News Cart for June 5th

Good afternoon, ECF-ers!

Trustbusters appear to be gunning for the Silicon Valley tech giants. PayPal opened its e-commerce platform to small businesses, and Shopify stealthily scooped up Handshake. Speaking of Shopify, who pulled their hair out Sunday during the Google Cloud outage?

We delve into these stories and more in the ECF News Cart for June 5, 2019. You can also listen to our news roundup on the podcast via iTunes (may it R.I.P.), Stitcher or the ECF Blog.

Enjoy!

– Andrew

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In the News:

• Justice Department to handle antitrust oversight of Apple and Google, while the Federal Trade Commission will take on Facebook and Amazon
• House Judiciary Committee launches “top-to-bottom review” of possible anti-competitive behavior
• Tech stocks plunged Monday on the news of increased scrutiny

• Small businesses can use the same e-commerce infrastructure as Facebook and Instagram
• Includes access to PayPal’s backend tools and systems like fraud protection and dispute management
• Available first across the US, UK and Europe but will expand to other markets

• Google Cloud was down for about five hours on Sunday, June 2, due to “high levels of network congestion in the eastern USA”
• Outage affected sites that rely on the cloud infrastructure, including Shopify, Snapchat and YouTube
• (No, Shopify says it won’t compensate business owners for their losses)

• New York startup Handshake provides e-commerce platform for businesses that sell wholesale goods
• Team now operating as part of Shopify Plus
• Purchase price said to be less than $100 million

• Debuted the Mac Pro—its most powerful computer—for $6,000
• MacOS Catalina offers cross-platform apps; iOS 13 features dark mode and swipe typing
• So long, iTunes! Apple is splitting iTunes into Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Podcasts

Top Forum Discussions:

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• Introducing the New Forums (Plus My Favorite Features)
• Meet Our New Community Manager
• Raised our Prices – So Far So Good
• Switching to Klaviyo.  What’s the Best Way to Prune my Contacts?
• Big Media Companies Are Pivoting Into eCommerce Channels

Compelling Job Opportunities

• eCommerce Director | Common Thread Co – Full ownership over a portfolio of eCommerce companies while working for an incredible team.  You even get your own dream therapist / counselor to meet with regularly!
• Paid Traffic Manager | Vallerret Photography Gloves – If you love photography almost as much as you enjoy geeking out about paid traffic this role is for you.  Work from anywhere in the world.

New ECF Content:

• Investing In and Outside of eCommerce (Podcast)
• Talking WordPress, WooCommerce & Events With Chris Lema (Podcast)
• 5 Lessons From My Time at a Hedge Fund (Podcast)
• Takeaways From the 2019 State of the Merchant Report (Podcast)
• 2019 State of the Merchant Report (Blog Post)

An Interesting Read:

• This Young Investor’s Lucrative Passion: Collecting Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses — Shakil Prasla’s portfolio includes 12 small internet brands that sold a combined $25 million in 2018.