All’s Fair in Business?

Amazon has recently gotten itself in a little bit of hot water.

And by “hot water,” I mean their elaborate, decade-long corporate espionage project was blown wide open by The Wall Street Journal in the middle of a massive antitrust lawsuit against the company.

To make a long story short, Amazon ran an international shell company called “Big River Services International” that created brands, purchased discount products, and sold said products through various rival platforms and logistics services, in order to gain access to private information, benchmarks, and rival innovations before these things became publicly available.

It isn’t a fabulous look for the e-commerce giant.

Yes, all serious brands do research on their competitors. Walmart executives take a spin through Target on occasion, and they pay close attention to press releases, real estate purchases, etc. This is legal, prudent, and no problem. The line between research and corporate espionage gets crossed when a company intentionally misrepresents itself in order to gain access to not-publicly-available information. Anyone can log onto eBay and see how the process works to buy a product; not everyone can attend eBay’s Las Vegas seller’s convention, where top vendors are rewarded for the business they bring in with information about coming changes to the platform and have the opportunity to ask top executives about eBay’s strategy and proprietary numbers.

It brings up two important questions for Christian business owners:…

Elon Musk might have the most stressful job(s) on the planet. He is presently serving as founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; CEO and product architect of Tesla; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X; founder of Boring Company; co-founder of Nueralink (which puts computer chips in people’s brains), and co-founder of Open AI (though he walked away from his position at Open AI and is currently suing them)…

Bitcoin continues a general downward trend since its high in mid-March of this year, currently selling for about $62k. Still, even with the $11k loss in the last six weeks, BTC is up 40% this year. Ethereum’s price chart looks similar to Bitcoin’s, as usual, and has also been sliding downward from its high of over $4k in mid-March to its current price of $3,100. Still, it is up 33% YTD. Mortgage rates continue to rise, hitting a new high for the current year above 7.6%…

Last week, President Biden signed a large spending bill that included a provision giving ByteDance, the Chinese-backed company that owns TikTok, nine months to sell the company to a non-Chinese buyer, or the app will be banned. TikTok is viewed by many politicians on both sides of the aisle as being a dangerous domestic spying and propaganda op perpetrated by the Chinese government…

Your weekly chance to test your Bible knowledge! The answer to today’s question may surprise you:

Q: Which books of the Bible are known as the “pastoral epistles”?

Answer at the bottom

TIPS & TRICKS

Opening Your First Storefront? Here’s What You Need to Know

We do a lot of business in the digital world on platforms such as Amazon, Walmart, or even our own websites and apps. Nevertheless, we live in the real world, and the need for a physical presence, in many industries, is a necessity that is never going to go away.

If you are opening a brick and mortar location, there are a few things it’s helpful to know before you take the plunge.

Different Types of Commercial Leases

The first thing you need to know is that not all leases look the same, and you should familiarize yourself with the possibilities. Today, Triple Net (NNN) and Modified Gross may be the most common types of commercial leases currently available, though this will depend on what kind of building you are looking to rent, as well as the area where you are doing business.

Rent is usually calculated on the basis of cost per square foot per year. So, if the cost per square foot is $25 and the unit is 2,000 sq. ft., you would be paying $50,000/year to lease the space, or just over $4k a month. This is simple enough, but there is the matter of insurance, utilities, repairs, tenant improvement (T.I.) and common area maintenance (C.A.M.) that can cause that monthly bill to sharply increase.

Here’s what that can look like in two common lease agreements:…

• If inflation has you down already, just skip this article on the average impact of inflation on your income.

• Amazon has successfully increased its delivery speed for Prime customers in 60 key metro areas after a heavy investment in fulfillment.

• Relevant Magazine urges Christian workers and businesspeople to take the command to rest on the Sabbath seriously.

• The Wall Street Journal reports, “The Dream of Fed Rate Cuts Is Slipping Away.”

• Walmart is removing self-checkout from two of its stores due to theft. This is the most recent generalized trend of retail brands scaling back on self-checkout for the sake of security.