Holiday Sales shatter records 🎁
This Week in Review☕️: Global spending exceeds expectations | Flight times are getting longer | The Top 3 Desserts this Festive Season | Harry Potter star faces tax evasion bill | Tesla pay rejected |
Quick Bites:
Retail: Black Friday breaks sales records.
Record spending by consumers worldwide on Thanksgiving continued into Black Friday and Cyber Monday yesterday, with global spending crossing $70 billion this year.
Yep.. Happy thanksgiving to someone we'd have no problem stomping to death on Black Friday..
Because, only in America, people CLOBBER each other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have lmao
Personally, we didn't partake in any sale shopping this past weekend. Like Black Friday? No thanks. Only criminals tell you to come out at 4 in the morning for a 4 dollar DVD player
PS. Unless we see "Was $5000, now $13.75", we're not interested in any sale 👋
Key Highlights, reported by Tech Crunch:
💡$74.4 billion was spent in the 24-hour period. This is up 5% from last year
💡$11.3 million was spent each minute during that day
💡In the US alone, consumers spent $10.8 billion; “Crossing the $10 billion mark is a big e-commerce milestone for Black Friday, for a day that in the past was more anchored towards in-store shopping”
💡55% of all online spend was made on mobile devices, working out to $5.9 billion, per Adobe
💡Discounts continue to drive sales. The biggest discounts were on categories that people are likely buying as early holiday presents.
Toys, electronics and TVs were all discounted by almost 25%
💡Chatbots were dominant this year. Adobe said that it in a survey it did of 5,000 consumers, 20% said they were using chatbots to find deals and other shopping recommendations.
💡Traffic to retail sites from GenAI chatbots was also up by 1,800% from last year, although you have to remember that they would have been considerably more rare, and less functional, last year
Our Thoughts💡:
Holiday Sale shopping strategy when you're broke:
1. Window shop like its your cardio
2. Collect free samples like you're on a treasure hunt
3. Nap in the discount section- it's called Energy conservation
#BrokebutHappy #HappyHolidays
Travel ✈️ : Does it seem like flight times are getting longer? You're not imagining it.
Very late flights are on track to hit a record this year, disrupting travel.
Tbh we don’t freak out about delays. For us being "chill" is getting to the airport 3 hours before take off so we can sit in a cafe directly across our gate and be anxious about missing our flight from there
Key Highlights, reported by The NY Times:
💡The average flight time between JFK and Los Angeles has increased 23 minutes since 1995
💡Early morning flights are less likely to be delayed, with evening departures suffering from ripple effects of earlier delays
💡Planes are facing longer delays leaving the gate; take more time taxiing before taking off; and spend more time in the air
💡The good news, however, is that many flights are arriving earlier than scheduled; "It's called padding".
💡Why are flights making up for increased travel time and arriving even earlier?
💡It makes the airline look good, especially to business travelers who particularly value on-time arrivals, says the Times.
💡Airlines have the incentive to protect their reputation and avoid negative customer feedback.
Our Thoughts💡: Guys, who else loves traveling?
The airport is just so relaxing and comforting. Some people are sleeping, some are working, some throwing back tequila shots at 8 am. No judgement everyones just vibin' 💯
Food & Drink☕️: Coffee is becoming a luxury and there's no escaping it.
Global coffee drinkers who’d hoped the price of their morning fix would stop rising are in for a shock: The price of coffee is about to get even worse as arabica prices climb to the highest since 1997.
Umm yes coffee is expensive but anger management therapy is a lot worse
PS. Why don't grocery stores participate in holiday sales????
Like we don't need 20% off on a microwave- give us half price Tide pods and $1 coffee creamers and then you'd better believe we'll be at the doors at 2 am
PS. Speaking of morning coffees, we just HAVE to say point this out:
Eat eggs & bacon for breakfast and you're a weirdo
Drink a Starbucks Frappuccino aka 46g of sugar for breakfast and you're totally normal ?????!!
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE PEOPLE 🤯🤯
Key Highlights, reported by Bloomberg:
💡Coffee prices have soared this year due to major supply disruptions from Brazil to Vietnam
💡The countries are the two biggest global coffee growers, with Brazil exporting the premium arabica bean and Vietnam for the cheaper robusta
💡A severe drought earlier this year in Brazil has fueled worries about the country’s output
💡Arabica beans, the variety favored for specialty brews , have jumped almost 70% this year
The move is impact cafes and roasters, ultimately leading to increased costs to consumers
Nestle SA, the world’s biggest coffee maker, has said it will raise prices and make packs smaller to offset the impact of more expensive beans
Robusta coffee, the more budget-friendly type of coffee that’s used in instant drinks, has also soared this year, rising about 88% in London
In other soft commodities markets, raw sugar climbed on Wednesday, while cocoa edged down in New York
Our Thoughts💡:
When the sun's out, the iced coffee was made to perfection and the car ride playlist is IMMACULATE 👇🏻
Entertainment 🍿: Magic can't save Ron Waesley as 'Harry Potter' star faces $2.3 million tax bill.
The actor Rupert Grint is currently facing a 1.8 million-pound ($2.3 million) bill after he lost a legal battle with the tax authorities.
Key Highlights, reported by CNBC:
💡Grint was ordered to pay the money in 2019 after the UK tax agency, investigated his tax return from 7 years earlier
💡The agency said Grint had wrongly classed 4.5 million pounds in residuals from the movies
💡This includes money from DVD sales, streaming rights and other sources which the actor wrongly classified as a capital asset rather than income, which is subject to a much higher tax rate
💡Lawyers for Grint appealed, but after years of back and forth, a judge ruled against the actor this week
💡Judge Harriet Morgan said the money “derived substantially the whole of its value from the activities of Mr. Grint” and “is taxable as income.”
Grint, 36, starred in all eight Harry Potter films between 2001 and 2011 as the wizard’s best friend, and is calculated to have earned around 24 million pounds from the role of Ron Weasley
He previously lost a separate court battle over a 1 million pound tax refund in 2019
Festive Season🍮: As we step into the festive season of 2024, it's helpful to have new recipes revamp our kitchen arsenal!
With zero parties/ weddings/vacays in 2020 and some of 2021-22, the closest we got to Holiday season was scrolling through Conde Nast on Instagram!
However, with the pandemic being long over, the festivities are back- and so are the extra pounds!!
The Top 3 desserts this festive season:
🍮Mulled Wine Cake : This one is for the habitually drunk. Eat cake and get boozed up while you're at it!
We know it can't just be us ruthlessly browsing on Food and Wine and The Weekend Mixologist in the middle of the night this time of year. Here's a recipe to bring in 2025 in the sweetest way possible! Link here
🧁Classic Sugar Cookies: No need for the time-honored tradition of eating ourselves into a holiday FoodComa with this dessert.
Easiest to make, sugar cookies are a classic go-to this festive season! Recipe link here
🥧 Pecan Pie: Everyone’s favorite pie, year and year again. PERIOD.
Homemade pie crust, cream sugars, vanilla, lots of pecans, and baked to a burnished golden brown.. Heaven. The best Pecan Pie recipe- Link here
Quicker Bites:
Oxford’s word of the year is ‘Brain Rot’; The feeling of spending too long scrolling online aimlessly.
Belly fat linked to brain decay and early signs of Alzheimers.
Intel’s CEO steps down.
Judge rejects Tesla $56 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk.
Bezos funds AI chip rival to Nvidia.
Trump to travel to Paris for Notre Dame Cathedral reopening.