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Spain took home the trophy. The digital economy took everything else: our attention, our sleep, our snack budgets and, apparently, our remaining sense of distance. Uber data supplied to PYMNTS says one fan treated a 266-mile ride from Arlington to Houston as perfectly normal match-day transportation, while another logged trips at 10 venues in all three host countries. Somewhere, a product manager is already calling both of them “power users.”
The 2026 World Cup ended with Spain beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time, but the commercial match was never confined to the pitch. Across 39 days and 104 games, the tournament became a planetary behavioral experiment: What happens when billions of people receive the same emotional push notification at once? By the end of the round of 16, FIFA estimated 5.2 billion people had engaged with the tournament; by the quarterfinals, its digital channels had generated 34 billion impressions and two billion engagements. The answer, evidently, is that everybody taps something.
The Social Feed Needed Extra TimeDuring the group stage alone, FIFA counted 11 billion video views, 17 billion impressions and 39 million new followers across its platforms. A clip of Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi scoring against Algeria drew 53 million TikTok views; Shakira and Burna Boy’s opening performance reached 131 million views on Instagram and 44 million on YouTube. This was less “second screen” than “first screen, second screen and a third screen explaining the meme.”
Television Viewership Broke New RecordsBrazil’s match against Haiti reached 51.3 million people across Globo’s ecosystem, while CazéTV set a YouTube record for the most-watched football match streamed on the platform. Mexico’s second match drew 25.5 million linear viewers, breaking the record for country’s highest FIFA World Cup audience of the 21st century.
In Britain, the BBC averaged 9.7 million viewers for the final and peaked at 13.6 million, according to the Guardian’s account of the ratings. Its new football YouTube channel separately generated 100 million views, while tournament clips, interviews and analysis drew 2.55 billion social views. The living room survived. It simply acquired tabs.
Merchandise Ran a High Press on eCommerce InventoryBy kickoff, Nike’s national-team kits had sold 2.5 times more than at the comparable point in 2022, according to Reuters. Adidas, which outfitted both finalists, booked roughly 250 million euros ($285 million) in World Cup products in the first quarter and expected a similar second quarter. The modern fan may stream in 4K, but still wants to wear the result on a polyester billboard.
Search Became an Emergency Travel AgentAfter Argentina reached the final, searches on travel booking platform Despegar for New York flights jumped 6,000% within hours. Two special Buenos Aires-to-New York flights — 540 seats priced around $5,000 in economy and $10,000 in business — sold out by the next morning. Dynamic demand met irrational devotion and wisely stepped aside.
The Snack Economy Overcame Time ZonesIn India, midnight matches pushed pizzas, burgers, fries and beverages deep into the graveyard shift; one Chandigarh customer placed a 16,444-rupees ($140) finger-food order. In Israel, food delivery company Wolt reported match-hour orders up 20%, family pizzas up 35% and ice cream up 44%. Uber, meanwhile, counted more than 10 million ranch-dressing delivery orders during the tournament, followed by a convenience-store podium of water, electrolytes and Tylenol. Globalization, meet the next morning.
And then there was mobility: fans from 122 countries using Uber, 35,000 shuttle riders, a Dallas driver completing more than 70 stadium trips, Los Angeles winning the dubious lost-and-found title, and Bass Pro Shops enjoying a 20% tourism bump. The World Cup’s grand digital-economy lesson is that a goal is no longer merely a goal. It is a ride request, a jersey search, a delivery spike, a stream, a social clip and, occasionally, an urgent hunt for a missing passport.
Spain gets another star above the crest. Platforms get the case study. Ranch gets the golden bottle. And one fan gets a 266-mile receipt proving that, for five glorious weeks, “too far” was merely a surge-pricing category.
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The Super Bowl is a one-night luxury product; the Olympics is an infrastructure project with medals. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is a roaming retail platform: 48 teams, 104 matches and 16 host cities across three countries. Through 44 matches, attendance had topped 2.85 million, with stadiums averaging 99.6% full, according to a Reuters analysis. FIFA’s 2026 revenue budget is $8.9 billion, with broadcasting rights contributing the largest slice, at 44%.
Mexico Is Winning the Jersey TableBritish retailer JD Sports says Mexico and Argentina have produced its best-selling team kits so far, both supplied by Adidas, Reuters reported. Adidas says Mexico’s shirt is the worldwide bestseller, Yahoo Finance reported. in its range. There is not yet a public, audited, cross-retailer leaderboard for individual players. Anyone confidently awarding the commercial Golden Boot to Messi, Ronaldo or Mbappé is doing influencer math, not accounting.
The Hottest Products Are WearableThere is no single merchandise scoreboard, but the demand signals are loud. Jerseys lead; Panini sticker packs have sold out at major British retailers including Argos, GAME, Smyths and Sports Direct, according to the U.K. edition of The Sun. The official FIFA store shows sellouts for the Americana water bottle and host-city posters from Seattle, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta.
Some of the more unusual merchandise being sold includes retro Gap jerseys, upcycled vintage tops and glitter freckles, Inc reported.
Reuters reports that Mexico mania has expanded into pet jerseys, including unofficial gear for dogs, ducks, hamsters and horses. One vendor ran out after selling as many as 30 pet shirts a day. The World Cup’s long tail, apparently, has paws.
