Stacker-Business & Economy

By Lucas Winter for Shipley Energy Three years ago, U.S. utilities expected peak electricity demand to grow by about 24 gigawatts over the following five years. Their most recent forecasts put that figure at roughly 166 gigawatts, 6.9 times the earlier estimate, and about 90 gigawatts of the increase is tied to data centers. That growth

By Ario Abbasi for elk Marketing A holiday gift can make a shopper’s shortlist before they ever see an advertisement. With Americans spending $257.8 billion online during November and December 2025, according to Adobe, advertisers have reason to watch how those lists take shape. Agencies that specialize in SEO, AI search optimization and paid media use

By Casey Bright for Passport E-commerce is always evolving, but the pace of change has only accelerated in recent years.  As brands look toward 2027, AI-assisted product discovery and cross-border commerce are changing how shoppers find products and decide what to buy. Growth will depend on understanding those shifts and knowing where to focus, from marketing

By Taylor Audette for Ogee Clean beauty is easy to spot on a shopping trip. Sephora has dedicated guides for skincare, makeup, haircare, and fragrance, bringing ingredient-focused shopping into a familiar retail setting. But shelf space tells only part of the story. How much has the category actually grown, and what keeps shoppers interested? The

By Yolanda La for Brex Accounts payable (AP) managers at mid-market companies know the invoice-to-pay process on paper, but once invoice volume climbs, the work gets scattered across inboxes and email threads. General ledger (GL) coding runs on memory, and reconciliation turns into a month-end scramble. If you’re the controller, you own the close that

By Caroline Hroncich for Apollo Sales analytics hasn’t delivered the competitive advantage it promised. Most sales analytics data is contained on dashboards with historical data, which show how a team performed over time. Those dashboards don’t say much about what buyers are thinking or doing. Before AI assistants could pull live sales data, checking a

By Chris Holloway for Toptal Job growth in the U.S. was weaker in Q3 2026 than in Q2, with losses in July, moderate growth in August, and then smaller gains in September. But signs of stabilization are emerging, according to the High-skilled Job Report for Q3 2026 from professional services company Toptal. The study notes that layoffs

By Candace Barnette for ShipStation Peak season doesn’t create new shipping and fulfillment problems. It just makes your existing ones expensive. Most sellers won’t look at their shipping setup until orders start piling up—and by then, fixing anything takes triple the time and causes triple the stress it would have today. The problems that derail

By Hadas Thier for The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Hammer & Hope Keith Turner is baffled when he hears rosy news reports about the economy. “Are we living in two different worlds?” said the 53-year-old New Yorker and father of three. The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Hammer & Hope spoke with Black Americans facing unemployment,

By Sumeet Marwaha for Brex This fall, much of customer spending is going to companies that give AI agents a place to work, according to Brex, which has ranked the software vendors its customers are buying from most this fall. The underlying AI model itself, the core foundational intelligence powering the software, is only part

By Trevor Mahoney for Apollo The job market in the age of artificial intelligence is ever-changing, and new titles are popping up practically every day. One in particular has seen astronomical growth. A GTM engineer was unheard of just five years ago, yet today it’s one of the most searched-for postings in business-to-business sales. LinkedIn postings

America was never guaranteed to survive this long. Indeed, many of the founders wondered if this nation would survive its infancy. There were so many deep disagreements, especially between North and South, that people wondered whether the nation could hold itself together after the immediate concern of defeating the British had passed. But America did

Once the champagne is popped and the celebrations are over, many acquirers run into a recurring and unwanted problem: The state revenue department opens an audit into a business that no longer exists. The seller is gone, escrow has been released, and you, as the buyer, have been notified. It’s not an odd fluke of

For years, medical devices in the EU were classified under the Medical Device Directive (MDD) system, and manufacturers were familiar with the certification requirements for each device class. The newer Medical Device Regulation (MDR) system has changed how devices are classified and what requirements they must meet to be certified. Whether it’s reclassifying an existing

Effective surface preparation for coating adhesion is perhaps the most important factor in whether the coating successfully sticks to the material’s surface. Even if the coating does succeed, the preparation will affect the durability and performance of the coating, not to mention whether the surface meets the relevant industry standards. Surface preparation can either be

Ten of the largest advertisers spent a combined $41.1 million in September 2026, according to Podcast News Daily, which means spend was up a whopping 20.9% from August. Floodlight, a programmatic ad solutions provider, dives into how podcast advertising has changed since early spring. In terms of spend, this past September was the strongest month

You’ve probably heard the term conversational commerce floating around. It’s catchy, sure, but what does it actually mean, and why is it getting so much attention?  Here are a few conversational commerce examples in real life:  Consumers are shopping and completing transactions within a messaging conversation. Brands help consumers shop by finding a store location or online

Mid-October 2026 saw the global trading landscape focus heavily on technical compliance and long-term litigation management, reports Freight Right, a freight forwarder and licensed customs broker based in Los Angeles. U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched Phase 3 of its automated CAPE portal to process remaining back-duty refunds from struck-down tariffs, even as the U.S,

Small business owners have spent the last few years navigating inflation, tariffs and unpredictable consumer spending. This year, Intuit QuickBooks‘ annual holiday shopping survey found that consumers plan to spend $278 billion this holiday season, with $118 billion expected to go to small businesses, an 8.3% increase from last year. The survey also found that 76% of

Automated expense reporting replaces manual receipt collection, email approval chains, and month-end reconciliation with software that captures spend at the point of purchase, enforces your policy in real time, and syncs approved transactions directly to your accounting system. The result is a finance team that closes faster, catches policy violations before they compound, and stops