This is a preview of The Podcast Report from Business Insider Intelligence. Current subscribers can read the report here.

• The number of US podcast consumers has more than doubled in the past decade — and there's still a long runway for growth.
• And the podcast listenership base continues to grow in the US amid declines in consumption of other premium ad environments.
• Entertainers, music streaming platforms, and smart speakers will play a role in furthering podcast listenership growth throughout the next five years.

Are your social circles and online feeds always buzzing with everyone’s latest podcast obsession? The number of US podcast consumers has more than doubled over the last decade. And by 2023, Business Insider Intelligence estimates there will be some 106 million regular podcast listeners in the US.

People are getting hooked on audio from a young age, too. Over a quarter (26%) of US consumers over age 12 now listen to podcasts on a monthly basis, a jump from just 12% five years ago.

And while the growing listener base is a huge draw for advertisers, it’s not the real reason they should be exploring podcast campaigns. After all, more than half of overall daily media consumption time in the US is now spent with video. Even so, podcasts have the upper hand.

Why should brands advertise on podcasts?

US podcast ad spend is expected to grow over 110% through 2020 — up to $659 million. But consider for a moment that TV and radio ad spend are already at $69 billion and $18 billion respectively, and this figure suddenly feels tiny. The podcast ad market’s small size implies many brands don’t recognize the valuable advertising opportunity podcasts offer.

When looking at factors beyond pure audience size, podcast listeners present several key benefits that make the medium ripe for success for advertising — and brands would be remiss to overlook them.

Here’s why brands should take podcast listeners seriously:

• The majority of regular podcast listeners complete all or most of the podcasts they start. Forty-four percent of monthly podcast listeners finish most of the podcast episodes they start, while 43% finish the entire episode, per Edison Research and Triton Digital.
• Listeners are more receptive to ads on podcasts than ads on other mediums. Of US respondents over the age of 18, 55% say they always or sometimes pay attention to podcast ads versus radio (45%), TV (44%), music streaming services (41%), and online video (34%) ads.
• Most podcast listeners don't skip past ads. Because most podcast ads are read by the host and baked into podcasts, it can be difficult for listeners to easily and accurately skip past podcast ads without missing podcast content, spurring many to listen through podcast ads entirely.

Want to Learn More?

The Podcast Report from Business Insider Intelligence explores the key drivers affecting podcast listenership growth, detailing the benefits of advertising on podcasts versus other media formats, and outlines the best practices for implementing a successful podcast ad campaign.

In full, the report discusses the barriers that will inhibit future growth in listenership and ad spending, and how these hurdles can be overcome to implement a successful podcast ad campaign and attract more big-budget brands into the space.

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• Online shopping continues to evolve.
• Amazon is reportedly trying to stop selling items it deems "CRaP"— consumable goods that have thin margins and "can't realize a profit," like bottled water and snacks.
• This could represent an opportunity for other players like Boxed, which employs a different sales model and relies on customers stocking up on this kind of item.
• Boxed has recently started initiatives to work closely with vendors like Coca-Cola as well.

After a rush to sell online, e-commerce players are now rethinking their strategy.

Online shopping is still evolving as customers' behavior changes, and stores have been tweaking free shipping thresholds and item selection to increase either market share or profitability.

"18 months ago — everyone thought, like, maybe selling single things of bottled water is not profitable," Chieh Huang, the CEO of Boxed, the bulk-shopping site sometimes referred to as the "Costco for millennials," recently told Business Insider.

One such tweak: Amazon is looking to move away from selling items it deems "CRaP"— which stands for "can't realize a profit"— and either shift those sales to third-party sellers or work with vendors to change the shape or size of packaged goods, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. These items are usually heavy or bulky, making them difficult or expensive to ship and resulting in slim or even nonexistent margins.

Read more:Amazon reportedly wants to curb selling 'CRaP' items it can't profit on, like bottled water and snacks

But one man's trash is another man's treasure. Huang says he sees opportunity in "CRaP" for Boxed.

"Might be crap for them, but it's OK for us," Huang said. "We make decent money on very similar stuff."

That's because Boxed has a different model from Amazon, Huang says, and how its customers shop differs, too. With its Prime membership, Amazon has taught customers not to worry about buying only one thing at a time, as all eligible items ship free in two days.

For Boxed, the story is different. The company only sells consumables like toilet paper and packaged foods, and only in bulk. It's that bulk mentality that leads to large average orders. 

"Stuff is labeled 'crap' when you ship it single in a box," Huang said.

He noted that the average order size at Boxed is between eight and 10 items. That shipping cost is divided between all of the items being sold, leading to a higher margin overall. Free shipping is only available for orders totaling more than $49.

Boxed's relatively limited selection with relation to categories also affects how people shop the website, keeping them focused on consumables.

"We see you're buying paper towels, would you like to also buy a baseball bat? Well, no not really," Huang said.

Still, Boxed is looking to expand its depth of selection, resulting in partnerships with vendors like Coca-Cola, which is selling an exclusive line of its Smartwater on the website. 

"We're working more and more with brands and even retailers," Huang recently told Business Insider's Kate Taylor in an interview."When you think about shipping bulky stuff — we've become really good at it. It's not like Coca-Cola is going to change its business model because people can't ship bulky stuff."

Amazon also works closely with Coca-Cola, including changing sizes to increase the average selling price per bottle of water and having it ship directly from the vendor to customers, according to the Journal.

SEE ALSO: Coca-Cola is debuting its new bottled water via the 'Costco for millennials' as Amazon tries to ditch water and other 'CRaP' products

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• Idris Elba is playing at Coachella.
• The news came as a shock to many who were surprised to see the actor's name on the set list.
• Elba has actually been moonlighting as a DJ since his teens and is passionate about music.
• He has collaborated with artists including Fatboy Slim and Skepta in the past.

The Coachella lineup has been announced, and there are plenty of surprises.

Childish Gambino, Tame Impala, and Ariana Grande headline this year's festival but Kanye West was nowhere to be seen despite rumours that he would headline after doing so for the first time in 2011.

Read more:The Coachella 2019 lineup is here, and Kanye West is nowhere to be found

Perhaps the most surprising name in the line-up, though, was also one of its most famous: Idris Elba.

Elba — who is known for his roles in "The Wire,""Luther," and the "Thor" films — also moonlights as a DJ and even has his own cocktail bar in London where he spins the decks.

People's current "Sexiest Man Alive" performs under the name DJ Big Driis and has been involved in music since he was a teen.

"Actors doing music is corny, I know that's what people think and I accept that,” he told The Voice in 2009. "But music has always been a way for me to express myself. Honestly, I hate pushing my music. I'm passionate about what I do, so to hear someone saying they hate it would be a bit like having someone say your child is ugly!"

Elba has collaborated with artists including Fatboy Slim and Skepta, but apparently has remained under the radar for many music fans.

"Why tf is Idris Elba on the setlist at Coachella lmfao," one person tweeted.