Host City Revenue Is RealMexico City’s opening weekend generated nearly $70 million in economic activity, according to calculations reported by Mexico News Daily, with restaurants and bars posting sales increases of up to 40%.
In Philadelphia, the owner of Midnight & The Wicked told the city that sales were running 80% to 100% above last year, and that Brazil’s win produced the busiest night in the venue’s history, according to the City of Philadelphia.
Across host markets, CoStar data reported by Skift showed hotel revenue per available room rising 24% to more than 100% during the first three match days. The catch: much of that lift came from higher room rates, not fuller hotels.
Non-Host Cities Get in on the Games Lawrence, Kansas, which is housing Algeria’s base camp rather than staging matches, has turned downtown green, white and red. Restaurants expanded halal menus, Algeria-themed merchandise “flew off the shelves,” and one T-shirt seller told Reuters that demand exceeded expectations.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, played a more algorithmic game: A tourism campaign targeting fans researching Philadelphia and New York trips produced more than $2 million in attributed hotel revenue before kickoff, according to an Adara case study. FIFA placed team base camps in 25 communities without matches, creating mini economies around training grounds and team hotels.
A Spending Geyser, Not a Sprinkler SystemThe money is substantial but uneven. New York’s hotel association cut its World Cup-related room-revenue forecast by 60%, to roughly $60 million, as high prices, travel friction and late booking behavior softened demand, Reuters wrote in a June 11 report on disappointing World Cup tourism numbers. Vacation rentals have fared better, the report noted, with Airbnb expecting the event to be its largest ever.
World Cup commerce, like soccer, rewards positioning and timing. The early leader is a Mexico shirt; the breakout rookie may be an Algeria tee from Lawrence; and the strangest MVP candidate is a $39 water bottle that is no longer available. The final is still weeks away, but capitalism has already escaped the group stage and is wearing glitter freckles.
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The World Cup is supposed to be a monthlong festival of flags, chants, bad wigs and beautiful irrationality. But in the final days before kickoff, the 2026 tournament is beginning to look less like a sporting celebration and more like a checkout page designed by someone who thinks “surge pricing” is a love language. Yes, North America is about to host the biggest World Cup ever — 104 matches across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, from June 11 through July 19 — but fans are already learning that getting to the game may require a second mortgage, a tactical transit plan and the emotional resilience usually reserved for airline baggage fees.
From a PYMNTS point of view, this is especially painful because the commerce side of the tournament is supposed to be the smooth part. PYMNTS recently described the World Cup as a “six-week commerce machine” running through airports, hotels, restaurants, bars, transit systems and checkout counters. Visa, the event’s Official Payment Technology Partner, is leaning into payments, art, small business support and venue commerce, while Visa and Bank of America are also backing Street Soccer Parks in every U.S. host city. Bank of America, FIFA’s Official Bank Sponsor, has run cardholder promotions tied to hospitality packages and fan access. The infrastructure story is supposed to be: tap, pay, cheer, repeat.
Instead, the fan story has become: tap, wince, ask whether this shuttle includes a steak dinner. The Associated Press reported that fans headed to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey are facing $98 round-trip train fares from Manhattan for a ride that normally costs $12.90, while Massachusetts fans are looking at $80 fares for a trip that usually costs $20. One Scotland supporter told AP the planning has been “a nightmare,” then helped organize school buses for nearly 1,000 Tartan Army fans at about $50 per person — saving the group more than $85,000 compared with the local bus option. That is not a fan club. That is a procurement department in face paint.
Parking is its own little penalty shootout. The Guardian reported that FIFA parking passes have reached $175, with Dallas semifinal parking listed at that price, Kansas City quarterfinal parking at $125 and some group-stage parking at $75. In Boston, local organizers said stadium parking is expected to cost about $175 per spot, with tailgating limited to ticketed fans and access tightly controlled, Boston 25b News reported. Nothing says “global festival of sport” quite like paying luxury-dinner money to place a sedan in a large rectangle.
The tickets have not exactly been a warm hug either. New York and New Jersey attorneys general are investigating FIFA ticketing practices after complaints about variable pricing, seating-map changes and sky-high costs. AP reported that some seats for the July 19 final were going for nearly $33,000, even as New York City announced a lottery for 1,000 discounted $50 tickets to MetLife matches, excluding the final. FIFA had also made some $60 tickets available through national federations. So, yes, affordable tickets technically exist — in roughly the same way buried treasure exists.
Hotels have produced the strangest twist: gouge too hard and the boom can become a shrug. The American Hotel & Lodging Association says 80% of surveyed respondents report bookings below initial forecasts, with visa barriers, geopolitical concerns and FIFA room-block releases all weighing on demand. ESPN summed upthe fan math neatly: parking above $200 in one city, a train fare four times normal in another and matchday hotel rooms approaching $700 in the priciest market. This is how a host city discovers that “pent-up demand” still has a credit limit.
Even cities without matches are trying to catch some confetti. Washington, D.C., which is not hosting games, is getting a free FIFA World Cup Fan Zone on the National Mall, tied to America’s 250th anniversary programming. Orlando, also not a host city, is staging an Orlando Soccer Celebration with viewings of all 104 matches, live entertainment, global food and a pop-up store. Call it World Cup adjacency: if you cannot host the match, host the merch line.
