Trendspotting – Postal Strikes, Luxury and Entrepreneurs

Spending my Sunday lunch reading through various newspapers and magazines, five trends caught my attention.

1. The impending UK Postal Strike will have a major impact on e-commerce delivery and small business cash-flow. Thus 75% of all polled businesses  (sorry for lack of reference, think I read it in Sunday’s FT) are looking to move away from using Royal Mail due to its reliability issues
2. Conspicuous consumption is back. Not for everyone, but UK city boys are apparently again snapping up luxury flats
3. Expect a surge in Start-ups and demand for relevant support services as people take advantage of redundancy payouts to try their own wings
4. The next big Luxury Market is China, with Versace leading the way by closing shops in Japan in favour of the mainland
5. Traditional News Papers moving into Affiliate marketing to make up for plummeting advertising revenue

Albeit not all directly related to online marketing, it still begs the question – how will these trends translate into actionable opportunities for you?