Retail’s Ups And Downs: Amazon Pop-Ups, John Lennon And The iPhone 7

Bankrupt and beleaguered international shipping giant Hanjin Shipping Co. finally got some good news this week.

The South Korean shipping company, which handles about 7.8 percent of the U.S.’s trans-Pacific trade cargo, filed for bankruptcy in South Korea on Aug. 31 and was granted protection under U.S. bankruptcy laws a week later.

But it appears that some of its ships that were stranded at sea as a result of the bankruptcy are finally starting to be unloaded on American shores.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that 13 ships owned or leased by the company are getting ready to unload their cargo at U.S. ports. Hanjin has about 80 ships loaded with some 500,000 containers carrying an estimated $14 billion in cargo stranded at sea as a result of the bankruptcy. It remains to be seen when the rest of those ships will come into port.

Here are some of the other big winners and losers of the retail game at the moment.

UP

Is Amazon coming to a mall near you?

Seriously, yes. Amazon announced plans recently to open about 100 pop-up stores in malls across the country in the coming year. The stores are so customers can “experience the full range of Amazon devices,” according to Amazon’s website. Products showcased at these pop-up stores include Amazon’s Echo, Fire TV, Fire Tablet, Dash Button and Kindle.

Is John Lennon a brand?

A Canadian apparel company certainly seems to think so and has created the John Lennon Signature Collection, which debuted last month at the Toronto Men’s Fashion Week. The collection, by Caulfeild Apparel Group, aims to recreate many of the clothes and styles that Lennon rocked back in the day and also create clothes that the legendary music icon might wear today.

“Imagine John Lennon walking the streets of London, what would you see? Imagine in his prime what John Lennon would wear today? That is where the design comes from,” Kelly Pettit, designer and divisional vice president at Caulfeild Apparel Group, said of the collection on the company’s website. “This iconic figure and his legendary music, art and personal style remain at the forefront of the collection. I wanted the collection to be eclectic and vibrant with a modern feel.”

And 2015 was a good year for the middle class, as median household income rose to $56,516, a 5.2 percent increase from the previous year, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week. The rise is the first increase in median income since 2007, the year before the Great Recession started, according to CNNMoney.

DOWN

It’s not good to be Wells Fargo at the moment, as the bank chain has been at the center of controversy since it was revealed that employees at the bank have opened more than 2 million bank and credit card accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge as a way to generate more fees for the bank and meet lofty sales goals for employees since 2011.

Wells Fargo settled the investigation, which was sparked by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Los Angeles prosecutor, last week by agreeing to pay a fine of $185 million. About 5,300 employees, or 1 percent of Wells Fargo’s workforce, were fired as a result of the scandal.

Millennials don’t seem to be feeling Banana Republic any longer, according to a study by RBC Capital Markets. Forty-eight percent of millennials polled said they disliked the chain, compared to only 22 percent who said they liked it. This is not going to help the fashion retailer reverse its declining sales figures.

And headphone wires might be the biggest loser this week — at least, if Apple has anything to say about it.

When the electronics giant unveiled its latest iPhone 7 models late last week, one of the first things that almost everybody noticed was that the phone was lacking the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack. Apple claims to have removed the jack to make room for other things in the phone, like a larger battery for longer life, but many consumers want to know how they are going to listen to their tunes on the new smartphone without having to purchase costly Bluetooth-enabled headphones.