Fintech
Overstock.com Welcomes 2020 with Emphasis on Customer Focus and Innovation
SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Celebrating 20 years as a leader in the e-commerce space, Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) looks forward to an exciting 2020, with a renewed customer focus, application of technological innovations and changes in leadership. As a technology-focused company, Overstock continues to be an industry-leading online retailer and a pioneer in the blockchain space. Through its Overstock.com retail and Medici Ventures blockchain divisions, the Company continues to execute on its mission of improving customers’ lives through the application of emerging technologies to traditional markets. Overstock is focused on improving the customer experience and enabling secure and trusted peer-to-peer commerce.
“Two decades ago, Overstock was founded with a vision to always improve the way people transact through the innovative application of technology,” said Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock.com, Inc. and president of Medici Ventures. “Two decades later that same forward-thinking attitude continues to prevail. Our teams of talented technologists with innovative minds continue to improve our customers’ experience. And they are advancing global peer-to-peer commerce through the application of blockchain technology. Over the past 20 years, we accomplished a lot. I’m filled with pride by our teams’ work in sourcing, developing, and accelerating technology and efficiencies in our retail and blockchain businesses. We’re focused on making 2020 another great year for Overstock.”
Overstock welcomed changes in leadership during 2019, which reflect its focus on the customer and innovation. These changes included the promotions of Jonathan Johnson to CEO of Overstock.com, Inc. (in addition to his role as President of Medici Ventures), Dave Nielsen to President of Overstock Retail, and Kamelia Aryafar to Executive Vice President and the newest member of the Company’s board of directors (in addition to her role as Chief Algorithms Officer). Medici Ventures also strengthened its leadership, with the promotions of Joel Weight to Chief Operations Officer and Jeremy Smith to Chief Technology Officer. Likewise, tZERO strengthened its team with the addition of a Head of Issuance, Head of Investor Relations, and Head of Communications.
In addition to its offices in Utah, the Company expanded its presence in Europe with the opening of a new state-of-the-art campus in Sligo, Ireland, which has served as a technical hub and EU base.
Club O, the Company’s retail loyalty and rewards program, expanded its member offerings to include two new benefits: free returns and a price match guarantee. These new features significantly enhance the loyalty program’s existing perks, which include free shipping on all items, five percent (or more) rewards on all purchases, access to an exclusive rewards store, and additional rewards in exchange for product reviews. Club O is free to active and veteran military members, students and teachers, and first responders.
Other key milestones over the past year include the addition of new applications in the blockchain space; advances in the customer experience utilizing technologies like machine learning, personalization, and augmented reality; and continued community outreach through partnerships with non-profit organizations.
Medici Ventures, Overstock.com, Inc. Subsidiary and Blockchain Accelerator
2019 was a significant year for Medici Ventures and its keiretsu of blockchain-based companies, as it began to pivot from a building phase to a growth phase in which real products are coming into production. The Medici family continued to utilize blockchain technology to revolutionize traditional industries including identity, land governance, money and banking, capital markets, supply chain, and voting. Key milestones include the following:
- tZERO, the global leader in blockchain innovation for capital markets, built the technology and leadership team necessary to support its long-term efforts relating to tokenization services and secondary trading technology. In addition to securing a number of cutting-edge patents related to the intersection of blockchain and capital markets, the company tokenized its preferred equity and launched the trading of these securities on the tZERO ATS, signed agreements with a number of issuers to tokenize their securities, subscribed additional broker-dealers to the tZERO ATS, launched the tZERO Crypto App, filed for one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries to become a retail broker-dealer and advanced its Boston Security Token Exchange (BSTX) joint venture.
- Medici Land Governance (MLG) continued to expand its reach and provide low cost, user friendly land titling and administration systems to government partners across the globe. In 2019, MLG expanded its land governance efforts to St. Kitts and Nevis, Liberia, Zambia, Mexico, and the United States. By utilizing blockchain and other technologies to secure a public record of land ownership, MLG continues to promote economic development and financial inclusion to both individuals and governments worldwide. MLG looks forward to strengthening and creating new partnerships in 2020 and beyond.
- Bitt, the Barbados-based fintech company, signed a contract with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to conduct a blockchain-issued Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot within the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) The issuance of a CBDC would facilitate the speed, cost and efficiency of payments, both domestically and cross-border, as well as promote financial inclusion amongst Caribbean citizens. Having successfully completed the project’s inception and elaboration phases, upcoming milestones include preliminary testing and training with pilot project stakeholders, including financial institutions, merchants and consumers, in preparation for the start of the pilot at the end of Q1 2020.
