As I get in the thick of things of furnishing our new home (read my related post here on mortgages and house-buying), I am struck with the limitations of shopping online for furniture. This week alone, I received three shipments from One Kings Lane, a flash sale home decor website based in San Francisco. Despite some negative reviews, I figured a company valued at $912M and backed by some of Silicon Valley’s well-known venture capitalists such as Kleiner Perkins and Greylock Partners, One Kings Lane would sort of have this figured out. Well, 2 out of 3 came damaged and the third one looked so cheap, I didn’t even bother opening the rest of the package. Thankfully, contrary to the negative reviews, the customer service was top-notch and painless. It made me think about Amazon’s seemingly effortless packaging and how I’ve taken it for granted as a Prime subscriber. I am reminded once again that Amazon has made packaging and order fulfillment into a science:
If only I could get most of the stuff I need from Amazon but Amazon’s furniture options are still limited, unfortunately. In the meantime, I’m in the hunt for the best online furniture delivery companies out there. I am documenting my experience as I go along so I do hope to share that with you on this blog soon.
Here are this week’s most relevant news in tech and retail:
In tech:
- Computer glitches: The New York Stock Exchange experienced a four-hour outage on Wednesday, blames computer glitch; a computer glitch is also blamed for the grounding of United Airlines flights for 2 hours on Wednesday
- Italy-based cybersecurity firm Hacking Team has been hacked; 400GB of published documents show company sold software to spyware and malware to repressive regimes
- Space: After 9.5 years and $3B miles, NASA spacecraft New Horizons will fly by Pluto on July 14; Cause of SpaceX Falcon 9 failure still unknown, Musk promises preliminary report by end of this week
- Ride-sharing: Didi Kuaidi, Uber’s Arch Rival In China, confirms $2B in fresh funding; Google-owned mapping company Waze to launch a ride-sharing app in Israel called RideWith
- Apple to order largest-ever production run for next iPhone; asking suppliers to manufacture 85M-90M units
In retail:
- Amazon celebrates 20th anniversary with “Prime Day” on July 15; deals for Prime subscribers will rival Black Friday
- Alibaba to invest $100M in China’s Mei.com, a flash sales platform for luxury and fashion goods
- Target unveils Open House in San Francisco, a 3,500-square-foot suburban home space to showcase a connected home
- Struggling teen clothing retailer American Apparel warns there may not be sufficient funds in the next 12 months even after restructuring
- Luxury online retailer Farfetch.com launches Farfetch and Away, a yacht delivery service for traveling customers
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