In the US, store closures are at an all-time high. 

Business Insider Intelligence

With 88% of total sales, brick-and-mortar is still the dominant driver of retail spend in the country, but in-store earnings aren't growing fast enough to keep the doors open.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

See Also:

• The best Showtime TV shows of the last decade — and the worst
• Amazon's ad business looks strong despite the pandemic
• Amazon posts highest e-commerce growth in over three years

It’s the end of the year and time for our annual mini-stories episodes. Mini-stories are fun, quick hit stories that came up in our research for another episode...or maybe it was some cool thing someone told us about that we found really interesting. They didn’t quite warrant a full episode and two months of hard reporting, but they’re great 99pi stories nonetheless. And my favorite part is we do them as unscripted interviews where I’m in the studio with the people who work on this show, who I like a lot. Sometimes I know a little about what they’re going to talk about, but sometimes I know nothing. It’s very fun. This week we have stories of mistaken identity, unreachable iconic tour destinations, haunted architecture, and of course, raccoons.

Mini-Stories: Volume 7

Make your mark. Go to radiotopia.fm to donate today.

This is part 2 of the 2019- 2020 mini-stories episodes where I interview the staff about their favorite little stories from the built world that don’t quite fill out an entire episode for whatever reason but they are cool 99pi stories nonetheless…

We have centuries old bonds, standard tunings mandated by international treaty, abandoned mansions, and secret babies. If you ever need a conversation starter, the mini-stories are our gift to you.

Mini-Stories 8

In times like these, we could all use a little historical perspective. In this new podcast from Radiotopia, Jody Avirgan, political historian Nicole Hemmer, and special guests rescue moments from U.S. history to map our journey through a tumultuous year.

On this episode of 99% Invisible, Jody talks with Roman about his new show and we play two short episodes of This Day in Esoteric Political History.

Subscribe to This Day in Esoteric Political History on Apple Podcasts

On March 26, 2020, the Senate passed “Phase III” of the Coronavirus Response Package, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in a 96-0 vote.

Congress Continues Work on Coronavirus Phase IV Legislation

Congress has returned home to their districts for recess until April 20, 2020, but staff has continued working on Phase IV of the coronavirus response legislation. NECA Government Affairs has been in constant contact with congressional staff to ensure our contractor’s concerns are voiced, and needs are met. As the efforts to support the economy and the American people continue, NECA is working to secure the inclusion of infrastructure investment and multiemployer pension reform, along with several other issue areas, in any upcoming package.

Take Action: Tell NECA what legislative provisions will provide the most relief for your company. NECA will compile our asks and communicate those with Congress to ensure our collective voice is heard. Please send your comments to NECAGovtAffairs@necanet.org by April 8, 2020.   

Microsoft is changing its OneDrive storage plan. The changes include the removal of the unlimited storage plan.

Read more on howtoweb.com

A new series called Stories in Place on Vimeo shares the stories of small businesses across the US dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Support organizations that can leverage the power of the smartphone in order to transform their contact center can not only gain key insights to help streamline support operations but can also make agents more effective

Here are five ways support teams and business leaders can implement modern support techniques in order to show their customers they care and keep them coming back

With RPA, AI-powered robots observe humans using software and then learn to use the software themselves

The sports brand enhanced its workflow with collaborative virtual reality

Collaboration between Delighted, a Qualtrics company, and Amazon Business empowers organizations of all sizes to listen, understand, and act on customer feedback in real-time

Cognitive/AI technologies for customer engagement are white hot. No wonder professionals, who had removed AI from their resumes, are scrambling to add it back in!

The consumer has spoken. Forrester Research asked 5,000 of them, "What created the biggest pain when you contacted a business for customer service?" They answered lack and consistency of agent knowledge, followed by the difficulty of finding relevant answers on company websites. So, what is driving this dissatisfaction?