- Voatz made voting safer and more accessible by successfully conducting a number of secure mobile voting pilots backed by blockchain technology for overseas and disabled voters in United States counties such as Utah County, UT; the City & County of Denver, CO; Jackson and Umatilla County, OR; and Pierce County, WA.
- GrainChain executed agreements with stakeholders across the Honduran coffee industry to deliver its blockchain-enabled commerce platform. Immediate benefits with regard to the minimization of risk and improvement of harvesting conditions have already been realized, both of which will encourage further reinvestment. Through coordination with stakeholders throughout the coffee growing lifecycle, GrainChain is for the first time connecting the entire supply chain on a single platform. That agreement came in the same year as the company’s partnership with the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, bringing efficiency, security, and transparency to farmers, storage operators, and buyers of bulk commodities. GrainChain went live with three products: Cmodity, HarvX, and SiloSys, which processed over 1 billion pounds in commodities in Texas in 2019, a strong indicator of what is to come in 2020.
Overstock.com Retail
Under the leadership of the Company’s EVP and Chief Algorithms Officer, Kamelia Aryafar, Overstock continues to implement artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies throughout the organization. These technologies are being applied to improve or replace existing systems in all areas of the company, including Website Development, Pricing, Customer Care, Supply Chain, Marketing and Sourcing.
The application of ML and AI has also allowed Overstock to significantly improve the personalization of the customer experience, advancing Overstock’s mission of customer focus. During 2019, Overstock leveraged its proprietary technology LiveRex and Overstock Asset Data Platform (OADP) to introduce personalization technology to its retail site, which enabled a fully dynamic email experience. These initiatives aim to deliver a more engaging and relevant experience throughout every touchpoint of a customer’s journey.
Building on Overstock’s investment over the past three years in augmented reality (AR) and 3D experience, the Company launched the biggest omni-channel AR and 3D customer experience in e-commerce. This launch allowed shoppers to seamlessly view true-to-life size 3D renderings of thousands of products from top-selling categories like furniture, home goods, and décor, and enabled them to see what these products might look like in their own homes with the aid of AR.
Overstock celebrated its 20 year anniversary with its second annual Customer Day on October 6. The 36-hour sale was one of the Company’s strongest events in 2019.
Awards and Recognitions
Overstock was the recipient of a number of awards in 2019, being recognized for achievements spanning from its high-quality customer service to its technological innovation. Notable mentions include:
- Torchie Award recognition as an industry leader and innovator
- eTail’s Best in Class Award for Best Mobile App
- Media Post’s Appy Award for Best Retail App
- Mobile Star Awards “Superstar” Best Retail Shopping App
- Loyalty 360’s Top 10 Award for Customer Loyalty Team
- Two Loyalty360 Awards for Employee Engagement and for Customer Loyalty Strategy
- Stevie Award in Customer Service and Sales
- Utah’s Best in State Award for General Merchandising
- Shatter List recognition for creating and implementing impactful programs and company culture to foster inclusivity from the Women Tech Council
Corporate Giving and Philanthropic Support
Overstock Cares, the Company’s philanthropic program, supported numerous non-profit organizations dedicated to a variety of charitable causes throughout 2019. The program supported the donation of hundreds of products, primarily home goods, to non-profit organizations across the country, in addition to monetary donations to causes including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Operation Underground Railroad, Set for Life LA, and Habitat for Humanity.
Overstock Cares also continues to support its corporate charitable partners Best Friends Animal Society, Special Operations Warrior Foundation, and the American Red Cross by promoting customer donations on its site and check-out page.
About Overstock.com
Overstock.com, Inc Common Shares (NASDAQ:OSTK) / Digital Voting Series A-1 Preferred Stock (Medici Ventures’ tZERO platform:OSTKO) / Series B Preferred (OTCQX:OSTBP) is an online retailer and technology company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Its leading e-commerce website sells a broad range of new home products at low prices, including furniture, décor, rugs, bedding, home improvement, and more. The online shopping site, which is visited by nearly 40 million customers a month, also features a marketplace providing customers access to millions of products from third-party sellers. Overstock was the first major retailer to accept cryptocurrency in 2014, and in the same year founded Medici Ventures, its wholly-owned subsidiary dedicated to the development and acceleration of blockchain technologies to democratize capital, eliminate middlemen, and re-humanize commerce. Overstock regularly posts information about the Company and other related matters on the Newsroom and Investor Relations pages on its website, Overstock.com.