And then there is the darker payments problem: fraud. The FTC is warning fans about copycat websites, fake tickets and screenshots masquerading as admission, while FinCEN has urged financial institutions near host cities to watch for suspicious activity tied to human trafficking risks around the tournament. That is the hard edge of mega-event commerce: the bigger the fan frenzy, the bigger the opportunity for bad actors.
The World Cup will still be huge. It will still move money through every imaginable channel. But the lesson for merchants, sponsors and host cities is simple: frictionless payments cannot rescue a friction-filled experience. If every fan touchpoint feels like a toll booth, the beautiful game starts to look a lot like an itemized receipt.
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At some point between decorating soldiers’ graves and debating whether a patio sectional “completes the outdoor room,” America discovered the retail potential of solemnity plus a Monday. Memorial Day, which this year falls on Monday, May 25, still asks the country to pause, remember and honor those who died in military service. But the modern marketplace hears “three-day weekend” and immediately starts moving grills, mattresses, airfare, rental homes and enough weather-resistant wicker to furnish a minor principality.
The holiday began as Decoration Day after the Civil War, when communities decorated graves with flowers and prayers. In 1868, Union veterans’ leader John A. Logan called for a national day of remembrance on May 30, a date chosen because it was not tied to a particular battle; after World War I, the observance broadened from Civil War dead to U.S. military personnel who died in all wars.
The big commercial pivot came later: Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, effective in 1971, moving Memorial Day to the last Monday in May and creating the predictable long weekend that retailers, travel companies and barbecue-adjacent capitalism now know and love.
That shift is why Memorial Day’s commercialization remains touchy. The original ritual was fixed, civic and graveyard-focused; the modern version is flexible, recreational and frequently 40% off. President Lyndon Johnson said the Monday holiday bill would help families travel, enjoy recreation and improve economic efficiency; he also noted it would stimulate industrial and commercial production by avoiding midweek disruptions.
Critics have long argued the bargain came with a cost. Time magazine traced the Monday move to travel and business interests, while veterans-focused critics have pushed to restore May 30, arguing the long weekend diluted public awareness of the day’s meaning. Congress effectively acknowledged the tension in 2000 by establishing the National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m. local time — an official minute to reclaim the “memorial” from the mattress banners.
The spending story is a mosaic of commerce signals spanning retail, travel and hospitality. AAA projects a record 45 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home over Memorial Day weekend 2026, including 39.1 million by car and 3.66 million by air; early booked domestic round-trip flights averaged $800, down 6% from last year. Another 2.2 million are expected to travel by bus, train or cruise, with Alaska cruises helping drive that category.
On the shopping side, RetailMeNot data cited by Gifts & Decorative Accessories says 54% of U.S. consumers plan to shop Memorial Day sales this year, up from 36% last year — but average deal budgets have fallen to $86, down from about $289. The shopping list is pure summer onboarding: grills and outdoor cooking gear, summer apparel, home goods, pool gear and patio accessories.
And then there is the deluxe absurdity, where “sale” is doing heroic semantic work. Saatva’s Memorial Day mattress push includes a Solaire adjustable-firmness mattress listed by Elle Decor at $3,679 after 20% off — proof that even sleep has joined the premiumization cycle.
A.J. Madison’s Memorial Day appliance sale is advertising savings of up to 40% on outdoor appliances and up to 65% on luxury appliances, per Kitchn, which is how one ends up treating a built-in refrigerator like a summer personality upgrade. Williams Sonoma Home is pitching outdoor-sale wares and up to 75% off clearance, because the “outdoor oasis” apparently requires both shade control and a small logistics operation.
In the getaway market, Four Seasons New Orleans is packaging Memorial Day with riverfront pool celebrations, family activities and proximity to the New Orleans Greek Festival; the Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee is touting a lakeside retreat with fireworks, cookout, paddleboarding and s’mores. For the truly liquidation-resistant wallet, Hamptons rentals show where the unofficial start of summer becomes a balance-sheet event: Out East listings include Memorial Day-to-Labor Day rentals at $200,000, $225,000 and $275,000.
So yes, Memorial Day became commercial — controversially, structurally and very profitably. The country can still pause at 3 p.m.; the algorithm can wait a minute. Then, apparently, it is back to comparing stainless-steel grills, luxury mattresses and rental homes priced like venture rounds.
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Mother’s Day is the annual moment when otherwise rational adults look into the maw of modern commerce and ask a spiritually revealing question: Is brunch enough? Usually, yes.
But at the far edge of the digital economy, Mother’s Day has quietly become a glorious, over-caffeinated payments event: part emotion, part logistics, part luxury checkout flow. The flowers and the card still matter, but so do the reservation link, the deposit request, the gift-card balance, the card-on-file confirmation and the little thrill of pretending a $61,500 trunk is really about “memory-making.”
