Kraken, a crypto exchange in the United States, announced on Wednesday that it will halt operations in Japan next month, citing the country’s present market conditions and a weak global crypto market.
According to a report by Reuters, by January 31, Kraken will no longer be registered with the Financial Services Agency. At that point, customers will need to withdraw their fiat and cryptocurrency assets, according to a statement from the company.
Kraken stated that it is well-funded to ensure that all concerned clients can withdraw their assets as soon as possible.
Kraken announced last month that it would downsize its employment by 30%, or approximately 1,100 personnel, as market conditions hampered demand for digital assets.
Bitcoin, the most valuable cryptocurrency, has lost 60% of its value this year, while the overall crypto market has decreased by $1.4 trillion due to the demise of Sam Bankman-FTX Fried’s business, Celsius, and so-called ‘stablecoins’ terraUSD and Luna, noted the report.
According to a Mastercard survey released on Monday, retail sales in the United States increased 7.6% between November 1 and December 24, including the most of the Christmas season, as substantial discounts enticed deal-hungry consumers.
The increase is larger than the 7.1% growth predicted by Mastercard in September when it indicated shoppers would postpone purchases until October in search of early offers, reported Reuters.
However, this year’s Christmas retail sales rise is slower than last year’s 8.5% increase, as customers became cautious due to decades-high inflation, rising interest rates, and the prospect of a recession.
To clear off surplus inventory and return stocks to normal levels over the holiday season, retailers in the United States, including Amazon and Walmart, offered significant discounts.
According to the report, over the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, there was a significant increase in demand for everything from toys to electronic gadgets.
However, according to the Mastercard SpendingPulse data, electronics sales fell 5.3% over two months.
However, sales in the clothes and restaurants sectors increased by 4.4% and 15.1%, respectively, contributing to the overall increase.
According to Mastercard research, online sales increased by 10.6%, somewhat less than the 11% increase seen the previous year.
According to internal emails obtained by The Verge and initially published by The New York Times, an internal inquiry at TikTok parent company ByteDance discovered that multiple workers accessed the TikTok data of at least two US journalists and a “small number” of additional people connected to them.
The data obtained included the reporters’ IP addresses, which were used to determine whether they were physically near TikTok personnel suspected of leaking material to the press.
In an email to employees, the CEO of Beijing-based ByteDance, Rubo Liang, said he was “deeply disappointed” and that “the public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals.”
The news comes as US politicians consider restricting TikTok due to national security concerns, including banning it from government phones. It also shows ByteDance retracting claims that TikTok was never used to “target” journalists.
Meta and Google continue to monopolize the US digital advertising market, but their share has been diminishing since 2015.
According to eMarketer, in 2015, Google dominated the digital ad market share with nearly 40% and Facebook had just over 10%.
EMarketer/Insider Intelligence
The reach of Facebook and Google ads fell from 54.7% of the US digital market in 2017 and is projected to be 43.9% by 2024. The projection for 2023 shows them losing market share to Amazon which has grown as well as smaller growth by TikTok.
Google and Facebook’s parent Meta are predicted to fall to 48.4% this year, the first time they failed to have over half of the US digital ad market share.
Both of their global market share dropped by 1% this year.
Jerry Dischler, head of ads at Google, told the Financial Times that competition reflects an “extremely dynamic ad market”.
This Product Is Going Viral In 2023 - Sell These Awesome Sneaker Slippers Now!
If you’re looking for a HOT product to sell in 2023, one that has a pretty good profit margin, then you absolutely cannot miss these amazing sneaker slippers!
These slippers are exploding on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and basically on any social platform out there… The target audience for these is HUGE so there’s plenty of money to be made here!
In this week’s article, I’m going to review everything there is about this product including the store & Facebook ads. I’m doing this so you can see for yourselves how a product like this one should be advertised and sold.
You’ll get solid tips on how to possibly do a better job than the original seller and if I see any mistakes I am going to point them out here.
So what are you waiting for? Start reading because your 2023 Winning Product is in this article.
Good luck!
The Product
This week’s product that is going to explode on 2023 are these awesome sneaker slippers I found on Ecomhunt. It was impossible for me not to recommend these slipper sneakers because there’s A LOT of money to be made on this product!
