EBay's “accelerator program” helps shuttered brick-and-mortar retailers begin selling online during the pandemic. The new program gives new businesses a basic eBay store free for 90 days, the company said Thursday. It will waive selling fees for their first 500 items.
Vermont’s Agency of Commerce and Community Development directed big-box retailers to cease in-person sales of electronics and other “non-essential items” to reduce customers coming in. Big-box retailers “generate significant shopping traffic by virtue of their size,” said the agency Tuesday. “This volume of shopping traffic significantly increases the risk of further spread” of COVID-19, it said. Gov. Phil Scott (R) signed a “stay home/stay safe” executive order March 24 authorizing the agency to publish guidelines for retailers. The Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents big-box retailers, didn’t comment Thursday.
President Donald Trump doesn’t oppose deferring tariffs on Chinese imports for 90 days during the pandemic, he told a White House briefing Tuesday. “I’m going to have to approve the plan,” said Trump. “I approve everything. And they haven’t presented it to me.” He sees “nothing wrong” with deferring the levies. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Friday to back a 90-day delay because “the response to COVID-19 has now added another layer of pressure as businesses are facing severe cash flow problems” (see 2003300012). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also came out Wednesday in support of “tariff relief,” saying it would “provide some welcome breathing room for American businesses and consumers.”
COVID-19 forced ATSC to postpone its Next Gen Broadcast Conference to Aug. 27-28, said President Madeleine Noland Wednesday. It will hold a members-only remote annual meeting on the original May 20 date, she said: “Only time will tell what the long-term impact this pandemic will have on the broadcasting industry.”
Office Depot announced same-day delivery from about 1,100 Office Depot and OfficeMax stores as more work and learning remotely amid COVID-19, it said Wednesday. Delivery fee is $15, and orders must be placed by 2 p.m., said the website. The chain partnered with Shipt and Deliv for local deliveries and is also offering in-store and curbside pickup. Its e-commerce business offers free next-business-day delivery for customers spending $45 or more on qualifying items. The retailer cited "unprecedented times" without mentioning the virus.
OneWeb's Chapter 11 filing could result in fundraising challenges for other broadband non-geostationary orbit constellation plans, NGSO experts told us. Some said Monday it could stoke doubts about the mega-constellation-delivered broadband business model. The company said it's using bankruptcy as a way to buy time until global markets rebound from the COVID-19 slowdown so it can then sell itself. From the beginning, the company "was like a big science project" lacking an established business case about how to make money bringing satellite-delivered connectivity to populations that are typically poor, said satellite consultant Hany Eldeib. As long as OneWeb founder Greg Wyler was able to sell investors like SoftBank on the idea, "everybody was kind of, 'OK, we'll go along,'" Eldeib said. Eldeib said mega constellations like SpaceX and Amazon's Kuiper could be more insulated because they have the backing of billionaires, though OneWeb's bankruptcy could make it harder to attract outside investment. He said more-limited low earth orbit connectivity constellations like Telesat serving a niche could have a better chance. OneWeb was rumored to have financing problems before COVID-19, and the pandemic "is a massive issue for the space startup community [as] venture capital has run for the hills," said Greg Autry, University of Southern California business professor. For NGSO broadband constellation business plans, it's "a perfect storm" because the virus is hammering airlines and other industries that were considered likely customers of that connectivity, he said. Kuiper and SpaceX are likely to come to fruition given respective owners Jeff Bezos' and Elon Musk's financial strength, Autry said. He said if the U.S. doesn't become an NGSO anchor tenant, Chinese companies offering a Chinese version of internet access could become the norm for developing nations. The U.S. offering unrestricted and uncensored internet connectivity globally might make "a great U.S. soft power play," he said. Satellite consultant Tim Farrar said OneWeb's bankruptcy is going to mean renewed questions about the size of the satellite broadband market. He said SpaceX could face big questions about financing since it fell short earlier this month in fundraising efforts. SpaceX didn't comment. OneWeb's petition Friday with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan is here, (in Pacer, docket 20-22437). OneWeb had expected that over 2020, it would do monthly launches to complete its 648-satellite constellation.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns sparked Omdia to downgrade its 2020 global TV shipment outlook by nearly 10 percentage points, said the former IHS Markit research firm Tuesday. It now expects TV shipments to decline 8.7% this year to 203.5 million sets, from 222.9 million in 2019. The previous forecast was for shipments to rise 1.1% to 225.4 million sets, it said, meaning "a 9.8% downswing in the shipment forecast for the year.” Any hope for a robust 2020 in TV shipments “completely evaporated during the past month as concerns about supply interruptions have been eclipsed by rising industry anxiety over a coronavirus-driven demand crash,” it said. The biggest “demand drop” will happen in Q2, when shipments in Europe and North America are expected to decline 40%, said Omdia. It’s forecasting “a flurry of rescheduled sports events in 2021 will boost television sales” next year.
Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets declined sharply in March from February, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 U.S. homes through March 19 and found 11.5% plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, said the board. That was down from 13.2% in February and 13.7% in March 2019, it said. Coronavirus worries sent the Consumer Confidence Index plunging 12.6 points in March from February, it said: “The intensification of COVID-19 and extreme volatility in the financial markets have increased uncertainty about the outlook for the economy and jobs. March’s decline in confidence is more in line with a severe contraction -- rather than a temporary shock -- and further declines are sure to follow.”
The U.S. Judicial Conference is temporarily allowing teleconferencing in federal courts for civil proceedings, plus video and teleconferencing for some criminal proceedings, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it said Tuesday. It said authorization ends when it finds federal courts are no longer materially affected or 30 days after the national emergency ends, whichever is sooner. Its executive committee approved allowing judges to authorize teleconferencing to allow audio access when the public can't enter courthouses.
Oxford University scientists published a study Tuesday advocating use of smartphone apps for instant digital contact tracing to lessen COVID-19's spread. “Viral spread is too fast to be contained by manual contact tracing, but could be controlled if this process was faster, more efficient and happened at scale,” said the study. “A contact-tracing App which builds a memory of proximity contacts and immediately notifies contacts of positive cases can achieve epidemic control if used by enough people.” The “core functionality is to replace a week’s work of manual contact tracing with instantaneous signals transmitted to and from a central server,” it said.