"WAIT THE IDRIS ELBA THING ISN'T A JOKE AND HE IS ACTUALLY A DJ!?!?!?!?!?!!" wrote another.

"What will he perform...a short play???" added someone else.

Music fans weren't the only ones surprised by the announcement — Elba's 17-year-old daughter Isan Elba, who is 2019's Golden Globes Ambassador, told E! News that her father hadn't even told her that he was playing the festival.

"I was literally looking at the lineup [...] I saw Virgil Abloh — love him — and then, right under that, I saw Idris Elba.

"He didn't tell me!" she said, adding: "We're in the same house and you can't even tell me? Why would you do that?"

Read more:10 things to know about Isan Elba, this year's Golden Globe Ambassador and daughter of Idris Elba

Not everyone was surprised though: "I guess all of the people freaking out about Idris Elba Being on the Coachella list don’t follow him on social media...where ALL HE TWEETS ABOUT IS BEING A DJ," wrote Gizmodo Entertainment Reporter Germain Lussier.

True enough, his Twitter account could be mistaken for that of any full-time DJ — he barely references his acting at all.

For any fans hoping to get a glimpse of what to expect from Elba's Coachella set, you can find his Spotify page here:

He's also appearing in a new Netflix comedy entitled "Turn Up Charlie," where he will play a struggling DJ and eternal bachelor, according to Variety. The series debuts March 15.

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• A New York law firm is garnering support for a shareholder lawsuit against Apple.
• That's after the company issued a shock revenue warning on Wednesday.
• Bernstein Liebhard said Apple CEO Tim Cook can't reconcile his November optimism about iPhone sales in China with Wednesday's warning, where he blamed China's slowing economy for poorer-than-expected sales.
• Apple has been ignoring the bigger reality about smartphones, which is that demand is slowing and they have become commoditised.

Apple has had its first whiff of legal action over its shock revenue downgrade on Wednesday, with New York law firm Bernstein Liebhard trying to garner support for a class-action lawsuit on behalf of shareholders.

In a press release on Wednesday, the law firm wrote: "Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, is investigating potential securities fraud claims on behalf of shareholders of Apple... resulting from allegations that Apple and/or its executives may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public."

It asks Apple shareholders to join the lawsuit, but isn't clear whether the firm actually has any claimants as yet. Business Insider has contacted the firm for comment.

Apple revealed on Wednesday that its fiscal first-quarter revenue would be 7% lower than expected, coming in at $84 billion. It had previously predicted revenue between $89 billion and $93 billion. The company pinned the blame on falling iPhone upgrades and the slowing Chinese economy, among other factors.

Bernstein Liebhard LLP's investigation hinges on the fact Cook failed to warn investors about any of this earlier.

The company wrote: "[On] November 1, 2018 during Apple's fourth quarter 2018 conference call, CEO Tim Cook stated that '[o]ur business in China was very strong last quarter. We grew 16%, which we’re very happy with. iPhone in particular was very strong, very strong double-digit growth there.'"

That same quarter, Apple would stop disclosing iPhone unit sales.

Read more: Apple's sweet talk about its $10.8 billion services business was totally undermined by Netflix

In interviews through 2018, Cook maintained that the US would resolve its trade dispute with China, but offered no warning it was hurting business.

"I'm optimistic because trade is one of those things where it's not a zero-sum game. You know you and I can trade something and we can both win. And so I'm optimistic that the two countries will sort this out and life will go on,"he told CNBC in September. 

Apple's troubles in China did not come as a great surprise to a number of analysts, given the open trade war and economic indicators. But it was the severity of the issues that caught some off guard. "We were surprised about the magnitude of the miss and the negative impact of China demand for iPhones," Citi said in a note this week.

As Bloomberg columnist Shira Ovide noted in a piece titled "Apple’s iPhone Warning Comes Years Too Late," Apple has also tried to ignore the bigger reality about smartphones.

Most people in the Western world probably own a smartphone of some kind and, as the devices become commoditised, it's harder for different companies to stand out.

Apple's solution to the "peak smartphone" problem was to raise iPhone prices, so it would continue generating huge revenue as and when people did upgrade. But likewise, any new innovation Apple can come up with often replicated by rivals in cheaper devices. In some cases, those rivals beat Apple to innovations like under-screen fingerprint scanning. That makes the iPhone's newer, steeper price harder for consumers to justify.

This may be why Apple talked up its services business, as a tacit admission that the iPhone wouldn't forever be the number one driver of its business.

Bernstein Liebhard is banking on the fact that disgruntled investors may have appreciated more straight-up honesty last year.

SEE ALSO: The $450 billion wipeout: Apple's value has fallen by more than Facebook's entire worth in three short months

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• China has released photos of its lunar rover leaving track marks on the far side of the moon after its historic landing.
• China's Chang'e 4 craft on Thursday became the first to successfully land on the far side.
• Its Yutu No. 2 rover has now started to make its way across the lunar surface.

New photos from China's space agency shows its lunar rover leaving tracks on the far side of the moon, at the start of a historic exploration mission.

China successfully landed the Chang'e 4 spacecraft on the moon's far side — also known as the "dark side" of the moon — on Thursday, which no nation had done before.

The new images from the moon's surface show the Yutu No. 2 rover after it left a ramp and began to move across the lunar surface.

A first image shows it at the end of the ramp:

And a second one showed it starting to drive off into the distance.

The pictures follow the first images from the landing, which were released on Thursday shortly after the landing.

China's mission is to learn more about the little-understood region of the moon, as well as to compete with the US and Russia as a powerhouse of space exploration.

Previous photos shared by China's National Space Administration show the first-ever close-ups of the far side of the moon's cratered surface.

Read More: China releases photos from the first mission to land on the far side of the moon

The rover has six powered wheels, which will let it keep working even if one of the wheels fails, according to the Associated Press.

It has a maximum speed of 0.1 miles per hour. It can climb a 20-degree hill or mount an obstacle up to 8 inches tall.

Rover designer Shen Zhenrong of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation told state broadcaster CCTV that the "surface is soft and it is similar to that when you are walking on the snow,"according to the Associated Press.

Wu Weiren, the chief designer of the Lunar Exploration Project, told CCTV that it was "a small step for the rover, but one giant leap for the Chinese nation."

China's landing was the first-ever successful "soft-landing," which means a landing without damage, on the far side of the moon. The first man-made object to hit the far side was NASA's Ranger 4 craft in 1964, which crashed after a system failure.

Read More:Humanity's coolest achievements in spaceflight since Apollo 8, from walking on the moon to touching interstellar space

CNSA said its objective to learn more about the far side of the moon, where much less is known compared to the side that humans have landed on.

The agency says it hopes to learn more about things like mineral composition and the structure of its surface, as well as learn more about the sun, other planets, and the origin of the stars.

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• An Italian man proposed to his flight attendant girlfriend on board an Emirates flight from Rome to Dubai.
• He enlisted the help of the crew and passengers, who had all decorated the cabin.
• She said yes, and called it "the most wonderful day of my life."