The latest available numbers from the National Retail Federation (NRF) show why the holiday has become such a rich commerce story. In 2025, Mother’s Day spending was expected to reach $34.1 billion, with 84% of U.S. adults planning to celebrate. Online was the top shopping destination at 36%, while jewelry was the largest dollar category at $6.8 billion, special outings reached $6.3 billion and gift cards hit $3.5 billion. Nearly half of shoppers said they wanted something unique or different, and another big chunk said they were looking for gifts that create a special memory.
At the ultra-high end, the “things” side of the ledger is less about buying Mom one more nice object and more about buying her a better anecdote. A five-object fantasy board starts with Cartier’s Panthère de Cartier watch, because it is the rare gift that reads simultaneously as watch, jewelry and inheritance strategy; Cartier lists a small yellow-gold model at $27,000.
Then there’s the De Beers Talisman Locket, priced at $37,100 and notable because it is a limited series of 20 pieces with engraving potential. It’s less of a present, and more “future family lore.” For maximalist delight, Louis Vuitton’s LV x TM Music Trunk is the showstopper: a Murakami-splashed trunk with a compartment for a turntable and storage for vinyl, which is what happens when nostalgia gets a budget comparable to that of an Audi.
A smarter, slyer flex is Lalique’s Tourbillons vase, a $5,000 crystal classic first designed in 1926: especially notable because it turns the most traditional Mother’s Day gift, flowers, into a permanent upgrade. And for the mom whose taste runs more modernist than maison, Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound 2 starts at $4,000 and makes a persuasive case for premium audio as a sculptural home object.
The experience side is where Mother’s Day goes fully cinematic. Four Seasons’ World of Wellness 2026 private-jet itinerary is the obvious headline act: 20 days and eight destinations at a total sticker price of $188,000 per adult.
If Mom prefers sea air to airport lounges, Aman’s Amandira private yacht and its Komodo expeditions are almost comically well-appointed: a 52-meter yacht, five cabins, a crew of 14, private chefs, a dive master, a spa therapist and itineraries built around dragons, reefs and bragging rights.
Then there is Belmond’s Royal Scotsman Dior wellness journey, because once you accept the existence of a Dior spa carriage rolling through the Scottish Highlands, resistance feels provincial. Belmond says the spa carriage has two treatment rooms styled in Dior’s burgundy toile de Jouy, and the concept has already expanded into multi-day retreat programming.
Golden Door’s Golden Flight is another splendidly over-engineered choice: door-to-door transfers, private plane access, curated wellness kit and a seven-night all-inclusive stay that begins before takeoff.
Finally, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s Mediterranean voyages are currently listing seven-night sailings such as Monte Carlo to Rome from $11,100, which is useful for anyone hoping to frame “ultra-luxe yacht trip” as a heartfelt family gesture.
And that, really, is the payments angle. Mother’s Day at the top end is orchestration in its finest form: eCommerce checkout, concierge confirmations, trip deposits, premium-card points, dining reservations and experience spending all braided into one sentimental shopping occasion.
The latest NRF data makes clear that consumers already want uniqueness and memory-making; luxury brands are simply monetizing that desire at a level normally reserved for real estate and small watercraft.
So yes: payments plays in Mother’s Day the same way bass plays in a song — often behind the melody, but doing more work than it gets credit for. The flowers aren’t gone, they’ve just been joined by yachts, wellness jets, designer spa cars and a turntable trunk that could anchor its own inheritance dispute.
Which feels, in its own extravagant way, exactly right for a holiday built around trying to repay someone for everything, with one very nice click.
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Few technologies generate as much cocktail-party anxiety — and screenplay fuel — as artificial intelligence. Hollywood, naturally, got there first. For the past two decades, movies about AI have doubled as dispatches from the human condition: loneliness, vanity, convenience, grief and the recurring belief that building something smarter than us will surely end well this time.
In modern AI cinema, the machine is no longer just a prop. It is a soulmate, a caregiver, a child, a healthcare balloon and, yes, a dancing murder doll. The best of these films use AI less as gadgetry than as a stress test for what makes people human in the first place. Here is a deliberately subjective top 10 from roughly the last 20 years, ranked by cultural stickiness, emotional payoff and rewatchable weirdness.
10. Companion (2025) The date-from-hell movie for the AI age: a cabin-weekend thriller that turns into a sly argument about control and desire. Critics praised its genre-bending cleverness, and it still pulled in nearly $37 million worldwide.
9. The Creator (2023)Big, gorgeous and gloriously earnest, this film imagines a human-AI war and then sneaks in a paternal melodrama. Notable because it proved there is still an audience for original sci-fi, grossing $104.3 million worldwide, and it landed an Oscar nomination in visual effects.
8. Big Hero 6 (2014)Baymax remains the most reassuring thing ever produced by advanced robotics: an inflatable nurse with elite bedside manner. It won the Oscar for Animated Feature and earned more than $672 million worldwide, which is not bad for a movie about grief, gadgets and therapeutic hugging.
7. Robot & Frank (2012) A wistful caper in which a retired burglar bonds with his caretaking robot and promptly starts making bad decisions. It won the Sundance Fim Festival’s Alfred P. Sloan Prize for its science-and-humanity mix, while critics praised it as a smart meditation on aging.
6. M3GAN (2022)Corporate governance, but make it camp. The killer doll with the impeccable bob turned AI risk into pop entertainment, complete with memes, mayhem and one of the great hallway dances in modern cinema. This flick is notable because it grossed about $180.1 million worldwide and instantly became a horror-pop-culture hybrid.