These slippers look amazing, their premium look will give us the option to price them relatively high, and with the current Aliexpress price we’re looking at a profit margin of at least $20.
There’s also a lot of different styles to choose from so this product is definitely one you don’t want to sleep on!
When it was first posted on Ecomhunt, it didn’t have too much engagement.
But as we speak, it’s starting to get traction with a good amount of views. By the way… This is just a single ad out of many – Their ad library is full of ads!
Everything about this product SCREAMS a winner, so don’t sit out on this one and start selling it now!
The Ad
So what we’re looking at here is a TikTok style ad showcasing the 3 different styles with a jumpy music playing in the background. A classic TikTok ad, only without the familiar voice narration and the TikTok symbol.
To be honest, in the last year I have been seeing more and more TikTok style ads and it’s definitely worth a try because they seem to work.
They’re also pretty easy to make so it’s worth a shot creating an ad with the same style and running it on Facebook.
I’m still missing a call-to-action text at the end of this video and some text about the amount of different styles they offer and maybe the current discount they run.
But other than that, it looks good and it’s definitely working.
And if you happen to check their ad library…
You’ll notice they’re running quite a lot of ads and each one is different. Different creatives, different type of ads, different placements and so on.
These guys realize that in order to make money on Facebook, you should always test different creatives and different type of ads.
If you want to learn how Facebook ads should be done, go check their ad library.
The Store
I’m actually quite impressed with what they did here! Instead of sending customers to the product page and showing them dozens of different styles in a boring dropdown variant picker…
They created a product page for each style even if some of them are just different colors. It’s pretty good because when the customer is already on the product page, he won’t see anymore styles or color options there.
This will speed up their decision making and the only available button there will be the one that pushes them to the cart page.
Other than that, everything else looks perfect and the store is really well organized.
There’s a simple sizing guide that explains exactly what size customers need to pick for the slippers to fit.
Their Instagram and TikTok theme widgets act as a review section which really boosts their trust.
Combined with a Winning Product such as this sneaker slippers, they’re definitely exploding in sales right now!
The Checkout
It took me a bit by surprise to see no logo at all on their checkout page. They probably forgot to add it but in their case it doesn’t do any damage because their social proof is already through the roof.
Still… It would’ve been nice to see their logo on the checkout, maybe combined with a few trust badges next to it(it wouldn’t hurt for sure!).
Their phone number is not optional and you must fill it in order to proceed to the next page. I believe they do quite a lot of SMS marketing so in this case there’s a good reason behind this move.
Shipping page:
Now here we can see a mistake and it’s a pretty big one!
First of all, It doesn’t hurt their conversion rate because there’s a Free Shipping option available. But the premium versions are just nuts…
I don’t know if this is a bug or maybe that’s because we’re too close to Christmas time, but the shipping rates are insanely expensive.
Paying $40 shipping price when your product costs only $5 more isn’t realistic at all and these shipping options make them look a bit greedy and I would even say amateur.
And I’m not even going to talk about that $70 shipping options which is simply ridiculous.
If you can’t offer a normal price for your premium shipping packages, then it’s better not to offer them at all.
Payment page:
A regular payment page with 4 available options which is pretty nice to have. Nothing to fix or add here.
To Sum It Up
These sneak slippers are absolutely amazing and you should definitely jump on the trend wagon and sell them too!
The audience for these is HUGE, and there’s enough video footage and pictures you can use to create stunning ads that will make your customers buy.
Implement the tips in this article, spy a bit on their ads, and you’ll be on the right path to make some good money in 2023!
Good luck!
Struggling to find good products to sell? Not sure who’s your target audience? Tired of losing money on products you were sure were “winners”?
Then Ecomhunt is what you need! Find hot winning products that are added daily, spy on their ads & stores and import them into your store in 1 click and Start Selling Today!
A proposal to prohibit federal employees from using the Chinese app TikTok on government devices seems poised to become law, endangering the company’s brand and scaring away advertisers even though it would not affect many users, according to analysts.