A couple has melted hearts across the world after a video of their engagement went viral.

Italian couple Stefano Inve and Vittoria Stabile got engaged at 35,000 feet.

Vittoria is a flight attendant for Emirates and thought she was simply working a normal shift as she boarded a flight from Rome to Dubai. Little did she know, it would turn out to be one of the most memorable flights of her life.

Stefano was on board and had enlisted the help of not only the rest of the crew but also the passengers in his elaborate proposal, which was captured on multiple cameras and posted on Emirates' social media channels.

Without Vittoria knowing, the cabin had been decorated with hearts and streamers hanging from the ceiling. 

When the flight attendant emerged from the galley, she was in complete shock at what she found — she was greeted by passengers giving her red roses, covering their faces with cardboard cut-outs of Stefano's, and holding up hearts and messages.

Read more: A male model proposed to his girlfriend with 6 different rings and let her choose which one she wanted

Clearly overcome with emotion, Vittoria walked down the aisle struggling to hold back tears.

By the time she reached the next galley, she had a full bouquet of roses and found her boyfriend waiting for her.

Stefano got down on one knee, popped the question, and Vittoria said yes, with the crowd around her blowing bubbles and holding up "S" and "V" balloons. 

The now groom-to-be slid a ring on to his fiancée's finger and the whole plane erupted in applause.

The video of the engagement has now had 550,000 views on Instagram, with many followers expressing their joy in response.

"Love is in the air," said one person.

"This is absolutely heartwarming," added another.

And the bride-to-be herself commented, "Thanks for sharing the most wonderful day of my life."

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• WithMe Health, a startup looking to take on the middlemen in the $360 billion U.S. prescription drug industry just raised $20 million from Oak HC/FT. 
• The company is meant to be a replacement for pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen responsible for negotiating discounts to the list price of medications on behalf of employers and health plans.
• WithMe is in talks with one employer, which spends about $300 million on medications a year, for its initial contract. 

WithMe Health, a startup that's trying to upend some of the middlemen that are part of the $360 billion drug industry, just raised $20 million. 

The funding comes from venture capital firm Oak HC/FT, where its founder and interim CEO, Chris Price is a partner. It's meant to be a "turnkey replacement" for pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen responsible for negotiating discounts to the list price of medications on behalf of health plans and employers. 

Price said Oak had been looking to make an investment in a new PBM, but hadn't come across one. Instead, Oak decided to start a replacement of its own.

"We ended up deciding that we should build it," Price told Business Insider. Price had been at a number of PBMs over the years, seeing the cycle of them getting bought up into bigger businesses. 

The company will face stiff competition from entrenched rivals, and it isn't the first to try to disrupt the industry.  Express Scripts (now part of Cigna), CVS Caremark and UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx together make up about 90% of the PBM market.

One of the ways PBMs negotiate lower drug prices with manufacturers is by using their size to get a better deal. That automatically puts new companies like WithMe at a disadvantage.

Price said he was worried that drug manufacturers wouldn't even meet with him, but so he's had a good response. 

"They're willing to change and drive evolution of this," Price said. 

WithMe plans to start by working with self-insured employers. For many Americans, their employers are the ones picking up the tab for the healthcare. More than half of the non-elderly population is covered by an employer-sponsored plan, and almost 80% of large companies are self-insured. As healthcare costs go up, employers are tthe pressure, and some are starting to get fed up.

While WithMe doesn't yet have any clients, the hope is that companies will turn to it as they seek to shape up how they provide healthcare.

Read more: A failed deal with Boeing taught a $23 billion health system 5 key lessons about how to work with big companies to shake up healthcare

What WithMe plans to do differently

For a single prescription drug, there are often five companies involved, from development all the way to your medicine cabinet. These companies are responsible for everything from making the drug and setting its price to distribution to your local pharmacy, negotiating how much you're expected to pay for it, and covering the rest of the cost. Each company makes a profit along the way.

A big criticism of the current way that PBMs do business is that often, as drug prices increase, so do those profits. PBMs say their goal is to lower the overall cost of medications.

The rise of high-deductible health plans is also adding to the scrutiny of PBMs. That's because at the pharmacy counter, individuals on those plans can be on the hook for the full list price of drugs, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

That amount doesn't factor in a key payment that acts as a discount to the list price drugmakers set, known as a rebate. Those rebates, worth more than $100 billion a year, are a big way that PBMs generate their profits.

Where WithMe plans to be different is that it won't make money off of rebates or dispensing fees. Instead, it'll get paid a fixed fee for each of its members each month, and allow employers to go through and keep tabs on the transactions that get processed to make sure they're not taking any additional money. It'll also factor in over-the-counter medications and medications administered in the hospital. 

To start, Price said WithMe is in talks with a Fortune 100 employer, ideally to start working with them in 2019. Price said the employer spends about $300 million a year on medications. 

• Read more:
• A startup that could be Amazon's next takeover target just raised $50 million to help people manage their prescriptions
• A former Amazon executive made a big mistake when he first joined a major hospital system, and it could be a warning for tech companies trying to shake up healthcare
• 10 surprises that could rock biotech stocks in 2019, from success in Alzheimer's to a stumble in depression 10 surprises that could rock biotech stocks in 2019, from success in Alzheimer's to a stumble in depression
• Bristol-Myers Squibb and Celgene said their huge merger has about $2.5 billion in 'synergies.' That should make employees nervous.

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• The Labor Department is set to release its official December employment report Friday.
• It's expected to show an increase in hiring and wage growth after a modest November.
• The report comes at a tumultuous time in financial markets.

Providing the latest snapshot of the US economy, the Labor Department’s December employment report out Friday will likely show hiring and wages picked up at the end of 2018.

Economists expect the report out at 8:30 a.m. ET will show nonfarm payrolls rose by 184,000 jobs last month, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would come after the job market fell short of expectations in November, when 155,000 jobs were added.

The unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 3.7%, its lowest level since 1969 during the Vietnam draft. Following modest gains of 0.2% in November, economists estimate average hourly earnings rose 0.3% last month.

A strong employment report could offer some relief to global markets, which have reeled in recent months from a flood of concerns including slowing economic growth. In the US, stocks ended their worst year since 2008 on Monday.

"The drop in stock prices likely will depress the numbers somewhat over the next couple of months, but for now all the indicators of labor demand we follow are very robust," said Ian Sheperdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Data out this week have fanned fears that the nine-year economic expansion is running out of steam. Alongside trade tensions and rising rates, an increasing number of economists have even forecast a recession could begin by 2020.

On Thursday, a gauge of factory activity in the US fell by the most in a decade. That followed weaker-than-expected manufacturing figures from the eurozone and China, underscoring expectations for other major economies around the world to slow.

But employment components of the latest regional surveys and initial claims data suggest labor demand remains strong, according to Lewis Alexander, an analyst at Nomura.

"We expect the December employment report to remind markets that the US growth outlook remains stable despite financial market volatility," he said.