O, Overstock.com, O.com, Club O, Main Street Revolution, and Worldstock are registered trademarks of Overstock.com, Inc. Other service marks, trademarks and trade names which may be referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements include all statements other than statements of historical fact. Additional information regarding factors that could materially affect results and the accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained herein may be found in the Company’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2019, which was filed with the SEC on November 12, 2019, and any subsequent filings with the SEC.
SOURCE: Overstock.com, Inc.
Media Contact:
[email protected]
Investor Contact:
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Fintech
How to identify authenticity in crypto influencer channels
Modern brands stake on influencer marketing, with 76% of users making a purchase after seeing a product on social media.The cryptocurrency industry is no exception to this trend. However, promoting crypto products through influencer marketing can be particularly challenging. Crypto influencers pose a significant risk to a brand’s reputation and ROI due to rampant scams. Approximately 80% of channels provide fake statistics, including followers counts and engagement metrics. Additionally, this niche is characterized by high CPMs, which can increase the risk of financial loss for brands.
In this article Nadia Bubennnikova, Head of agency Famesters, will explore the most important things to look for in crypto channels to find the perfect match for influencer marketing collaborations.
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Comments
There are several levels related to this point.
LEVEL 1
Analyze approximately 10 of the channel’s latest videos, looking through the comments to ensure they are not purchased from dubious sources. For example, such comments as “Yes sir, great video!”; “Thanks!”; “Love you man!”; “Quality content”, and others most certainly are bot-generated and should be avoided.
Just to compare:
LEVEL 2
Don’t rush to conclude that you’ve discovered the perfect crypto channel just because you’ve come across some logical comments that align with the video’s topic. This may seem controversial, but it’s important to dive deeper. When you encounter a channel with logical comments, ensure that they are unique and not duplicated under the description box. Some creators are smarter than just buying comments from the first link that Google shows you when you search “buy YouTube comments”. They generate topics, provide multiple examples, or upload lists of examples, all produced by AI. You can either manually review the comments or use a script to parse all the YouTube comments into an Excel file. Then, add a formula to highlight any duplicates.
LEVEL 3
It is also a must to check the names of the profiles that leave the comments: most of the bot-generated comments are easy to track: they will all have the usernames made of random symbols and numbers, random first and last name combinations, “Habibi”, etc. No profile pictures on all comments is also a red flag.
LEVEL 4
Another important factor to consider when assessing comment authenticity is the posting date. If all the comments were posted on the same day, it’s likely that the traffic was purchased.
2. Average views number per video
This is indeed one of the key metrics to consider when selecting an influencer for collaboration, regardless of the product type. What specific factors should we focus on?
First & foremost: the views dynamics on the channel. The most desirable type of YouTube channel in terms of views is one that maintains stable viewership across all of its videos. This stability serves as proof of an active and loyal audience genuinely interested in the creator’s content, unlike channels where views vary significantly from one video to another.
Many unauthentic crypto channels not only buy YouTube comments but also invest in increasing video views to create the impression of stability. So, what exactly should we look at in terms of views? Firstly, calculate the average number of views based on the ten latest videos. Then, compare this figure to the views of the most recent videos posted within the past week. If you notice that these new videos have nearly the same number of views as those posted a month or two ago, it’s a clear red flag. Typically, a YouTube channel experiences lower views on new videos, with the number increasing organically each day as the audience engages with the content. If you see a video posted just three days ago already garnering 30k views, matching the total views of older videos, it’s a sign of fraudulent traffic purchased to create the illusion of view stability.
3. Influencer’s channel statistics
The primary statistics of interest are region and demographic split, and sometimes the device types of the viewers.
LEVEL 1
When reviewing the shared statistics, the first step is to request a video screencast instead of a simple screenshot. This is because it takes more time to organically edit a video than a screenshot, making it harder to manipulate the statistics. If the creator refuses, step two (if only screenshots are provided) is to download them and check the file’s properties on your computer. Look for details such as whether it was created with Adobe Photoshop or the color profile, typically Adobe RGB, to determine if the screenshot has been edited.
LEVEL 2
After confirming the authenticity of the stats screenshot, it’s crucial to analyze the data. For instance, if you’re examining a channel conducted in Spanish with all videos filmed in the same language, it would raise concerns to find a significant audience from countries like India or Turkey. This discrepancy, where the audience doesn’t align with regions known for speaking the language, is a red flag.