“That is what TikTok is at massive risk for: of having that brand reputational (blow) impact the overall revenue monetization that they can make,” said Eunice Shin, a partner at brand strategist Prophet, reported Reuters.
The action is the latest U.S. effort to rein in the popular social media platform, which has been the target of numerous recent state bans and a protracted national security investigation in the United States over concerns the app could be used by the Chinese government to censor content or spy on Americans.
TikTok said in response that it was “disappointed that Congress has moved to ban TikTok on government devices – a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests – rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review.”
Google is now experimenting with automatic transcription, dubbing, and translation for YouTube videos, according to a report by Android Police.
At its annual Google for India conference, the company introduced many new YouTube features tailored to the Indian market. AI-powered text search within movies and automatic dubbing in regional Indian languages for healthcare videos are examples of this.
Google is now testing a pilot program in India in which a “Search in video” button appears below a long video in search results. Tap it and type in the video search term. Google will then list the instances of that subject in the video using AI.
This is considerably superior to skimming through a lengthy video or going through each of its chapters. The feature will be accessible via the Google Search app.
YouTube will also enable video makers to offer a “structured learning experience” on the site. The new program, dubbed Courses for YouTube, will be available to a small group of qualified creators beginning next year.
Google will allow producers to offer courses directly to its viewers for the first time. Through the site, they will also be able to supply viewers with documents, photos, PDFs, and other supplemental information.
The income split for courses sold on the site will be the same as for ordinary videos: producers will receive a 55% cut, with YouTube keeping the remaining 45%. Viewers will not see advertisements in videos of courses they have paid for.
Twitter has removed the tweets that announced the policy prohibiting people from posting handles and links to other social networks.
The policy page that stated these guidelines has likewise been quietly removed by the organization, reported TechCrunch.
Meanwhile, the Twitter Safety account launched a poll asking users if the company should establish a policy prohibiting accounts from solely promoting other social networks.
Twitter chief Elon Musk said the policy would be changed to only suspend accounts that only promotes Twitter’s competitors.
“Policy will be adjusted to suspending accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is promotion of competitors, which essentially falls under the no spam rule,” tweeted Musk.
The list of other social networks that Twitter previously decided to ban linking included Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post as well as Linktree and Lnk.Bio.
Over the last year, millions of businesses have demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity, contributing to more than $27 trillion in retail sales worldwide. However, according to Shopify’s annual report, 64% of worldwide firms are still recuperating from the pandemic’s detrimental impact.
The economic consequences of the pandemic were exacerbated in 2022 when the Russia-Ukraine war resulted in sanctions that delayed or halted trade entirely. As a result, fiscal insecurity is fueling the most notable inflation rate in 40 years.
“While commerce growth is slowing, total retail sales in 2022 have climbed 15% since 2020, and they’re projected to reach more than $31 trillion in 2025. But it will be a slow climb,” stated Shopify.
“More than seven in 10 consumers bought from the competitor of their go-to brand between May 2021 and May 2022. And, if spending power decreases as expected in 2023, consumers will continue to shop around for better deals,” said Shopify.
E-commerce may develop slower than during the pandemic, but it is nonetheless accounting for a growing share of overall retail sales worldwide, says Shopify. One of every five retail sales will be online by the end of 2023.
“Nine in 10 people buy from brands they follow on social media. Social commerce reduces friction between discovery and conversion, simplifying one-on-one engagement and potential sales,” stated the report.
“According to our global survey results, using social channels for marketing and promotions is the most important customer acquisition and retention strategy for businesses to drive growth in the next few years,” it added.
The United States Senate voted by voice late Wednesday to prohibit federal employees from using the Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok on government-owned devices.
The bill must still be approved by the United States House of Representatives before being delivered to President Joe Biden for his signature. The Senate bill would need to be passed by the House of Representatives before the current congressional session expires next week.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds issued guidelines preventing executive branch agencies from installing the software on government-provided devices. Several states in the United States have taken similar moves, including Alabama and Utah this week, reported Reuters.
Texas, Maryland, and South Dakota are among the states pursuing similar steps.
TikTok responded to the move on Wednesday, saying, “We’re disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok that will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States.”