SEE ALSO: Global stocks are enjoying their first good day of 2019 after China and US agree fresh trade talks

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Automakers are on the verge of a prolonged period of rapid change to the way they do business, thanks to the combined disruptive forces of growing on-demand mobility services and self-driving cars, which will start to come to market in the next couple of years.

By the end of 2019, Google spinoff Waymo, Uber, and GM all plan to have fleets of autonomous cars deployed in various US cities to provide on-demand rides for passengers. By eliminating the cost of the driver, these rides are expected to be far cheaper than typical Uber or Lyft rides, and even cheaper than owning a car for personal transportation.

Many industry experts are predicting that such cheap on-demand autonomous rides service will result in a long-term decline in car ownership rates — PwC predicts that the total number of cars on the road in the US and EU will drop from 556 million last year to 416 million in 2030.

This decline in car ownership represents an enormous threat to automakers’ traditional business models, forcing them to find alternative revenue sources. Many of these automakers, including GM, Ford, and Daimler, have plans to launch their own on-demand ride-hailing services with fleets of self-driving cars they will manufacture, potentially giving them a new stream of recurring revenue. This could set them up to take a sizeable share of a market that is expected to be worth trillions by 2030.

However, competing in the on-demand mobility market will pit legacy automakers against ride-hailing services from startups and tech giants that have far greater experience in acquiring and engaging consumers through digital channels. To succeed in what will likely be a hyper-competitive market for urban ride-hailing, automakers will have to foster new skill sets in their organizations, and transform from companies that primarily produce vehicles to ones that also manage vehicle fleets and customer relationships.

That will entail competing with startups and tech giants for software development and data science talent, as well as reforming innovation processes to keep pace with digital trendsetters. Automakers will also need to create unique mobile app and in-car experiences to lure customers. Finally, these automakers will face many overall barriers in the market, including convincing consumers that self-driving cars are safe, and dealing with a complex and evolving regulatory landscape.

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, delves into the future of the on-demand mobility space, focusing on how automakers will use fleets of self-driving vehicles to break into an emerging industry that's been dominated thus far by startups like Uber and Lyft. We examine how the advent of autonomous vehicles will reshape urban transportation, and the impact it will have on traditional automakers. We then detail how automakers can leverage their core strengths to create new revenue sources with autonomous mobility services, and explore the key areas they'll need to gain new skills and capabilities in to compete with mobility startups and tech giants that are also eyeing this opportunity. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• The low cost of autonomous taxis will eventually lead car ownership rates among urban consumers to decline sharply, putting automakers’ traditional business models at risk.
• Many automakers plan to launch their own autonomous ride-hailing services with the self-driving cars they're developing to replace losses from declining car sales, putting them in direct competition with mobility startups and tech giants looking to launch similar services.
• Additionally, automakers plan to maximize utilization of their autonomous on-demand vehicles by performing last-mile deliveries, which will force them to compete with a variety of players in the parcel logistics industry.
• Regulatory pressures could also push automakers to consider alternative mobility services besides on-demand taxis, such as autonomous on-demand shuttle or bus services.
• Providing these types of services will force automakers to make drastic changes to their organizations to acquire new talent and skills, and not all automakers will succeed at that.

In full, the report:

• Forecasts the growth of autonomous on-demand ride-hailing services in the US.
• Examines the cost benefits of such services for consumers, and how they will reshape consumers’ transportation habits.
• Details the different avenues for automakers to monetize the growth of autonomous ride-hailing.
• Provides an overview of the various challenges that all players in the self-driving car space will need to overcome to monetize their investments in these new technologies in the coming years.
• Explains the key factors that will be critical for automakers to succeed in this emerging market.
• Offers examples of how automakers can differentiate their apps and services from competitors’.

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When I first heard about an app that promises the benefits of a sweaty bike ride or trip to the gym in seven minutes, I assumed it was all hype.

It isn't.

Designed by exercise physiologist Chris Jordan, the Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout gets your heart pumping and helps build muscle.

The app is a great introduction to a trendy type of fitness routine called interval training, and it's ideal for weekends or days when I can't make it to my regular yoga class.

Since it first debuted five years ago, the app has soared in popularity, something Jordan told Business Insider he didn't see coming.

"To be honest I don’t think we realized the popularity that this app would have," he said. "We've been incredibly pleasantly surprised that this has worked for so many."

Here's what the latest version of the app is like.

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The entire workout really takes just seven minutes. I was initially skeptical about whether I could accomplish this much in such a narrow time frame.

The program consists of 72 exercises like jumping jacks, sit-ups, and push-ups. Ten require nothing but your body, and for others, you just need a chair that can support your weight. The latest version of the app lets you do each exercise along with Jordan.

To do my workout, I set up a yoga mat on the hardwood floor of my office and used a stool.

• On Tuesday, an 11-year-old boy potentially died after he smelled, but did not eat, cooked fish at his grandmother's house, INSIDER previously reported.
• According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI), people with fish allergies should avoid areas where fish is being cooked"as proteins may be released into the air during cooking" and cause an allergic reaction.
• When airborne, certain foods like fish and nuts can cause severe allergic reactions like anaphylaxis, which can hinder a person's breathing to the point of death if left untreated, ACAAI explained.

A heartbreaking story about a boy who may have died from the smell of fish is helping to raise awareness about the severity of food allergies, especially airborne ones. On Tuesday, an 11-year-old boy died after he smelled, but did not eat, cooked fish at his grandmother's house, INSIDER previously reported.

A spokesperson from the NYPD told INSIDER that the boy potentially died from a fish allergy when his body sensed the food in the air as it was cooked. 

When they found the boy, Camron Jean-Pierre, unconscious, they took him to the hospital where he was ultimately pronounced dead. His father said he tried to revive him with a nebulizer, a device that turns liquid medications into mists, but was unsuccessful, The New York Post reported.

Jean-Pierre's extreme reaction to fish is more common than you may think. A 2009 study on food hypersensitivity through inhalation found that out of 197 children who were allergic to fish through consumption, 21 of them also showed signs they were allergic to fish through inhalation of its smell.

Some food particles that cause allergic reactions can be spread through the air, putting people with allergies in harm's way

Adding potential allergens to food labels and asking about food allergies before serving dinner are common practices for keeping people with food allergies safe, but few people realize the dangers of airborne allergens.

According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI), people with fish allergies should avoid areas where fish is being cooked"as proteins may be released into the air during cooking" and cause an allergic reaction. 

Read more: Signs your food sensitivity is actually an allergy 

Medical professionals, as well as public figures, are trying to raise awareness about the risk of airborne allergic reactions. One of those public figures is "Real Housewives of New York" star Bethenny Frankel who, according to USA Today, recently had to have a plane rerouted after learning fish was being cooked on board. 

"Called airline (multiple times) to say I have fish allergy. Got on & they're serving bass,"Frankel shared on Twitter. "They couldn't not serve it they said." 

After reliving the ordeal, she reminded people that when fish is transmitted by air, it can be "fatal." 

