Mary Kay Corp. has filed suit in a federal court charging Ulta with infringing on its LASH LOVE trademark since 2011, alleging that Ulta has used the mark for its own products as a ‘prominent designator’ for a set of mascara products. The design for the products in question use the words Lash Love in bold capital lettering on a box edged in pink. The suit alleges Ulta is attempting to associate its products with the Mary Kay name.
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Activist investor and previous board member Glenn Welling, along with his fund Engaged Capital LLC, has taken a 15 percent stake in Medifast, according to SEC filings. Entities of Engaged Capital have spent $107.5 to buy 1.16 million shares of Medifast (NYSE: MED) since September, giving the fund itself a 9.9 percent stake. Other agreements push Welling’s stake up to 1.74 million shares to represent the 15 percent stake. In 2016, Welling played a key role in hiring Dan Chard as CEO, succeeding Michael MacDonald, who remains executive chairman.
Holton Buggs, CEO of travel company ibuumerang, announced the company’s new vertical as a rideshare concept named Vibe Rides. The new company’s compensation plan pays the driver, but also referral payments, a drive share pool and customer payments. The rideshare company is being rolled out in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando. The associated app allows riders to choose such things as car temperature, music genre and even conversation preferences.
Men’s beauty is becoming a large category within the men’s personal care space, with a current value of $122 million according to CNBC’s latest retail report. The overall men’s personal care market is predicted to hit $166 billion by 2022.
Internet Retailer, a Digital Commerce 360 brand, projected consumers worldwide would spend nearly $3.46 trillion online in 2019, up from $2.93 trillion in 2018. The expected 17.9% year-over-year growth in global web sales would be a slowdown from the 20.7% jump last year. However, global web sales were still growing faster than the more saturated U.S. ecommerce market, which Internet Retailer projected would increase 14% in 2019. Global retail sales through all channels were likely to hit $21 trillion by the end of the year, a 3.4% uptick from $20.31 trillion in 2018, according to Internet Retailer estimates.
Nuro, which makes autonomous delivery vehicles designed to operate on public roads, says the service will start “in the coming months” in Houston, Texas. Autonomous deliveries initially will be available to customers who opt into the test program. The goal will be to expand robotic delivery to the general public later in 2020, Nuro says. Walmart Inc., No. 3 in the 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, and robotics company Nuro Inc. will test making grocery deliveries using driverless vehicles. Using the R2, a retailer’s employees load online orders into compartments of the vehicle, which then drives itself to a customer’s home. When the order arrives, the customer receives a notification from a mobile app that the self-driving robot is outside. The customer then uses a PIN to open the appropriate compartments and retrieve their order.
Based on data from Adobe Analytics, a record $9.4 billion was spent online by the end of Cyber Monday, an increase of 19.7% over last year, making it the largest online shopping day of all time in the U.S. and easily beating last year’s record of $7.9 billion. Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET, consumers spent $2.9 billion online, which was nearly a third of the day’s total revenue.
In an effort to increase connecting the iconic brand with the customer, Tupperware has added online shopping to its website, according to vice president of global brand management Chip Reingold. For the first time in the company’s 73-year history, customers can purchase products directly from the company. The site also connects customers to independent consultants and contains information on hosting a party. Online purchasing is currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, but the company plans to roll-out the capability across other markets soon. Tupperware currently operates in just under 100 markets globally.
In October, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, granted a partial victory to MONAT Global by striking down a claim from the plaintiffs for injunctive relief. Though the ruling judge, Darrin P. Gayles, did not allow the plaintiffs’ specific request to move forward, he denied the company’s motion to dismiss the case altogether.
Herbalife Nutrition has agreed to pay a $20 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that the company made false and misleading statements in its regulatory filings over a six-year period—between 2012 and 2018—related to its business operations in China, where multi-level marketing is illegal. The statements in the filings indicated that Herbalife paid compensation to service providers in China based on a system of hours worked; however, the SEC alleged the company used its global genealogy system to calculate pay based on commissions for eligible downline purchases. Herbalife consented to the SEC order without admitting or denying the commission’s findings.
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