Connecting marketing and customer service through data and digital workflows

Igloo's extensive catalog of training courses and self-serve resources is now available to all customers and end users so teams can make the most of their digital workplace

Energy Storage Still Expects Year-Over-Year Growth aconstanza Wed, 04/29/2020 - 18:47

The entire business started via social media posts and SHM began with mobile deliveries from the back of a Tata Nano.

APAC businesses understand the importance of customer experience and are focused on optimising the customer journey in 2020, with one in five (19%) APAC organisations identifying better CX as their most exciting opportunity for this year.

The CAIT claims that the acquisition will give Walmart incentives to block a section of the market to certain seller’s thereby reducing competition in the market.

The secret sauce behind happy customers is to have happy team members. You cannot create happiness on the outside if your organization is not happy on the inside.

Covid-19: JLR restores three-fourth of its budgeted production in China

"All standalone (single) shops, neighborhood (colony) shops and shops in residential complexes are permitted to remain open in urban areas, without any distinction of essential and non-essential," the ministry of home affairs said in a notification on Friday.

According to the bank, "The objective of this loan is to provide ease to tide over the liquidity mismatch to existing customers." The customer can approach their existing branches to avail this personal loan up to a maximum limit Rs 5 lakh

Saving lives more important than stock market numbers: Donald Trump

The new system will come into force from January 1, 2021 at the end of the transition period after the UK's exit from the European Union (EU) on January 31, which will formally end free movement of people within the economic bloc for the UK as a non-member. The new post-Brexit system, which will apply equally to the EU and non-EU countries like India.

Carter managed Lady Gaga from early into her career to worldwide stardom until he was fired in 2013. Carter and his talent agency, Atom Factory, manage pop stars.

Businesses with no online store have limited growth opportunities.

25% of the international realty market in London also belongs to Indians with investments around GBP 1 bn while they also invested more than $2 bn in the Dubai real estate mkt in the first half of 2015.

Arno Zaritsky, MD, discusses an article he and Dr. Ikram Haque published in the March 2007 issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine titled "Analysis of the Evidence for Lower Limit of Systolic and Mean Arterial Pressure in Children." Dr. Zaritsky is professor and chief of pediatric critical care at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida.

Many of the securities laws are spread over circulars, which are vague and ever-changing. It is not clear how ordinary companies can keep track with daily changes and excessive complexity of regulations.

Sebi must ensure that no one is hanged without a fair hearing, levy of penalty on Reliance speaks about the regulator’s firmness, a reader said.

ESOPs allow grantees to have a stake in the company which directly results in greater loyalty.

The offering of ‘Cardless Cash Withdrawal’ from iMobile enables customers to withdraw cash securely and conveniently for everyday usage and purchases, all from the convenience of their mobile phone. Here is a look at how you can use this facility.

You would have given your bank account numbers and IFSC codes for various financial transactions. Unless these accounts are seamlessly merged into the financial system of the anchor bank, you would be required to change the details of your bank account.

As the country is staying at home to fight against the coronavirus, investors are adapting themselves to the online way of working with their finances.

All passengers coming to India will have to fill in a new detailed customs form on their arrival from tomorrow.

Almost all the 147 PMSes delivered positive returns to investors during the month.

"We have decided to take this initiative to help our customers to overcome this pandemic and drive growth in the housing sector. With this, over 2.35 lakh of our customers will be positively impacted irrespective of their base loan amount," PNB Housing Finance Managing Director and CEO Neeraj Vyas said.

​​ET Wealth studies the quality of papers held by the five largest schemes of different debt fund categories to see if investors should be worried.

The unabated volatility is intensifying downside risks in investments. Under these conditions, it is worth looking at statistics that can predict the potential loss a stock or a portfolio can suffer.

Investors will receive whatever amount the fund house is able to recover by liquidating the underlying investments in proportion of their holdings in the respective schemes.

You should explore the `pause your SIP’ option offered by mutual funds before finalising to stop your mutual fund investments through SIPs.

The current slump in the stock market presents an opportunity to accumulate more mutual fund units.

Knowing and following the fundamentals takes much of the risk out of investing.