We’ve decided to try something new with our newsletter. There’s so much news every day that’s relevant to Dealerscope’s audience of retailers, distributors, and manufacturers in the consumer electronics, appliance, and technology sectors, but only a couple of us around to write about it every day in a timely fashion. So, instead of highlighting a couple of stories from Dealerscope in each newsletter and calling it a day, we’re going to be curating links to the day’s most important and interesting news specifically for our readers interested in consumer electronics, appliances, retail, and technology as covered by press announcements and articles in other publications. Where relevant, we’ll offer a quick “hot take” on each item, too. We think this will provide a much greater service to our readers and make us worthy of your inbox. It will also enable us to truly hit all the Dealerscope news that’s fit to print, everything from accessory and new product releases to management changes and corporate news. We’re changing the name of our daily newsletter, too, from DS Today to The Daily Scope.
Lastly, we’ll be running our daily curated newsletter as a blog post, too, which is what you’re reading now. Don’t subscribe to our Dealerscope newsletters yet? Here’s the sign-up form. We look forward to providing you with the best daily consumer electronics, appliance, and retail news.
Without further ado, here’s today’s news.
It’s hard to escape the supply chain slowdown, but in a bit of good news late last week, both the Senate and House after months finally passed a $550 billion infrastructure bill. Improvements in transportation infrastructure, which will help not only with supply chain issues but also simply getting customers to stores (and deliveries to customers), are just some of the ways retailers will benefit from this bill. Both the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association basically said as much in responses to the bill’s passing.
While Nintendo is just one of many companies cutting sales forecasts for its products such as the Switch gaming console, it’s also exemplary of another trend in which products are still being sold, but with other components. According to reports, the Japanese gaming giant may substitute other components if it runs into additional part shortages. BMW is already doing this, eliminating touchscreens in its 3 Series in current models until more chips are available. (Buyers of new Series 3 vehicles will have to settle for the knob system that was used previously.)
Meanwhile, companies such as GE Appliances and Walmart are gearing up to join Amazon with deliveries via electric trucks, some of which are semi-autonomous, with the latter launching its Gatik trucks in 12 markets. Maybe this will help the big-box retailer keep up with all those orders since it says it’ll start moving cargo out of the Port of Los Angeles 24/7 in an effort to clear up the logjam there.
Other stories we’re reading today:
- Marvel Cinematic Universe Titles Arrive on Disney+ in IMAX’s Expanded Aspect Ratio
- Rise of the Robots Speeds Up in Pandemic With U.S. Labor Scarce
- 2021 ASCI: Samsung Home Appliances Ranked Highest in Customer Satisfaction
- In 2021 supply chain battle, small businesses are losing out to Walmart and Amazon
- Rent-A-Center’s Acima fintech unit under investigation in 39 states
