When startups announce fundraising rounds, that money from investors could be used in many ways.

Often, e-commerce businesses will use the funding to improve their product or service, which, in an ideal world, allows the company to expand its customer base, bring in more revenue, and continue to scale the business. But there are other places where those funds can help run the business—overhead or operating costs. While some overhead costs like rent and property taxes are fixed, there are others that are much more variable, and e-commerce companies looking to control costs can look at reducing them. Three examples are packaging, inventory, and staffing.

• Overhead costs are directly related to keeping the business afloat as opposed to producing goods or services, per Shopify.
• These costs have more variation for e-commerce-only companies, at least compared to brick-and-mortar operations that need to consider rent costs.
• Overhead costs for e-commerce companies, according to Volusion, include website hosting, payment platforms, utilities, storage, and shipping.

“The weight of each of these costs will vary based on the type of e-commerce the retailer is offering—home delivery, pick up in store, common shipper, etc.,” Patrick O’Mara, senior solution principal at Relex, told Retail Brew via email.

Keep reading here.—KM

Here’s a feel-good story worth reading: 2 companies recently teamed up to make the schoolwear industry more inclusive and open to all walks of life.

The companies in question? We’re talkin’ about the HSBC x French Toast collab.

Here’s the scoop: French Toast, a long-term client of HSBC, created an adaptive fashion line that better serves a more diverse range of students, including people with disabilities.

HSBC loved their commitment to inclusivity and decided to step in and support their financial needs. Together, HSBC and French Toast have helped innovate schoolwear into a more equitable and inclusive industry. Talk about a wardrobe full of smiles.

Get the full story here.

Since the FTC announced this month that it was proposing a ban on hidden so-called “junk fees,” much of the ensuing media coverage focused on how it would impact online purchases of concert tickets, where the practice is notorious. So it will come as no surprise that the proposal was the subject of an article in Pitchfork, a music website.

But the proposal is far broader, and one aspect has nothing to do with Pitchfork and everything to do with dinner forks, especially those plastic ones that come with Grubhub and DoorDash orders. The FTC and even the White House are calling out restaurants and delivery apps for tacking fees onto orders that, rather than being indicated on menu prices, are not revealed until the last step of ordering when the bill’s tallied.

It’s a practice known as “drip pricing,” because the fees, rather than being disclosed up front, are dripped in.

Keep reading here.—AAN

It’s like the classic Simpsons joke: Worst earnings report of your life? Worst earnings report of your life so far.

But luckily for package delivery giant UPS, this might actually be its worst earnings report—at least for awhile. That’s what David Vernon, senior transportation analyst at Bernstein, anticipated in a conversation with CNBC: “I do think this is the worst it’s going to be for UPS in the next several years,” he said.

And now that the report’s out, the numbers tell a similar story.

Keep reading here on CFO Brew.—NP