5. The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)The funniest anti-tech panic attack ever animated. Its masterstroke is treating a robot uprising as just another family road-trip inconvenience. Nominated for an Oscar in the Animated Feature Film category, this movie roasted screen addiction without sounding like a sermon.
4. After Yang (2021)The quiet-luxury version of AI cinema. A family tries to repair a beloved android, and the movie becomes a tender essay on memory and what counts as a life. Notable because critics singled out its rich, low-key emotional rewards — proof that an AI movie can whisper and still leave a mark.
3. WALL-E (2008)Yes, it is a robot love story. It is also a consumerism satire, climate warning and silent-comedy flex. It won the Oscar for Animated Feature and grossed more than $527 million worldwide, proving audiences will absolutely cry over a trash compactor with binocular eyes.
2. Ex Machina (2015)The cleanest, meanest AI thriller of the bunch. It turns the Turing test into an ego trap and never stops tightening the screws. Notable because it won the Oscar for Visual Effects and still carries a 92% Tomatometer, which is a polite way of saying it has aged surprisingly well.
1. Her (2013) Still the gold standard. Spike Jonze made an AI romance that felt less like sci-fi than tomorrow morning: funny, sad, chic and uncomfortably predictive about people outsourcing intimacy to software. It won the Oscar for Original Screenplay and earned four additional nominations, including Best Picture.
The throughline in all of these movies is not that machines will replace us. It is that AI makes an excellent mirror for the old human bugs we never seem to patch: grief, control, laziness, ego and the desire to build a frictionless companion rather than have an awkward conversation. Hollywood may exaggerate for a living, but on AI it has been weirdly consistent for 20 years now: when the code starts talking back, the plot twist is usually us.
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QVC this week announced it is filing for bankruptcy, which makes this a fitting moment to revisit one of the great retail magic tricks of the modern era: selling people things they did not know they wanted, in real time, from the couch, with a host who seemed to know them personally. According to an AP News report, QVC Group plans to seek Chapter 11 protection after years of declining sales, mounting debt and a shift in consumer shopping behavior toward mobile, social and lower-priced digital rivals.
If that sounds like an obituary for televised retail, it’s not. It is more like a corporate reminder that QVC’s core idea did not die. It won. The format escaped cable and took up residence on smartphones, where livestreams, influencers and friction-light checkout now do what QVC figured out decades ago: turn shopping into entertainment, trust into conversion and impulse into infrastructure. Investopedia notes that even as QVC struggled, live shopping itself kept moving toward digital and social platforms.
To understand why QVC mattered, it helps to remember how early it was. According to Britannica, QVC launched in 1986 as an alternative to the Home Shopping Network, founded by Joe Segel with backing that included Comcast’s Ralph Roberts. The first item sold on air was an $11.49 shower radio, which feels almost comically on-brand for a network that made ordinary household goods feel like breaking news. Britannica also notes that QVC differentiated itself with a softer, more product-focused style. Hosts were expected to know what they were selling and explain it like human beings, not carnival barkers.
That was the real innovation. Before one-click checkout, before “shop now” buttons and before social commerce became a buzzword, QVC had already built a friction-light buying machine. Watch, trust, call, buy. The company pushed beyond TV earlier than many people remember. Britannica notes that QVC launched iQVC on MSN in 1995 and later opened a flagship store with a working studio at the Mall of America. In other words, it was trying to be omnichannel before omnichannel became conference-panel vocabulary.
QVC also understood something Silicon Valley later rediscovered and rebranded as creator commerce: people buy from people. Britannica points to celebrity hosts and collaborators such as Joan Rivers and Diane von Furstenberg, and notes that Lori Greiner used QVC success as a springboard to wider fame. Joan Rivers in particular became part of QVC’s identity, not just a guest passing through. QVC’s own tribute after her death said she brought “over 20 years of laughter” to the network. That is not just merchandising. That is audience habit, built over decades.
Products and BeyondThen there were the products, a reminder that QVC was never just about jewelry and kitchen gadgets. Britannica says the network sold motor oil, caskets, live lobsters and funeral-ready floral displays. There is something almost heroic about that range. It suggests a retailer that looked at the human lifecycle and decided every phase of it could use a host, a camera angle and easy payments.
As for the hits, QVC’s records show that electronics could become blockbuster programming. In a company release about its record 2015 Thanksgiving week, QVC said a Dell Windows 10 laptop was the highest-selling Today’s Special Value item ever on QVC.com. The same Dec. 1, 2015 release said personal electronics, kitchen electrics and apparel and accessories were among the hottest sellers. That helps explain the network’s long-running appeal.
Its beauty business has also been significant. In 2021, QVC’s customer-choice beauty awards namedphilosophy’s Amazing Grace the winner in fragrance yet again, extending a streak that dated back to 2012. That does not prove it was the single biggest item in company history, but it does show how QVC excelled at turning repeatable categories such as beauty, apparel and home into habit-forming retail theater.
