follow. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has indicated that he will be seeking regulations to protect investors.
NFTs
NFTs have been a new way to make money online.
Whether it's a flying cat shaped like a Pop Tart or the viral “Bad Luck Brian” meme, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have been all the craze. Images, domain names, artworks, and music can sell as NFTs. All NFT’s have smart contracts attached to them and are goods that you can obtain in exchange for crypto, typically Ethereum.
There are thousands of digital creators and artists looking to cash in on this trend.
Paris Hilton is one celebrity that has jumped on the NFT train creating a collection of her own with Blake Kathryn as the designer.
In August, one of the world’s biggest fashion brands joined in on the NFT hype, with Louis Vuitton launching its NFT game marking its 200th anniversary.
“Brands that historically thrive on scarcity and exclusivity make a tremendous amount of sense like Louis Vuitton and Dolce and Gabbana,” Summer Friday President Rob Simone said. “Scarcity is a big component of the current Metaverse climate.”
While it’s unclear that these digital buys will have any staying power, Grant Gelt from Masscult, a creative strategy and services agency said, “The second word got out that artists and creators can make money in the space. Magically, it created a bit of a gold rush, but what I'm really excited about is what people are going to start doing with NFTs outside of just the art space.”
Metaverse Rising
Facebook changed its name to Meta this year and sparked a conversation about the next wave of the web.
The metaverse is a term that refers to digital spaces made lifelike with the use of technology like virtual reality or augmented reality. Currently, most spaces still look like the inside of a video game, but companies are increasing their efforts to push those bounds forward. As most jobs and schooling take on the hybrid model, there is a demand for online interaction to be more lifelike.
Gucci, the designer brand that prides itself on Italian craftsmanship has tapped into the virtual space by offering a digital-only limited collection for Roblox, the online game platform for users to accessorize their avatars. For two weeks, Roblox’s 42 million users could spend from $1.20 to $9 on collectible and limited-edition Gucci accessories. Now that the window to obtain Gucci collectibles is closed, the value of each collectible has increased exponentially.
The interest in virtual spaces was expedited as a result by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Simone said, “People were consuming more content, people were sleeping less and staying online more, gaming more, people were investing more and there was more cash readily available for people to try stuff.”
The Creator Economy Is Booming
Influencers are the new brand spokesperson. While this is nothing new, next year, brands and others are only likely to increase their reliance on influencers and creators. The influencer marketing industry is on track to be worth $15 billion by 2022 according to Business Insider.
YouTube and comedian, Elizabeth “Liza” Koshy collaborated with Fabletics, James Charles known for glam make-up videos striked a deal with Morphe, and the controversial Logan Paul went toe to toe with Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring that generated more than one million PPV buys.
“The entire creator economy is growing, with larger amounts of advertising and platform money each year. This means that the big creators are growing, but importantly, so too are the mid to long-tail of creators that make the creator economy vibrant. We’re excited about our role in making the creator economy a core part of the global economy,” said Creative Juice co-founder and CEO Sima Gandhi.
97% of Gen Z consumers use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration according to the Influencer Marketing Factory. From viral trends like #TikTokmademebuyit or #AmazonFinds are causing fans to follow suit and purchase. After all, Gen Z has a 150 billion spending power.
Due to the shift in fans no longer resonating with faceless brands, creators are now garnering the power in the media ecosystem through their online personas.
Sustainability, More Than a Buzzword
The climate crisis is making consumers rethink their shopping habits.
Fast fashion has made the industry one of the biggest culprits in the climate crisis. TheRealReal, ThredUp and Santa Monica based marketplace, Tradesy have thrived offering second hand clothes and keeping waste from landfills.
According to ThredUp’s report, the secondhand clothing business is expected to see double the sales from $36 billion to $77 billion by 2025. First-time buyers of secondhand apparel jumped by 33 million last year and a majority of them plan to continue spending in that market.
While companies like H&M have moved away from their fast fashion roots using materials like organic cotton and recycled polyester; other companies like For Days, a Los Angeles-based clothing company have integrated sustainability into their branding.
Big box retailers are getting in on the positive trend. Target pledged to use 100% sustainable, organic cotton in all products from Target-owned brands by 2022. Amazon also pledged to go carbon neutral with half of its shipments by 2030.
According to Nielsen, the global measurement and data analytics company said that ninety percent of millennials, ages 21 to 34, said they are more willing to pay more for products that contain environmentally friendly or sustainable ingredients which indicates that the tides are changing. Consumer behavior has changed and the industry is adapting.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the name of Rob Simone's agency Summer Friday.
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Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
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TikTok Content Moderators Allege Emotional Distress
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Content moderators reviewing TikTok videos have experienced psychological distress after exposure to graphic content, Business Insider reported Thursday.
Current and former moderators employed by Telus International, a contractor used by Culver City-based video-sharing app for content moderation, told BI that they were often assigned long, consecutive shifts overseeing graphic content—including beheadings, child sexual abuse and self-harm—and that requests to be reassigned to less demanding roles were often denied.
TikTok’s parent company, Chinese tech firm ByteDance, uses artificial intelligence to filter and separate inappropriate content into various categories, with human moderators assigned to review the content within those categories. As TikTok’s platform has grown—it is currently the most downloaded app in the world—employees said they were pressured to keep pace with the increase in content and were often denied discretionary wellness breaks, according to BI.