Unless a person has the proper medication, these airborne particles can be fatal

When airborne, certain foods like fish and nuts can cause severe allergic reactions like anaphylaxis, which can hinder a person's breathing to the point of death if left untreated, ACAAI explained. This allergic reaction occurs when the body senses an allergen and the immune system overcompensates with chemicals, causing hives, chest tightness, trouble swallowing, and trouble breathing, among other symptoms, according to ACAAI.

Oftentimes, anaphylaxis can be life-threatening, especially if a person doesn't have the right medicine to treat the reaction, the Mayo Clinic explained. The only way to stop anaphylaxis is through the injection of epinephrine, a drug that must be prescribed by a healthcare provider. Then, a person has to go to the emergency room. According to the Mayo Clinic, if a person does not have epinephrine, they should go to the emergency room right away.

In severe cases, a person going through this reaction could stop breathing and their heart could stop beating, making CPR a requirement, the Mayo Clinic said on its website.

If you think someone around you is experiencing this potentially fatal reaction, which might appear in the form of clammy skin and trouble breathing, the Mayo Clinic recommends calling 911 right away and administering CPR if needed.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

• Read more:
• The story of how my 9-month-old boy almost died just because he ate a cashew
• 'Hypoallergenic' beauty products claim they won't trigger allergies — but you can't always trust them
• If you suffer from allergies, here's how you can find relief without a prescription
•  

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NOW WATCH: A Harvard psychologist reveals the secret to curbing your appetite

• The Phoenix, Arizona care facility where a woman gave birth while in a vegetative state after presumably being raped was cited just last year for another instance of alleged inappropriate behavior.
• According to Arizona Department of Health Services records, Hacienda Skilled Nursing Facility was cited on January 25, 2018, for not treating a resident "with dignity, respect, and consideration."
• The report details how a nursing assistant complained that another nursing assistant walked through a bathroom while a male patient was bathing naked.
• The patient told the inspector that it "happened on many occasions" and "made him feel uncomfortable."

An Arizona nursing facility made headlines this week when a patient, who has been in a vegetative state for more than a decade, gave birth to a baby — sparking a sexual assault investigation.

INSIDER has since reviewed Arizona Department of Health Services public records that reveal another disturbing incident that inspectors cited the for facility a year ago.

On January 25, 2018, the Hacienda Skilled Nursing Facility was cited for failing to treat a resident with "dignity, respect, and consideration."

According to the records, an inspector spoke with a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at the facility on December 11, 2017, who complained about an incident that happened a month prior.

She said she was assisting a quadriplegic resident out of the shower one day when another CNA entered the room who "just wanted to talk with her."

The nurse's assistant explained to the department inspector that the shower is situated between two adjoining resident rooms and that other staff members often "enter and exit the shower rooms while residents are being showered." She said it has "become a bad habit and is a dignity problem."

The inspector went on to interview the patient involved, who confirmed that staff have walked in on his showers "on many occasions" and that "it made him feel uncomfortable."

An interview was also conducted with the nurse who walked in on him during the incident initially reported. She said that "she has gone into the shower room while a resident was being showered, even through she was not asked to assist."

"She stated she has observed many staff enter a shower room, while a resident was being showered to either get to the adjoining room, or get some supplies (urinals) or dispose of something in the waste containers that are often stored in the shower rooms," the report reads.

She admitted that it probably made the residents "uncomfortable" and was "a dignity problem."

Read more: Police are investigating a sexual assault after a woman who has been in a vegetative state for over a decade gave birth

It's unclear how the facility rectified the issue in order to receive their recertification, which the state issued on April 3, 2018, and is valid through May 31, 2019.

INSIDER reached out to the facility's parent company for comment but did not immediately receive a response on Friday.

The incident involving the patient who became pregnant while in a vegetative state has prompted a sexual assault investigation by local police.

A source told CBS affiliate Arizona's Family that staffers didn't know the woman was pregnant until she went into labor on Saturday. A nurse at the facility delivered the baby, who is alive and healthy.

The woman has been a patient at the facility for more than a decade, after a near-drowning incident left her in a vegetative state.

• Read more:
• Ellen DeGeneres opened up about being 'a victim of sexual abuse' and how she's 'furious' that victims aren't believed
• Experts share 5 tips for talking to your kids about sexual harassment
• A 41-year-old woman had a baby growing 'behind her ribs' — but had no idea until she went into labor

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NOW WATCH: A Harvard psychologist reveals the secret to curbing your appetite

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Emerging markets are going to be essential for e-commerce growth, as retailers in developed markets may soon reach saturation in terms of consumer growth.

For example, almost half of US households now have a Prime membership, diminishing Amazon's growth potential in the country. Meanwhile, in China, the world's largest e-commerce market, nearly half of the population is actively making online purchases, leaving little room for growth. 

However, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are worth keeping an eye on. E-commerce penetration rates in these areas hover between 2-6%, presenting a huge opportunity for future growth as online sales gain traction. Moreover, these regions are expected to grow at compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) of 31%, 32%, and 16%, respectively, through 2021.

This report compiles several e-commerce snapshots, which together highlight the most notable emerging markets in various regions. Each provides an overview of the e-commerce industry in a particular country, discusses influential retailers, and provides insights into the opportunities and challenges for that specific domestic industry.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Emerging markets are going to be essential for e-commerce growth, as retailers in developed markets may soon reach saturation in terms of consumer growth.
• India is the clear overall leader in e-commerce potential, but countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America are also worth keeping an eye on. Within Southeast Asia, Indonesia shows the most promise for retailers, as the government is loosening restrictions on foreign investments, and its massive population is gaining spending power and more access to internet. Meanwhile, Mexico is a retailer's best bet for expansion in Latin America, due to its stable economy and rising middle class, but Brazil may be gearing up to steal the top spot.
• However, doing business in these regions can be difficult. In most of these emerging markets, infrastructure is underdeveloped and the population is largely unbanked, making digital payments a challenge.
• If retailers can build a brand presence in these markets while online shopping is still in its nascent stages, they may become market leaders as e-commerce takes off in the regions. Moreover, these markets could provide new sources of growth for companies that would otherwise stagnate in more mature e-commerce markets.

 In full, the report:

• Explores the e-commerce industry in India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
• Highlights the leading country in each region, as well as key e-commerce players there. 
• Outlines the challenges and opportunities each region faces.
• Gives insight into how these emerging markets may shape the future of e-commerce.

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• Schools in China are dressing students in "smart uniforms" embedded with GPS trackers to allow parents and teachers to confirm their whereabouts and behavior in real time.
• When a child enters the school, classroom, or dormitory a short video confirms a GPS recording of the time and date.
• "It is hard to parent a teenager, and I need all the help I can get," one parent told the state-run newspaper China Daily.

Schools in Guizhou province and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region are using "smart uniforms" embedded with GPS trackers to make sure students do not skip class, and to assure parents of their children's attendance and safety, China Daily reported this week.

Nine schools in Guizhou and two in Guangxi have introduced the tracking uniforms.

Guangxi is a poorer province in China and faces higher rates of truancy.

Chip developers Guizhou Guanyu Technology said in a statement that the time and date are recorded after students who are wearing the high-tech uniforms enter the school. The students' movements at that point are also capture on video, which parents can view on a connected mobile app.

Facial-recognition technology is designed to prevent children from improperly swapping uniforms.

For the willing truants, skipping classes triggers an alarm that notifies teachers and parents. If a student walked off the school grounds without permission, a voice alarm is activated.

China is a world leader in developing and applying technology for surveillance.

The Communist Party has been increasing surveillance efforts in the Xinjiang region as part of an ongoing crackdown on the Uighur Muslim population.

And even in the big cities, most of the wealthy electric-car drivers aren't even aware that their vehicles could be collecting data and sending it back to "government-backed monitoring centers."

Wang Ping, head of the labor union at Xiuwen High School in Guizhou, told state media that almost 1,000 first-graders have been wearing the tech-laden uniforms for over a month.

Students have two summer uniforms and two for winter, each reportedly costs 320 yuan ($47) in total — about the same price as common uniforms, China Daily reports.

Xiuwen High School parent Zhao Shengyong said he is happy with the uniform's monitoring function.

"The school is a boarding school, so it is hard for me to parent my son at home. This uniform can put some pressure on him and let him know that I will be notified if he skips classes," he told China Daily.

"It is hard to parent a teenager, and I need all the help I can get."

A spokesman told China Daily that, aside from developing the technology, the company is committed to protecting privacy and only parents and teachers can access the information gathered.

Reporting on the smart uniforms has been circulating in state media, reflecting the Communist Party's willingness to openly discuss, encourage, and normalize individual surveillance.

Under the growing authority of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Communist-run state is quickly becoming a digital autocracy, with vast networks of surveillance intersecting with draconian means of control.

In November, China rolled out surveillance software in Beijing and Shanghai which authorities say can identify people from their walking style, even with their backs turned and faces hidden.

The growth of China's surveillance technology comes as the state rolls out an ambitious "social credit system" threatening to rank citizens through conformity and behavior, rewarding and punishing people in various ways, depending on their accumulative scores.

SEE ALSO: China is building a vast civilian surveillance network — here are 10 ways it could be feeding its creepy 'social credit system'

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NOW WATCH: The reason some men can't grow full beards, according to a dermatologist

• Over the years, I've driven every car Tesla has ever produced.
• They've all been good, but features of individual models have stood out.
• Here's a rundown of what I love about the Tesla original Roadster, the Model S, and the Model X, and the Model 3.

I wrote my first words about Tesla in January 2008. In the ten years since, the company has gone from selling one car to selling three, and from delivering a few thousand vehicles the early 2010s to 250,000 in 2018.

As it turns out, I've driven every model the company has ever sold, starting with the now-discontinued original Roadster to the highest-spec version of the new Model 3 sedan.

Read more: Tesla's $2,000 price cut doesn't mean it has a demand problem.

Each of the vehicles has its particular charms, quirks, and appealing features. I found myself reflecting on them at the beginning of 2019 as we look forward to some new machines from Elon Musk's plucky automaker: the Model Y SUV, a new Roadster, and perhaps even a pickup truck.

Here are all my favorite features on all the Teslas I've driven:

FOLLOW US: On Facebook for more car and transportation content!

SEE ALSO: Tesla's core business of selling Model S and Model X vehicles is holding up, but no one is paying attention

1. Original Roadster. The first Tesla to hit the road, this straightforward electric sports car captured hearts and changed minds — an EV didn't have to be a glorified golf cart! Now discontinued, the original Roadster can still be picked up used.

Read the review »

It's still my favorite Tesla, although the Model 3 has me rethinking that position. I love its open-air style.

But what I truly adore is the simple joy of driving it. The speed is electric lightning: 0-to-60 mph in under 4 seconds. And the feedback-heavy steering is point-and-shoot. Driving this car of the future is surprisingly old-school.

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Edge computing solutions are key tools that help companies grapple with rising data volumes across industries. These types of solutions are critical in allowing companies to gain more control over the data their IoT devices create and in reducing their reliance on (and the costs of) cloud computing.

These systems are becoming more sought-after — 40% of companies that provide IoT solutions reported that edge computing came up more in discussion with customers in 2017 than the year before, according to Business Insider Intelligence’s 2017 Global IoT Executive Survey. But companies need to know whether they should look into edge computing solutions, and what in particular they can hope to gain from shifting data processing and analysis from the cloud to the edge.

There are three particular types of problems that edge computing solutions are helping to combat across industries:

• Security issues. Edge computing can limit the exposure of critical data by minimizing how often it’s transmitted. Further, they pre-process data, so there’s less data to secure overall.
• Access issues. These systems help to provide live insights regardless of whether there’s a network connection available, greatly expanding where companies and organizations can use connected devices and the data they generate.
• Transmission efficiency. Edge computing solutions process data where it’s created so less needs to be sent to the cloud, leading to lower cloud storage requirements and reduced transmission cost.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence examines how edge computing is reducing companies' reliance on cloud computing in three key industries: healthcare, telecommunications, and the automotive space. We explore how these systems mitigate issues in each sector by helping to efficiently process growing troves of data, expanding the potential realms of IoT solutions a company can offer, and bringing enhanced computing capability to remote and mobile platforms.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• In healthcare, companies and organizations are using edge computing to improve telemedicine and remote monitoring capabilities.
• For telecommunications companies, edge computing is helping to reduce network congestion and enabling a shift toward the IoT platform market.
• And in the automotive space, edge computing systems are enabling companies to increase the capabilities of connected cars and trucks and approach autonomy.

In full, the report:

• Explores the key advantages edge computing solutions can provide.
• Highlights the circumstances when companies should look into edge systems.
• Identifies key vendors and partners in specific industries while showcasing case studies of successful edge computing programs.

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• An old Pottermore article revealing the pre-18th century bathroom habits of wizards has resurfaced.
• In a tweet, the "Harry Potter" site reminded fans that Hogwarts "didn't always have bathrooms."
• "Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence," a tweet read.
• We have questions.
• Where does vanished excrement go? What do younger witches and wizards do? Do witches and wizards just leave their robes on? How does this work if the Chamber of Secrets was built in a bathroom centuries earlier?

Pottermore, the digital site dedicated to articles and news from "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling, resurfaced a trivia fact about the wizarding world that most people wish they could unlearn as quickly as possible. 

"Hogwarts didn't always have bathrooms," the Pottermore tweet read. "Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence."

If you, like us, read this tweet shortly after it was shared on Friday (and hadn't previously encountered this old Pottermore article), then you spend the better part of your day mulling over its implications. We did the extra work for you and have outlined every question this not-so-fun fact has raised, starting with the most philosophical quandary of all.

Where does vanished excrement go?

For those familiar with the books, you'll know that Professor McGonagall is asked this general question in Rowling's seventh novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The Ravenclaw common room requires its would-be entrants to correctly answer a question before they can go inside. 

"Where do Vanished objects go?" the door knocker asks McGonagall. 

"Into non-being, which is to say, everything," she replies. 

So if you vanish away the contents of a toilet (well, in the case there's no toilet but you understand the hypothetical here) does that matter just go ... into everything? Like your food? Or eyes? Or Transfiguration homework? McGonagall's answer invokes a sort of molecular science, as if you vanish an object by breaking it into teeny minuscule pieces and scattering them into the universe.

Applying pseudo-scientific theory to fictional magic might be silly but Pottermore has provided us with this hypothetical scenario and therefore logic has to follow. We didn't ask for this! 

What do younger witches and wizards do?

As a lot of folks on Twitter pointed out, the Vanishing spell isn't taught until fifth year. So what did the younger students do? Was there a prefect on bathroom duty in the hallways?

And how about the youngsters still at home?

Potty training seems bad enough for muggle parents with young toddlers, but to have magical kids "relieve themselves" wherever they stand and need to vanish it for them sounds like a Wizard-parents' nightmare. And again, the impracticality of this is staggering. What if they need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night? Or at school? Or while out in public? 

Do the witches and wizards just ... leave their robes on? 

In the books, Hogwarts students wear school robes at all times. The Muggle clothing like jeans and sweaters was only adopted for the movies, since black wizard robes are a rather monotonous visual. 

But we can't stop imagining teenage wizards just crouching down in the hallway and...going to the bathroom on the floor? The Pottermore tweet says "wherever they stood" but good gracious we don't want to think about people doing this while standing.

Tangentially, why wouldn't they just vanish the contents of their bowels while said contents are still inside their body?

How does this work if the Chamber of Secrets was built in a bathroom centuries earlier?

Well this answer is actually where the trivia question originated. As Pottermore tweeted, the site's original Chamber of Secrets article says the hidden room was originally accessed by trap door. The "new" Hogwarts plumbing (again, this wasn't installed in the eighteenth century, long after outhouses were invented) "threatened" the entrance but another Slytherin wizard sorted it out.

Here's that section in the Pottermore article:

There is clear evidence that the Chamber was opened more than once between the death of Slytherin and the entrance of Tom Riddle in the twentieth century. When first created, the Chamber was accessed through a concealed trapdoor and a series of magical tunnels.

However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence), the entrance to the Chamber was threatened, being located on the site of a proposed bathroom.

The presence in school at the time of a student called Corvinus Gaunt – direct descendant of Slytherin, and antecedent of Tom Riddle – explains how the simple trapdoor was secretly protected, so that those who knew how could still access the entrance to the Chamber even after newfangled plumbing had been placed on top of it.

Why did it take so long for Hogwarts to get on board with a private place for people to relieve themselves?

"During the 11th-century castle-building boom, chamber pots were supplemented with toilets that were, for the first time, actually integrated into the architecture," a Smithsonian article on the history of toilets says.

If you're a "Game of Thrones" fan, the article helpfully points out that the "bathroom" Tywin Lannister is in during the fourth season finale is a perfect example of this architecture. Surely the Hogwarts professors would have been able to retro-fit the castle with one of these?

What about muggle-borns? What did they do when they got to Hogwarts?

Even before the 18th century plumbing, muggle-born witches and wizards would have grown up with an alternative way of going to the bathroom. One reply to the Pottermore tweets shows a group of "Harry Potter" fans posturing this very good point. 

Going from whatever method of bathroom you had to the ol' "relieve yourself in the hallway" gambit must have been tricky.

Can we please delete this Pottermore fact and go back to not knowing this?

In the decade since Rowling's last published "Harry Potter" book there have been many, many revelations about the wizarding world that fans wish had been left unsaid. Sometimes these facts have been sad but innocuous, like Hagrid being unable to ever produce a Patronus. But others, like Rowling's reveal that Dumbledore is gay (only to disappoint fans by withholding meaningful representation of his sexuality) are more serious.

This is clearly an example of the former. Innocuous? Sure. But resulting in a lot of eyebrow-raising among fans? Definitely. If only we all had time-turners and could zoom back to the past when we didn't know this, much like the time Moaning Myrtle once zoomed into the Great Lake with the contents of a toilet.

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• Dr. Lara Kollab, a former medical resident who was dismissed after her anti-Semitic tweets made several years ago were uncovered, released a statement apologizing for her remarks.
• Kollab said she made the statements between 2011 to 2017, when she was in her teens and twenties. She now says she wants to "sincerely and unequivocally" apologize for what she called "offensive and hurtful language."
• She stressed that she understood the timeline of her posts did not excuse her from "causing pain, anguish, and a public outcry," and said her past remarks are not reflective of her character today.

Dr. Lara Kollab, a former medical resident who was dismissed after her anti-Semitic tweets made several years ago were uncovered, released a statement apologizing for her remarks.

Kollab said she made the statements between 2011 to 2017, when she was in her teens and twenties. She now says she wants to "sincerely and unequivocally" apologize for what she called "offensive and hurtful language."

"These posts were made years before I was accepted into medical school, when I was a naïve, and impressionable girl barely out of high school," Kollab said. "I matured into a young adult during the years I attended college and medical school, and adopted strong values of inclusion, tolerance, and humanity."

Kollab stressed that she understood the timeline of her posts did not excuse her from "causing pain, anguish, and a public outcry," and said it was not reflective of her character today. The former resident, who said she visited Israel and the Palestine Territories numerous times in her teens, was moved by "the suffering of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation."

"I had difficulty constructively expressing my intense feelings about what I witnessed in my ancestral land," Kollab said.

"Like many young people lacking life experience, I expressed myself by making insensitive remarks and statements of passion devoid of thought, not realizing the harm and offense these words would cause."

"I have learned from this experience and am sorry for the pain I have caused," Kollab added. "I pray that the Jewish community will understand and forgive me."

Kollab's remarks were first reported on by Canary Mission, a group that exposes anti-Semitism stemming from college campuses in the US.

Among her numerous tweets, Kollab claimed she "purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds" and described Touro College, the Jewish-founded college in New York she attended, as "annoying" because it was "in a city full of Jews," according to Canary Mission.

The Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday confirmed in a statement that a "former employee" was no longer working at the Clinic after their comments on social media were discovered.

"In no way do these beliefs reflect those of our organization," the hospital said in a statement. "We fully embrace diversity, inclusion and a culture of safety and respect across our entire health system."

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NOW WATCH: Bernie Madoff was arrested 10 years ago today — here's what his life is like in prison

Retailers and their logistics partners have been pushed to meet growing customer demands for increasingly speedy shipping. And the steady rise of e-commerce has caused the daily volume of parcel shipments to skyrocket — two trends that, for the foreseeable future, are only going to continue.

With fulfillment giants like Amazon constantly nipping at their heels, e-tailers have to fight to figure out a way to offer same-day shipping at low prices. To do so, they’re experimenting with nontraditional logistics strategies and startup partners to see what sticks.

Enter crowdsourced delivery — the Uber model for package fulfillment. In this article, we’ll take a look at what it is, why it’s growing, and the future of same-day shipping.

What is crowdsourced delivery?

Crowdsourced delivery, also known as crowdsourced shipping, is an emerging method of fulfillment that leverages networks of local, non-professional couriers to deliver packages to customers’ doors. While most common in meal and grocery delivery, this model seems to be springing up everywhere as traditional retailers look for ways to cut costs and maximize supply chain efficiency.

Why crowdsourced delivery?

Crowdsourced delivery is beneficial for both retailers and their customers, with the primary advantage simply being that companies can get online orders to their customers faster — sometimes in less than an hour. And with the option of on-demand or scheduled delivery, companies can meet their customers’ demands for instant gratification (which is particularly prevalent among younger, digital-first consumers), while also ensuring that packages are delivered when someone is home — eliminating the additional time and costs involved with multiple delivery attempts.

A secondary benefit of crowdsourced delivery is that it is tech-heavy and asset-light. Contracted couriers provide their own transportation to make deliveries, often from a retailer’s store location, and are typically paid per delivery or per shift. For companies, this means not worrying about warehouse operations, fleet management, or employee benefits — thereby offsetting some of the high costs and complex logistics associated with on-demand delivery.

For customers, crowdsourced delivery provides greater control over the shopping experience; it satisfies their need for speed while offering more visibility into the delivery process. Customers can select a desired time slot to ensure they won’t miss a delivery and, perhaps most importantly, they can track their packages along the way. Instead of repeatedly checking a tracking code for a status update, customers can choose to receive SMS text alerts, push notifications, or even GPS tracking on their smartphones.

Despite these benefits, the startup nature of many crowdsourced delivery services comes with inherent challenges, such as the high per-delivery costs of ad-hoc shipments, which are often absorbed by the retailer as customers become less and less willing to cover delivery fees.

As with other startups tapping into the gig economy, other major challenges of crowdsourced delivery include workforce issues — more specifically, courier shortages and retention rates. Couriers are often signed up for multiple gigs, which can make localized labor hard to come by at times. When contractors toggle among delivery, ride hailing, and other on-demand service apps looking for the next available job, they can quickly cause churn for the company from burnout, particularly when regular wages and benefits are not guaranteed.

Solving the last mile problem

In traditional shipping, the last mile problem is the inefficiency of final delivery. The “last mile” of delivery refers to the final leg of shipment, when a package arrives at the customer’s doorstep. This step of the journey is the most expensive and the most time consuming, as there are typically multiple stops along a given route — slowed down by either long distances between stops in rural areas or heavy traffic in urban settings.

Crowdsourced delivery attempts to skirt these bottlenecks by tasking someone local to both the package’s origin and customer’s door to expedite fulfillment and elevate customer satisfaction.

Future of same-day shipping

To date, crowdsourced delivery has been most commonly seen in meal delivery services in urban markets, with apps such as Postmates, Doordash, and Grubhub, but even giants like Walmart and Aldi have begun dabbling with this model for same-day grocery delivery.

Crowdsourced delivery is not limited to the food and restaurant industries either. A growing number of retailers is now experimenting with crowdsourcing as a solution to same-day shipping — an expectation of 56% of millennials, according to a survey from fraud prevention startup Trustev.

And startups like Deliv have been answering their calls. Since 2014, the crowdsourced delivery startup has been processing same-day deliveries for Macy’s, using the retail titan’s existing ship-from-store program to pick and pack orders.

These types of startups have been eliciting a response from traditional delivery providers such as DHL which launched a same-day scheduled delivery pilot for retail shipping in Germany, or FedEx, which has expanded same-day urban delivery in over 30 markets. Unlike emerging startups, these legacy providers have the advantage of leveraging their extensive logistics operations (traditionally used for non-retail deliveries), and shifting them to compete in the retail space.

And as we continue to see advancements in drone technology and artificial intelligence, it’s likely that in the future, same-day delivery will no longer depend on local couriers, but rather automation.

More to Learn

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has writtena detailed report on crowdsourced delivery that:

• Details the factors driving investment and growth in crowdsourced delivery startups.
• Examines the benefits and drawbacks of using crowdsourcing to deliver online orders.
• Explains how crowdsourced delivery startups can improve their cost efficiencies to tackle greater delivery volumes
• Explores the role that crowdsourcing will play in the future of delivery once automated delivery options, like drones and robots, arrive.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Retailers are looking for ways to deliver goods faster to consumers' doorsteps to stave off Amazon's threat and meet customer expectations.
• To accomplish that, retailers and delivery providers are zeroing in on the "last mile" of fulfillment, the most expensive and time-consuming part of the delivery process, which is when a package reaches the customer's address.
• Startups like Postmates, Instacart, and others are looking to disrupt the last mile delivery space by leveraging the "Uber model," and connecting businesses to non-professional couriers who can deliver goods instantly.
• Crowdsourcing can drastically speed up deliveries in urban areas, where there is a high density of deliveries and potential couriers to be matched.
• However, as delivery volumes increase, crowdsourced delivery startups will need to further optimize their deliveries to improve cost efficiencies.
• Many of the deliveries these startups perform today will likely be automated in the future, raising the possibility that these startups may eventually look to incorporate new technologies like delivery drones or self-driving delivery vehicles.
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• President Donald Trump announced that 80 US troops were deployed to Libreville, Gabon, in Africa, to provide security for Americans and "diplomatic facilities" in Congo.
• Trump said in a statement to congressional leaders that he deployed the troops on Wednesday in the event "violent demonstrations" happen after Congo held its presidential election on December 30.
• Congo is expected to release provisional results of the election early next week; however, some election monitors warned that the results may have been tainted.

President Donald Trump announced that 80 US troops were deployed to Libreville, Gabon, in Africa, to provide security for Americans and "diplomatic facilities" in Congo.

Trump said in a statement to congressional leaders that he deployed the troops on Wednesday in the event "violent demonstrations" happen after Congo held its presidential election on December 30.

Trump said the troops "will remain in the region until the security situation ... becomes such that their presence is no longer needed," and that he may deploy additional forces to Gabon "if necessary."

Congo is expected to release provisional results of the election early next week; however, some election monitors warned that the results may have been tainted. The international community has raised concerns that a disputed result could cause unrest, as was the case after the 2006 and 2011 elections.

President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power for 18 years, promised to leave office, but said he would remain active in politics.

The electoral commission accused the country's Catholic Church, which represents 40% of the country's 80 million people, of "preparing an insurrection" by saying it knows the winner of the presidential election. Representatives of the conference of the church's bishop said the votes revealed a clear winner — a move seen by some people as a warning against vote rigging by the government.

On Thursday, the US State Department called on the electoral commission to ensure votes were accurately counted and threatened to impose sanctions against those who undermined the process or threatened the country's peace and stability.

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