COVID and reopenings wreak havoc on the global supply chain, social media site Nextdoor is garnering buzz, and Shopify is expanding its availability of ‘Shop Pay’
It’s all the biz/tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Wednesday, June 16 and I’m your host Alex Coop.
An article from the Globe and Mail details that amidst increasing demand from cash-flush shoppers, combined with labour shortages, a bottleneck of the global supply chain has emerged. Rising costs across the board have made life particularly difficult for shipping companies, as battles for shipping space and skyrocketing prices for raw material costs continue to cause headaches. Lan Nguyen the senior VP of Canadian company Herschel Supply Co. described conditions to the Globe and Mail in the article as “The worst thing we’ve ever seen.” He adds that this has become an all-out global crisis in terms of logistics, with talks that backlogs could take years to begin to ease, permanently affecting what Canadians can buy and at what price.
‘This is 100 per cent the worst thing we’ve ever seen’: How Canadian companies are adjusting to supply chain chaos https://t.co/Kmfwx8pgpY
— Canada West Foundation (@CanadaWestFdn) June 14, 2021
Nextdoor, a social media app that focuses on neighbourhood-based communications, has seen its users explode since last March and is being hailed as “The Next Facebook”. The app, which launched in the U.S. in 2011 and came to Canada in 2019, has seen its user base increase by 50% year-over-year according to the company. The App exploded in popularity during March 2020 as a hub for local information about COVID-19, school closures, and later, vaccinations. While the app has experienced success during the pandemic, the recent loosening of restrictions and expansion of people’s bubbles beyond their neighbourhoods has Nextdoor looking for ways to keep people engaged. Future plans include expanding the number of neighbourhoods a user can join, as well as revamping their classifieds to further drive engagement. [Linkedin] [Axios]
And finally, Shopify is expanding the availability of its checkout service known as Shop Pay. The service will now be available to any U.S. retailer selling via Facebook or Google, even without Shopify software powering their online store. Shopify has dramatically expanded their Shop Pay service over the past six months, with this move being the latest in a line to expand the service’s reach. Back in February, Shopify partnered with Facebook to allow for its use on the site as well as on Instagram, though it required merchants to already be using Shopify for their digital marketplaces. Later, in May, Google announced that it would be partnering with Shopify to provide existing merchants better accessibility to potential customers through Google Search Results and other Google services. [Techcrunch]
https://twitter.com/shop/status/1404796934112559115
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