The irony in QVC’s bankruptcy is that it was not undone by the failure of live commerce. It was undone by the success of live commerce everywhere else. AP reports that the company was squeezed as consumers drifted toward TikTok Shop, Instagram, YouTube, Shein and Temu, while cord-cutting weakened the old television funnel. QVC did try to adapt, but the center of gravity had already moved. The younger version of the QVC customer now scrolls past a creator demonstrating cookware, shapewear or skin care, taps once and waits for the box to appear.
QVC did not just sell products. It taught modern commerce how to perform. It proved that retail works best when it feels like a relationship, that information can be entertainment and that a little bit of urgency can move a startling amount of merchandise, whether that merchandise is a Dell laptop, a bottle of fragrance or, for reasons that remain gloriously American, a live lobster.
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There was a time when the side hustle had a uniform: a rideshare decal, a delivery bag, maybe a second phone buzzing with low-margin urgency. Now it looks more like a cultural fever dream. The extra-income economy has spilled out of the car and into the backyard, the wedding aisle, the livestream and the velvet-rope line. What used to be shorthand for “drive strangers, deliver noodles” has become a much stranger exercise in monetizing whatever you already have: time, charisma, square footage, niche expertise or simply the willingness to do the thing that somebody wealthier or busier would rather not do themselves.
The hype is real because the need is real. Bankrate found that 1 in 4 American adults had a side hustle in 2025, with average monthly income of $885 but a median of just $200. LendingTree put the number even higher, at 38%, with average monthly income of $1,215 and a median of $400. More revealing than the averages: 49% of side hustlers told LendingTree they started because of the economy, 42% cited inflation and 61% said life would be unaffordable without the extra income. In other words, the side hustle may be wrapped in creator-economy glamour, but for plenty of people it is still just inflation wearing a ring light.
The wildest side hustles tend to monetize pure inconvenience. Consider the professional line-sitter. Taskrabbit has an entire “Wait in Line” category. Fortune reported that line-sitters on Taskrabbit charge anywhere from $20 to more than $40 an hour, and that marathon waits can push close to a $1,000 payday. Business Insider profiled a 26-year-old line-sitter who said she has earned $25, $32 and $50 an hour waiting for sample sales, restaurant tables and celebrity trials. It is notable because it turns impatience into a premium service. The product is not labor in the old-fashioned sense; the product is “I don’t want to be here, but somebody has to.”
Then there is the professional bridesmaid, which sounds like a sitcom premise until you get to the pricing. People reported that Jen Glantz of Bridesmaid for Hire starts at $2,500 per wedding, has made close to $10,000 on a single wedding, and says 75% of clients hire her secretly. She has worked more than 200 weddings. This one is especially notable because it commercializes emotional labor, social smoothing and strategic friend energy. In a digital economy that already outsourced groceries, calendars and customer service, it was only a matter of time before somebody outsourced bridal-party drama.
The next tier of weird is what might be called “asset-light hospitality for people with assets.” Swimply says most hosts pull in about $1,000 a month and keep 70% to 85% of each booking after fees. Business Insider found one Los Angeles host making $22,000 a month renting pools through the app. Over at Sniffspot, the pitch is even more delightfully 2026: rent your yard to dogs. The company says hosts can earn up to $3,000 a month, and according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, top hosts clear more than that monthly. These are notable because they convert idle private space into bookable inventory. Your pool is no longer just a pool; it is a micro-resort. Your yard is now a canine wellness destination.
And then there are the side hustles that stop being weird and start being seriously lucrative. Business Insider reported that top live sellers on apps like TikTok, Whatnot and Palmstreet are pulling in five- and six-figure sales during single livestreams. One seller moved $42,000 worth of rare plants in a day; another sold more than $100,000 in golf gear during a six-hour Whatnot show. That is notable because live selling collapses entertainment, community, checkout and merchandising into one caffeinated performance. If old-school side hustles were about laboring harder, this one is about performing better.
Meanwhile, the highest-paying side hustles are often the least theatrical. The National Notary Association says part-time mobile notaries report earnings ranging from a few hundred dollars to as much as $20,000 a month. And Upwork says the average U.S. freelancer income is about $99,230 annually, with top specialists earning as much as $275,000. On top of that, Upwork’s 2025 skills report found that generative AI modeling can command hourly premiums of up to 22%, while its 2026 research says AI-related skills grew 109% year over year. The lesson: the weirdest side hustles get the headlines, but expertise still gets the fattest margins.
Which is where payments enters the story, and not as a footnote. Payments is the thing that turns these odd jobs from anecdotes into actual businesses. Taskrabbit adds a service fee on top of the Tasker rate. Swimply charges guests upfront through Stripe and says host payouts are directly deposited after each booking. Sniffspot collects payment before the booking and sends host earnings monthly, while its help center says the total host commission usually comes to 24.37% plus $0.22 per charge. In live selling, the payout cadence becomes part of the pitch: Whatnot says eligible sellers can access earnings as soon as they generate a shipping label, with payouts typically reaching the bank in one to two business days, while TikTok Shop lets sellers choose daily, every-business-day, weekly or monthly payouts.
Zoom out, and the macro trend is even clearer: PYMNTS reported in March that only 36% of gig platforms offer instant payments consistently, but when instant payouts are available, 59% of disbursements go instant almost immediately and 57% of recipients make instant their primary payout method. That is not a back-end detail. That is product strategy. In side hustles, speed of money is the user experience.
