UNPACKING RETAIL’S TRUE CHALLENGES:  First up today is a deep (and I mean deep) dive into the underlying structural challenges with the US Retail Industry.  In the past month you’ve probably seen dire predictions about the coming “Retail-apocalypse”, as B&M merchants are laid to waste by eCommerce rivals.  But there’s way more nuance to this story, as outlined in the following Altantic article.  Obviously online (and now mobile) sales are a contributing factor to the decline of the traditional retailer.  However, other factors like the over-malling of America from 1970 to 2015, and the cultural reprioritization from possessions (aka things you buy in stores) to experiences (aka social activities/travel/entertainment), are also taking their toll.  If you work at or call on a retail account this may not be the most enjoyable article you’ll ever read, but it’s important to understand the macro challenges impacting the space in order to compete in retail’s new world order.

TIME SPENT IN-APP ON THE RISE:  eMarketer is out with some insightful data on in-app media consumption.  According to their research consumers now spend 2:25 per day on in-app activities, which is 20% of all time spent with media, and 85% of time spent on the internet (with web direct making up the other 15%).  The five activities users spend the most in-app time with are (in order) listening to digital audio, social networking, gaming, watching videos, and messaging.  It makes sense that listening to music would lead time spent in-app, since it’s one of the very few long-form activities consumers do on their mobile devices.  Since time spent with consumers is a proxy for engagement, these stats provide great quantitative evidence about the power of music apps to engage and truly connect with listeners.

JAY-Z DROPS STREAMERS:  Over the weekend Jay-Z announced that he was pulling all music from his 12 studio albums off Spotify and Apple.  Then on Monday he allowed his music back on Apple, but not Spotify.  So what’s happening here?  On the surface the rationale for removing his music from both services seems simple – Jay-Z is the primary owner of Tidal, so why help the competition?  But there could also be a more subtle unintended consequence related to Spotify’s new royalties agreement with UMG, which allows artist/labels to limit access of certain songs on Spotify’s free non-subscription side.  The theory is that Spotify has let the horse out of the barn on exclusions from the free side, so more and more big name artists who control their own music will take their material off the platform.  Besides Jay-Z’s music there’s also speculation Beyonce could be removed from Spotify next.  Her latest album “Lemonade” was already withheld, so could the rest of Beyonce’s catalog be next?  Add these artists to other big names like Taylor Swift, Adele and Jason Aldean, who have already taken some or all of their music off Spotify, and you suddenly have the makings of a significant product issue for the streamer.

Have a great Wednesday guys!