Additionally, while ByteDance has an emergency response team tasked with handling videos reported to law enforcement, one employee told BI that neither that team nor TikTok’s wellness team provided support to the moderators who reported such content. A Telus International spokesperson told BI that its own wellness team supported moderators, who have the option to skip difficult content. Telus employees, however, told BI that skipping videos resulted in disciplinary citations.
In a lawsuit filed against ByteDance in December, former content moderator Candie Frazier alleged that her work resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder and symptoms of severe psychological distress. Two other content moderators have since filed a lawsuit with similar claims.
The lawsuits are part of the growing legal pressure facing TikTok. In California, a bill that would allow parents to sue social media companies for addicting their children to apps passed the State Assembly and awaits the State Senate. The company is also facing renewed pressure from federal regulators over data privacy issues.
TikTok has also been scrutinized for its corporate workplace culture—with severalemployees claiming they were pressured to work long hours and accommodate the schedule of ByteDance’s China office.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Relativity Space Surpasses $1 Billion in Contracts, Inks New Deal with Satellite Maker OneWeb
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
Rocket maker Relativity Space soared past a milestone today, surpassing $1 billion worth of contracts for launches on its 3D-printed Terran R rocket.
Long Beach-based Relativity agreed to a multi-launch agreement with broadband satellite maker OneWeb on June 30. CEO Tim Ellis posted on Twitter that following the deal, Relativity now had over $1.2 billion in binding launch contracts secured by five different customers — even though the startup still has yet to send a rocket to orbit.
Ellis called the deal a “huge vote of confidence and we can’t wait to deliver.”
Relativity aims to send the OneWeb satellites by 2025. The OneWeb launch could be one of the first commercial launches sent into space by the rocket maker’s reusable Terran R craft.
OneWeb was previously using Russian Soyuz rockets to launch, but sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine forced it to look to other alternatives. Ellis told TechCrunch Relativity was already looking to court OneWeb as a customer before the war, though, noting the deal “has been in the works for quite some time.”
OneWeb wants its broadband service to be operational by 2023, and to do that it has to launch at least 648 satellites into orbit. Relativity has two rockets under construction – Terran 1 and Terran R.
The smaller Terran 1 rocket has already secured a $3 million contract to launch small satellites for the Department of Defense. The Terran 1 will make its first flight in a mission nicknamed “Good Luck, Have Fun” (GLHF) which is expected to take off this summer and won’t carry any payloads. Assuming the GLHF mission is a success, Relativity will then launch the DoD mission.
The Terran R is Relativity’s 95%-reusable rocket and its answer to competitor SpaceX’s Falcon 9, with which OneWeb is also launching payloads.
In an interview with ArsTechnica earlier this year, Ellis said the craft could take off as soon as 2024, though it’s still being built at Relativity’s 1 million-square-foot factory headquarters in Long Beach.
Last June Relativity raised a $650 million Series E funding round led by its backer Fidelity Management & Research. At that time, Ellis told dot.LA the Terran R rocket was still under development and added, “Ever since Relativity's early days in Y Combinator, we've planned to manufacture a large reusable rocket.”
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
Goop’s Noora Raj Brown On Having the Hard Conversations That Make Change
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
On this week’s episode of the Behind Her Empire podcast, host Yasmin Nouri talks with the executive vice president of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Noora Raj Brown.
Brown started working at Goop when the company was still in the early, hectic stages, moving from a weekly newsletter Paltrow would send out to her friends to a multinational publishing and lifestyle brand.
At the time, Goop’s advice, guides and features about beauty style and wellness, were tackling difficult issues like divorce, sexuality and health in very personal terms.
“So much of what we do at Goop is to push conversations into the mainstream and to talk about things that, frankly, people don't always want to talk about,” she said. “And these are hard conversations, right?”
Brown, a daughter of immigrants, grew up in Silicon Valley and always considered herself a creative, even though her parents were hopeful she’d take a more conventional professional route. “It was like, very much medicine and tech, and I wasn't interested in either,” she says. Instead, her interest veered toward fashion.
After earning her degree, she moved to New York City to work at a fashion magazine called Details, where she got to learn quickly about how designers function and how garments are produced and promoted — but the job didn’t come easy.
“A lot of it was really like finding your path, feeling really lost for a long time. And I think I also had this idea that I would come to New York and I would start interviewing and get a job,” says Brown. “And that would sort of be it. And I didn't realize how insanely competitive it was.”
Brown moved on to work in talent PR where she organized photo shoots, coordinated the angles of stories and then at a fashion and style publication called InStyle during a time when it was in the process of being sold to a new owner.
“There was a feeling of like, you couldn't win,” Brown says. “You're operating from a place of fear; you're not able to be your best self, right?, and you're not able to produce your best work.”
In 2016, when Brown made her way to Goop, there was no in-house communications or legal team, no HR, piles of debt and, from Brown, terror. “I sort of felt like, I was the first line of defense for anything negative that happened to the business,” she says.
The experience left her feeling unqualified, but she said Paltrow’s confidence in her made Brown more confident in her own abilities.
“I think we all just need to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt a little bit,” she says.
Brown’s personal journey, in many ways, mirrored Goop’s mission to push unconventional conversations into the mainstream. Brown says Goop has faced some backlash for its stories, but she says she feels strongly that important topics shouldn't be taboo, and adds that it takes honesty and courage to make change.
“If you're really going to, as we say, [...] milk the shit out of life, you need to do that,” she says. “As I said, operating from a place of real pride, but also real bravery is super important.”
Engagement and Production Intern Jojo Macaluso contributed to this post.
Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radioor wherever you get your podcasts.
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Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.