So, yes, the gig economy still includes Uber and DoorDash. But that is now the starter pack, not the whole picture. The modern side hustle is a sprawling marketplace for rented pools, rented patience, rented social grace, rented expertise and rented audiences. It is absurd. It is ingenious. It is occasionally lucrative enough to make a salaried worker stare into the middle distance. And it is powered, almost invisibly, by the simple fact that once people can price something, platform it, and get paid for it quickly, almost anything starts to look like inventory. Even your backyard. Even your Saturday. Even, apparently, your ability to keep a bridal party from imploding.
The post The Side Hustle Has Entered Its Weird Era appeared first on PYMNTS.com.
In the payments and FinTech ecosystem, the concept of friction is usually discussed in the context of checkout flows, cross-border settlements or fragmented API integrations. But as any C-suite executive or private equity lead knows, friction isn’t just a digital metric, it is a physical and mental tax. When your home office becomes a graveyard for outdated pitch decks and your wardrobe starts to show post-funding-roadshow fatigue, the resulting drag on personal productivity is measurable.
For the modern professional, spring cleaning is no longer a domestic chore involving bleach and a Saturday afternoon. It is an exercise in portfolio rebalancing. It is about auditing the physical and digital assets that support a 24/7 global workflow and divesting from the clutter-core that slows down execution.
The goal isn’t just a tidy desk; it’s the optimization of the life stack. This requires shifting from a DIY mindset to a strategic outsourcing model and applying the same principles of comparative advantage that govern a successful firm to the management of one’s own household. From decommissioning zombie subscriptions to utilizing white-glove archival services for sensitive deal notes, the objective is a lean, high-performance lifestyle.
As we move into Spring and the second quarter, the following checklist offers a premium blueprint for the well-heeled professional. It’s designed for those with a suspicious number of devices, a penchant for leather goods that telegraph competence, and absolutely zero patience for low-grade logistical noise.
- Start with an executive-level sort, not a weekend panic.Bring in a professional organizer before you buy a single bin. KonMari now has 900+ certified consultants worldwide, and Marie Kondo’s “Joy at Work” is still the most on-brand title here for anyone whose desk, inbox and life have merged into one long earnings call.
- Buy better storage systems, not more aspirational containers.Once the clutter is culled, upgrade the hardware. The Container Store x KonMari collaboration is still the cleanest shorthand for premium organizing—drawer systems, baskets, hangers, and tidy tools designed to make a closet look less “post-roadshow” and more “private-bank brochure.”
- Outsource the deep clean. Your comparative advantage is not mopping.For affluent professionals, spring cleaning starts by buying back time. Good options outside the U.S. include Housekeep in London and Urban Company in Dubai, India and Singapore, where the company offers deep-cleaning, regular-cleaning, and premium-helper style services.
- Refresh the daily work wardrobe without over-dry-cleaning it.If your uniform runs to blazers, silk shirts, wool trousers and cashmere layers, a steam closet is the stealth-luxury move. LG Styler positions itself as a way to refresh, deodorize, sanitize and gently dry hard-to-wash garments between full cleanings, with quick-refresh cycles for everyday wear.
- Send the truly expensive pieces to people who charge like they know what they’re doing.For the garments you really care about — tailored suits, coats, formalwear, delicate designer pieces — use a luxury cleaner. Jeeves of Belgravia remains a strong shorthand for that tier of service; its posted New York pricing runs from $120 to $1,500 for a two-piece suit and $200 to $2,000 for a hand-cleaned suit, with pickup options and stores beyond London.
- Service the leather goods that telegraph competence.In these sectors, the briefcase, tote, loafers and weekender bag are basically part of the uniform. Leather Spa offers repair and care for shoes, bags and accessories, including cleaning, conditioning and even embossing/monogramming. This is the spring-cleaning line item for anyone whose carry-on costs more than their first used car.
- Shred the paper trail like it’s a bad cap table.Old account statements, printed decks, onboarding packets, tax backups, outdated deal notes: none of that should be sitting in a study drawer. Iron Mountain offers secure shredding with NAID AAA certification, plus residential service starting at $140 and onsite mobile shredding for people who want the whole thing destroyed while they watch.
- Scan what survives and make it searchable.What you keep should not go back into a banker’s box. ScanSnap Home is still one of the more practical premium tools for turning paper into searchable PDFs and managed digital files; it explicitly supports documents, receipts, business cards, and photos, and even lets receipt data be exported to CSV for Excel. Very on-brand for finance people who cannot emotionally let go of a spreadsheet.
- Cull the zombie subscriptions and newsletter bloat.Spring cleaning should hit the P&L too. Rocket Money is built to identify subscriptions and help cancel recurring charges, with premium features including cancellation concierge; its premium plan is typically framed in the $7–$14/month range. For inbox detritus, Clean Email and Leave Me Alone both pitch bulk unsubscribe tools.
- Retire stale tech and tighten access controls.A real spring clean ends with device decommissioning and password hygiene. 1Password now pitches secure management for passwords, passkeys and secrets, and its Teams Starter Pack is priced at $19.95 a month for up to 10 team members. On the hardware side, Apple Trade In offers credit or free recycling, while Dell Asset Recovery Services is built for securely retiring business equipment regardless of brand.
