shopping

Amazon has practically won the e-commerce race and much of that isn't simply because of the convenience of online shopping. Its subscription-based Prime membership is a major factor in its success, providing exclusive perks that even go beyond the act of buying things. Amazon's biggest rival isn't taking the threat sitting down, of course, and Walmart may soon launch its own Walmart+ loyalty program within just a few weeks.

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It isn't exactly a secret that Amazon has a problem with counterfeit products, and while the company has been successful in stopping some counterfeit items from ever being listed, it's forming a new task force for the times those products make it onto Amazon's store anyway. Officially called the Counterfeit Crimes Unit, this new task force seems less concerned with preventing counterfeit items from being listed and more with bringing those counterfeiters to justice.

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It seems that this is the year for sunsetting products that no longer make sense in today's world or, more importantly, don't make the company any money. One of Amazon's oddest products, right next to its fashion-sensing Echo Look, fits the bill on both accounts. Part barcode scanner and part Alexa microphone, the Amazon Dash Wand was envisioned to revolutionize the way you order supplies, especially in the kitchen. Starting July, however, it will practically become some pointless device that might not even be useful as a paperweight.

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Following widespread criticism of the practice, Instacart is taking steps to protect its shoppers from 'tip baiting,' the practice of dangling a big tip, then revoking it once the groceries are delivered. It will still be possible for customers to stiff shoppers when it comes to tipping, but things will be more tricky going forward and problematic customers won't stay on the platform for long.

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Last week we reported on a strike being organized by the Gig Workers Collective with Instacart Shoppers. Over the weekend, Instacart indicated they'd be updating health and safety measures. Instacart did not reply directly to the strike announcement, but the timing of their announcement would seem to be done in order to avoid the strike - at least in part. Unfortunate for the Instacart business, their response was not enough to quell the demands of the Gig Workers Collective and/or Instacart Shoppers, and the strike is still on.

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Today the folks behind Animal Crossing: New Horizons released a set of new items for free. This new set of items comes with some prerequisites - first, you're going to need to have the update version 1.1.0. Then, for one part of the free items collection, you're going to have to download the mobile game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

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Following the major success of Fortnite, Epic Games decided to take the mountains of money it earned and use it to go to war with Steam. Last year, the company launched the Epic Games Store, promising a better revenue sharing model for developers as a carrot on a stick. At launch, the Epic Games Store wasn't exactly feature-rich, and that's something Epic has been working to fix in the months since then.

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For some time now, Amazon has operated a number of cashier-less convenience stores under the Amazon Go brand. Now, it seems, it's ready to take that concept and apply it to larger-scale stores, today opening up its first Amazon Go Grocery in Seattle. The concept is still the same - there are no cashiers to ring up your items and the store doesn't accept cash - only the footprint is much larger.

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In the Digital Age, services often evolve at a pretty fast rate. That isn't true for Craigslist though, which has kept its simple interface for years and years. We're seeing Craigslist begin to modernize a little bit, as it now finally has an official mobile app available on both iOS and Android.

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A collection of cheap imitations of the original Apple Watch are currently posing on Amazon as a perfect alternative to the far more expensive alternative. Brands like YAMAY, Willful, Letsfit, SKYGRAND, and ANBES make little effort to hide the fact that they're not only using lookalike UI - in some cases, they're literally selling the same devices under different brand names. Scratch that - in quite a few cases... in a CONCERNING number of cases, companies appear to be selling the same product with different brand names for different prices.

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This may not come as a very big surprise to you, but both Black Friday and Cyber Monday were big days for Amazon. We'd expect those two days to be important for any retailer as large as Amazon, but today the company gave us a better idea of just how successful they were. For starters, Amazon confirmed that Black Friday 2019 was the biggest Black Friday in the company's history.

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Google continues to build out the capabilities of Google Assistant, and beginning today, it can help you buy movie tickets. Google has put its Duplex AI at the center of this functionality, allowing you to ask the Assistant to find showtimes near you. This isn't the first time we've seen Google pair Duplex with the Assistant, as the pair are also used to assist in booking restaurant reservations.

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