WJR Business Beat

Walmart has officially announced the application period for its open call event now in its 10th year. The program allows small business owners and entrepreneurs to apply for the opportunity to pitch their products, to have them be selected to be offered on Walmart or Sam's Club shelves, or walmart.com. Program information at event@walmart.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://...

A civic economic study indicates that for every a hundred dollars you spend w/ a local business, roughly $68 of it stays in the community as opposed to when it's spent w/ a national chain, only a fraction of this amount does. That means that when they're profitable, that profit stays within the community. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about o...

One can look to various bellwethers and benchmarks to try to glean just where we're headed with the economy and in business. One of the best is to look at the ad market. This is because businesses feel more confident to spend on advertising when the economy is strong and consumer confidence is high. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our col...

The most common uses of ChatGPT were for writing code, creating tables, and providing examples. While "make", "create", and "provide" were the most popular ways to start a conversation with ChatGPT. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How much time are we spending executing these side hustles on average? On average, Americans who have a side hustle spend around 13 hours a week, while about 44% are spending fewer than 10 hours a week and still generating a meaningful amount of income for the time invested. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of person...

Amazon said shoppers purchased more than 375 million items during this year's prime day. That's up from 300 million last year. Home goods, fashion and beauty were among the top categories. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When you establish thought leadership, you attract people. Many of those people become new buyers, new customers for your business, but you also do a much better job retaining customers that you already have, and those are the most valuable because you engage them. And when you engage your customer base with interesting and relevant information, that leads to sales. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWiz...

Marketers responsible for creating awareness and leads that a small business needs in order to ultimately enjoy sales are a good barometer of the overall state of small business today because they have direct access to data and metrics that allow them to benchmark and compare expected performance versus actual performance. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for i...

Prime Day sales benefit Amazon, but also the small business community of sellers on the Amazon platform. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The company's getting hit hardest by the reduced action in venture capital: It's the earliest of startups floating seed rounds. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conspiracies and misinformation are thriving on social media as the technologies advance faster than society's understanding of them. It's more important than ever to learn to discern fake information from the truth Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The biggest impact on the small businesses that experience a cyber attack was business downtime and loss of customer data. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Who among us in Michigan's small business community will emerge one day to make times list of the most influential companies and leaders? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The U.S. Customer Experience Index rankings are out and we've got the companies at the head of the class that are scoring big on customer experience and as a result, scoring big when it comes to customer loyalty and retention. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A recent Harris poll commissioned by Omaha Steaks found 40% of Americans have cut back on other purchases, 55% are unwilling to sacrifice their summer grill outs with family and friends. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nearly half of Americans say they feel wealthy in spite of not measuring up to what most consider wealthy is defined purely by dollars and cents. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Great products alone are not enough to keep customers loyal. It takes great products and great customer service in order to do so. 60% of Gen Z say they rarely or ever complain to a company when they have a negative digital service experience. Instead, they choose not to do business with that brand anymore. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about...

Inflation is hitting all of us, but one thing that isn't down with respect to consumer spending is the travel sector despite higher costs of travel and everything else that we have to spend on these days. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

86% of consumers are more likely to trust a brand that uses user-generated content to influence their purchase decisions compared to 12% being impacted by a product promotion from an influencer. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The power of how success and business can lead to invaluable contributions to society, such as, tech entrepreneur Peter Thulson and the nonprofit organization he co-founded in partnership w/ the University of Michigan Health system, known as REWIND, dedicated to defeating type 2 diabetes. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and...

One emerging sector of online retail showing promise as a channel is known as live commerce. Think of it as like QVC or Home Shopping Network, but online. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Podcasts deliver a high return on ad spend w/ more than two thirds of US marketers saying, for every dollar spent on podcasts, they see a $2 to $6 return. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Michigan is losing significant jobs, talent, and investment opportunities as a result of the lack of the early stage investment capital, which has decreased by more than 40% in the last 5 years. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

According to the New York Feds quarterly report on household debt and credit, total household debt climbed a 17.05 trillion in the first quarter of 2023. That's an increase of 2.9 trillion since Q1 2019. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

One of the biggest challenges small businesses face is how to drive attention & awareness to your business. How to optimize discovery. First, knowing where consumers do their research & knowing what they value most: Research is an important first step. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising...