Daily Business Report/Nov. 25, 2016
Shoppers shopping for toys in South Park. (Photo by Manny Cruz)
San Diego No. 1 in U.S. for Shopping Local
Yelp-commissioned survey results for 2016
No other city in the country can beat San Diego when it comes to shopping local retailers.
A Yelp-commissioned survey conducted online by Harris Poll puts San Diego as No. 1 on the top U.S. cities for shopping local in 2016.
The ranking was created based on millions of Yelp reviews that were analyzed using a “gifted score” — the more users who mentioned the word “gift” in reviews for non-chain businesses, the higher a city’s ranking.
According to the poll, 64 percent of American adults plan to shop local this holiday season and they expect to spend $324 on average, a 26 percent increase compared with $258 in 2015.
The Yelp-commissioned survey found that 37 percent of American adults have already started or plan to start holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, and over half of Americans (53 percent) will have already started or plan to start holiday shopping by Small Business Saturday tomorrow.
According to Yelp data, Yelpers are up late searching for the best places to shop. “We see that Yelp searches in the shopping category tend to spike around 11 p.m. We also found that Yelpers tend to be last-minute shoppers, with searches for businesses in the shopping category spiking less than a week before Christmas. But where are these Yelpers shopping? Or, where should they be shopping?
“We sifted through millions of Yelp reviews to find out which cities in the U.S. are the best for finding gifts at local businesses. To determine this list, we created a gifting score for each city by looking at positive reviews mentioning the word “gift” written by locals for non-chain businesses in specific shopping categories that are popular for the holidays. We then ranked the resulting cities based on the gifting score.”
“Yelp is really committed to supporting local businesses so we thought it would be really interesting to see the top cities for shopping locally,” Hannah Cheesman, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Yelp, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “The whole idea is to look at all of the businesses that people shop at during the holidays, so we excluded some places like vape shops, mattress shops, a garage door store, guns and ammo, adult stores,” she said.
The addition of surf and skateboard shops in the survey may have accounted for San Diego making the list this year, since it wasn’t in the top 20 last year, according to Cheesman.
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Small Business Saturday
In stark contrast to the mad rush of Black Friday at crowded malls and chain stores, Small Business Saturday (tomorrow) brings people together on Main Streets and in neighborhood business districts for a more rewarding and personable shopping experience.
Small Business Saturday takes place in over 4,000 U.S. communities the Saturday following Thanksgiving and encourages people to frequent their local, independent businesses during the holiday season. The campaign also takes place in the United Kingdom and Australia, though on a different Saturday during the year.
Small Business Saturday broke records in 2015 for both overall participation and customer spending. Ninety-five million people patronized one or more independent business — a strong eight-percent increase over 2014. Spending at independent retailers and restaurants increased even more — growing 14 percent, from just over $14 billion in 2014 to more than $16 billion in 2015, according to a survey quantifying the impact of last year’s event.
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Hera Labs Achieves Nonprofit Status,
Launches Giving Tuesday Campaign
San Diego’s female-focused business accelerator Hera Labs has achieved nonprofit status and is marking the occasion with a fundraiser timed to Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which falls this year on Nov. 29.
“This is a crucial time to invest in female business leaders who are still working to break the glass ceiling,” said Dr. Silvia Mah, Hera Labs’ executive director. “We’re meeting fantastic women with brilliant ideas and giving them the resources they need to launch their businesses and support their families. Now as a nonprofit, we’re partnering with local, state and national governmental agencies to support female-led businesses and drive economic growth.”
The organization, which hosts workshops, labs and conferences aimed to help female-run businesses take off and grow, has set its sights on raising $10,000 this holiday season. The funds will enroll five individuals with business ideas in the Hera Labs 12-week LAUNCH Intensive workshop where they will turn those ideas into scalable business plans.
Hera Labs has set a goal of engaging 400 individuals and groups to invest in the future of women entrepreneurs in San Diego by donating $25 each to the campaign. To donate, visit bidpal.net/ENTREPRENEUR.
Notable San Diego-based businesses that have completed LAUNCH or SCALE programs include Meowtel.com, founded by Sonya Petcavich; Stick With It, founded by veteran Monetta Plassmeyer; and Giventure, founded by UC San Diego alumna Sneha Jayaprakash.
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TSRI Scientists Develop Vaccine Against
Fatal Prescription Opioid Overdose
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a vaccine that blocks the pain-numbing effects of the opioid drugs oxycodone (oxy) and hydrocodone (hydro) in animal models. The vaccine also appears to decrease the risk of fatal opioid overdose, a growing cause of death in the United States.
“We saw both blunting of the drug’s effects and, remarkably, prevention of drug lethality,” said Kim D. Janda, the Ely R. Callaway Jr. Professor of Chemistry and member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at TSRI. “The protection against overdose death was unforeseen but clearly of enormous potential clinical benefit.”
The study was published this week online ahead of print in the journal ACS Chemical Biology.
The new oxy/hydro vaccine takes advantage of the immune system’s ability to recognize, seek out and neutralize invaders.
Opioids were designed to reach receptors in the brain, causing pain reduction and feelings of euphoria. For their vaccine, the researchers combined a signature opioid structure with a molecule to trigger an immune response. When injected, the vaccine teaches the immune system to bind to the drug molecule and remove it from circulation.
The vaccine-derived antibodies were tailored by TSRI scientists to seek out the prescription drug and block the opioid from reaching the brain, potentially depriving a person of the “reward” of consuming the drug, Janda explained.
The scientists believe a vaccine approach could have an advantage over current opioid addiction therapies because it would not alter brain chemistry like many of today’s anti-addiction therapies do.
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Personnel Announcements
Latham & Watkins Announces
New Partner and One Promotion
Omar Nazif has been elected partner of Latham & Watkins LLP in San Diego and Amanda L. Molter was promoted to the role of counsel in the local office. The changes are effective Jan. 1, 2017.
Omar Nazif is a member of the Finance Department who focuses his practice on project finance transactions in the energy and gaming and hospitality industries. He represents financial institutions, sponsors and developers in connection with all phases of the development and financing of projects, with a particular focus on the renewable energy sector. Nazif received his JD from Stanford Law School in 2006.
Amanda Molter is a member of the Corporate Department who represents private fund sponsors, investors and joint venture participants in forming, investing in and operating private investment vehicles. She has experience advising private equity sponsors operating across a range of industries on all aspects of the investment fund lifecycle, including global fundraising activities, investments and exits. Molter received her JD from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law in 2007.
