Hey there!

Well, look who decided to finally whip up another issue of the newsletter?

It's almost like a New Year's resolution was involved or something...

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Quote of the Week

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As the calendar resets, we make fresh promises to be a better version of ourselves.

This is a good reminder that it won't happen right away. That we need to persist.

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Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi Greatness rejects all first time applicants. 7:45 PM • Jan 5, 2025 1434 Retweets 9463 Likes Read 287 replies

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Now let's see what we might have missed on the back pages of e-commerce news:

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What's the Matter?

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📰 The 2024 Yule Login

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Holiday e-commerce sales reached a record $241.4 billion, representing an 8.7% increase from last year.

Possibly more impressive is the fact that over half of those transactions were made on smartphones.

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Why it matters:

This is an easy one. More consumer retail dollars are being spent on the platform we sell on: the internet.

Our market of potential customers continues to grow at a fast pace.

The article cites grocery and cosmetics as the two categories with the strongest growth.

This is more evidence of how comfortable consumers are becoming with online shopping. Those are household essentials, instead of seasonal or standalone larger transactions.

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📰 Honey is in a Sticky Situation

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YouTuber Devin Stone, known as LegalEagle, has sued PayPal over its Honey browser extension, claiming it unfairly takes affiliate revenue from creators.

Stone alleges that Honey secretly replaces creators' links with its own, stealing commissions that should go to the influencers.

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Why it matters:

If you're doing online arbitrage, cash back from extensions like Rakuten, RetailMeNot, and TopCashback can be an important source of income.

You receive the cash back through an affiliate identifier added to the end of the URL and that's what Honey is being accused of secretly replacing with their own.

Be sure to pay attention to the active status of the cash back extension you want to use.

Activate your cash back extension as close to the end of the purchase as possible. Don't leave the tab with your shopping cart before completing the purchase. Also, use an extension like Extensity to disable competing extensions you aren't going to use.

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📰 Medical Debt-ectomy

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finalized a rule to remove medical bills from credit reports.

The bureau expects as much as $49 billion of debt to be removed from credit reports. About 15 million Americans may see their credit scores rise, in addition to a decrease in debt collection efforts.

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Why it matters:

Personal credit scores are important, especially for newer businesses, as that is what is used to evaluate you for business credit cards and loans, unless your business has established its own creditworthiness.

Better credit scores may lead to increased access and lower rates when you need more capital.

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📰 eBay's Friend Request Accepted

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eBay is partnering with Facebook Marketplace.

Starting this week, selected eBay listings will appear on Facebook Marketplace in the US, Germany, and France without any action needed from sellers.

All transactions will be covered by eBay's terms and policies.

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Why it matters:

eBay is probably the most popular secondary marketplace for Amazon sellers. It's a good place to liquidate inventory that was pulled back or can no longer be sold on Amazon.

Anything that increases the amount of traffic visiting eBay is a net positive for the sellers on the platform.

📣 We covered this story, the holiday shopping numbers, and answered viewer questions yesterday on our weekly News and Q&A show.

You can catch the replay here. And join us live every Wednesday at 5pm EST.

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What's the Latest on the Clear The Shelf with Chris & Chris Podcast?

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There's a new episode that will drop very soon, but if you haven't already, you should check out our interview with Sarah, aka Arbitrage Avenue.

She's got diversification down to a science and breaks it all down for us: including Amazon, Walmart, AIP, and UGC. It was a very good talk.

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​ Listen to Clear the Shelf with Chris & Chris on your favorite podcast player: ​YouTube​ ​Apple​ ​Spotify​

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Alpha Weekend Lead List

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The arrival of Q1 means the sellers that were looking to boost their Q4 numbers are finished with their subscriptions, so we finally have some openings again.

Spots are limited and the cart will go dark once the list is full, so grab one while you can:

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Sometimes I Think I'm Funny

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Have a great week! Talk to you soon.

Chris