If we’re considering an English-language crypto channel, it typically suggests an international audience, as English’s global use for quality educational content on niche topics like crypto. However, certain considerations apply. For instance, if an English-speaking channel shows a significant percentage of Polish viewers (15% to 30%) without any mention of the Polish language, it could indicate fake followers and views. However, if the channel’s creator is Polish, occasionally posts videos in Polish alongside English, and receives Polish comments, it’s important not to rush to conclusions.
Example of statistics
Wrapping up
These are the main factors to consider when selecting an influencer to promote your crypto product. Once you’ve launched the campaign, there are also some markers to show which creators did bring the authentic traffic and which used some tools to create the illusion of an active and engaged audience. While this may seem obvious, it’s still worth mentioning. After the video is posted, allow 5-7 days for it to accumulate a basic number of views, then check performance metrics such as views, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), signups, and conversion rate (CR) from clicks to signups.
If you overlooked some red flags when selecting crypto channels for your launch, you might find the following outcomes: channels with high views numbers and high CTRs, demonstrating the real interest of the audience, yet with remarkably low conversion rates. In the worst-case scenario, you might witness thousands of clicks resulting in zero to just a few signups. While this might suggest technical issues in other industries, in crypto campaigns it indicates that the creator engaged in the campaign not only bought fake views and comments but also link clicks. And this happens more often than you may realize.
Summing up, choosing the right crypto creator to promote your product is indeed a tricky job that requires a lot of resources to be put into the search process.
Author
Nadia Bubennikova, Head of agency at Famesters
Fintech
Central banks and the FinTech sector unite to change global payments space
The BIS, along with seven leading central banks and a cohort of private financial firms, has embarked on an ambitious venture known as Project Agorá.
Named after the Greek word for “marketplace,” this initiative stands at the forefront of exploring the potential of tokenisation to significantly enhance the operational efficiency of the monetary system worldwide.
Central to this pioneering project are the Bank of France (on behalf of the Eurosystem), the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of England, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. These institutions have joined forces under the banner of Project Agorá, in partnership with an extensive assembly of private financial entities convened by the Institute of International Finance (IIF).
At the heart of Project Agorá is the pursuit of integrating tokenised commercial bank deposits with tokenised wholesale central bank money within a unified, public-private programmable financial platform. By harnessing the advanced capabilities of smart contracts and programmability, the project aspires to unlock new transactional possibilities that were previously infeasible or impractical, thereby fostering novel opportunities that could benefit businesses and consumers alike.
The collaborative effort seeks to address and surmount a variety of structural inefficiencies that currently plague cross-border payments. These challenges include disparate legal, regulatory, and technical standards; varying operating hours and time zones; and the heightened complexity associated with conducting financial integrity checks (such as anti-money laundering and customer verification procedures), which are often redundantly executed across multiple stages of a single transaction due to the involvement of several intermediaries.
As a beacon of experimental and exploratory projects, the BIS Innovation Hub is committed to delivering public goods to the global central banking community through initiatives like Project Agorá. In line with this mission, the BIS will soon issue a call for expressions of interest from private financial institutions eager to contribute to this ground-breaking project. The IIF will facilitate the involvement of private sector participants, extending an invitation to regulated financial institutions representing each of the seven aforementioned currencies to partake in this transformative endeavour.
Source: fintech.globa
The post Central banks and the FinTech sector unite to change global payments space appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
Fintech
TD Bank inks multi-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud
TD Bank has inked a multi-year deal with Google Cloud as it looks to streamline the development and deployment of new products and services.
The deal will see the Canadian banking group integrate the vendor’s cloud services into a wider portion of its technology solutions portfolio, a move which TD expects will enable it “to respond quickly to changing customer expectations by rolling out new features, updates, or entirely new financial products at an accelerated pace”.
This marks an expansion of the already established relationship between TD Bank and Google Cloud after the group previously adopted the vendor’s Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) for TD Securities Automated Trading (TDSAT), the Chicago-based subsidiary of its investment banking unit, TD Securities.
TDSAT uses GKE for process automation and quantitative modelling across fixed income markets, resulting in the development of a “data-driven research platform” capable of processing large research workloads in trading.
Dan Bosman, SVP and CIO of TD Securities, claims the infrastructure has so far supported TDSAT with “compute-intensive quantitative analysis” while expanding the subsidiary’s “trading volumes and portfolio size”.
TD’s new partnership with Google Cloud will see the group attempt to replicate the same level of success across its entire portfolio.
Source: fintechfutures.com
The post TD Bank inks multi-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
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