All Things RebalancedSpring cleaning is not really about bleach and paper towels. It is a portfolio rebalancing for your physical and digital life, fewer useless assets, better storage, tighter controls, cleaner data and a wardrobe that no longer looks like it has lived through three funding rounds.
The post This Spring, Divest From Clutter to Reclaim Personal Productivity Like a Boss appeared first on PYMNTS.com.
In the digital economy, not every war is fought over market share. Some are fought over principle, some over pricing and some, let’s be honest, because an adult in a black turtleneck or Patagonia vest simply cannot let that one comment go. Payments, banking and tech are supposed to be the sober plumbing of modern commerce. Yet every so often the pipes start rattling, the founders start sniping and the rest of us get front-row seats to a boardroom soap opera with better margins.
As of March 2026, the current card has some worthy headliners. OpenAI and Anthropic are no longer just competing for model benchmarks; the rivalry has spilled into the race for enterprise customers and even Super Bowl-style advertising jabs. Meanwhile, Amazon and Perplexity have turned the future of AI shopping into a courtroom cage match after Amazon won a temporary order blocking Perplexity’s shopping agent from using its platform. The modern digital economy, in other words, is not post-drama. It has simply upgraded the drama stack.
The Legit BeefsTake Apple versus Epic Games, which may be the most important payments-adjacent fight of the mobile era. Epic’s core complaint was simple: Apple’s App Store rules and commissions made alternative payment paths painfully hard to use. In 2025, a federal judge said Apple violated an earlier injunction meant to loosen those restrictions, after Epic argued that Apple’s new setup — including a 27% fee on some off-app purchases — made external payments commercially unworkable. An appeals court then ruled the judge needed to take into consideration that Apple could make a commission, and so the battle continues. This one matters because it is not merely a spat between two swaggering brands; it is a referendum on who owns the checkout lane inside the smartphone economy.
And if you want a proto-FinTech feud, the original X.com versus PayPal story still deserves a plaque. Reuters Breakingviews, reviewing Jimmy Soni’s history of the company, recounts that Elon Musk’s X.com and Peter Thiel and Max Levchin’s PayPal became fierce rivals, luring users with referral payments and trying to out-code each other before merging. Then, in classic startup fashion, the external rivalry mutated into an internal one: arguments over technology, branding, and direction ended with Musk’s ouster as CEO. Why was it notable? Because it gave us the PayPal Mafia, the most productive alumni group since the Beatles stopped touring.
The Not-so-Legit, but Undeniably Entertaining OnesNot every professional beef is a noble battle over fees, rails or consumer choice. Some are just elite grievance with excellent tailoring. Bill Ackman versus Carl Icahn is the Wall Street gold standard here. In 2013, the two billionaire investors detonated years of acrimony on live television in a shouting match over Herbalife. Reuters described Wall Street as mesmerized. That is the key word. This was notable less because it changed finance forever than because it turned hedge-fund disagreement into appointment viewing — proof that the market can price almost anything except personal animus.
And then there are the patron saints of tech tension: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Reuters noted in 2007 that their “once-intense rivalry” had mellowed by the time they traded jests onstage, but the mutual antagonism had already entered legend. Jobs later told his biographer that Gates was “unimaginative” and had ripped off other people’s ideas. That feud mattered because it was never just personal. It stood in for two visions of the digital economy: closed versus open, elegance versus ubiquity, cool versus scale. It was also notable because, unlike many corporate grudges, it eventually matured into something like respect, which is perhaps the classiest possible ending for a professional beef.
In RetrospectThe lesson in all of this is comforting in a strange way. Even in industries built on algorithms, rails, underwriting and risk models, business is still gloriously human. The invoices may be automated; the feelings are not. And that may be why these grudge matches endure. They make abstract power visible. They show us who controls the gate, who wants a bigger cut and who absolutely, positively needed to win the meeting. In a world obsessed with frictionless commerce, a little friction between rivals may be the most reliable product of all.
The post The Digital Economy’s Longest-Running Grudge Matches appeared first on PYMNTS.com.
Amid the ongoing decline of the shopping mall, a potential savior might come in an unexpected form: pickleball.
Yes, you read that right. The racket sport that is part ping-pong, tennis and badminton, created in 1965 as a backyard game, could be coming to a mall near you.
Picklemall, a startup looking to address the challenges faced by the declining retail real estate industry while meeting the growing popularity of pickleball, is repurposing vacant mall areas into indoor courts.
Set to open its first location in Tempe, Arizona, this July, Picklemall is gearing up to showcase an array of 24 courts, marking their debuts in the United States.
The move comes as pickleball, a sport played on a compact tennis-like court, has been gaining popularity in the United States following the pandemic — largely due to its reputation for being accessible and simple to learn. As a result, the sport has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity, with the estimated number of players soaring from around 5 million in 2021 to 8.9 million in 2022.
Billionaire philanthropist and founder of Picklemall, Steve Kuhn of Austin, Texas, has funded the startup and emphasizes the pressing demand for additional pickleball courts. During an interview with Yahoo Finance Live, the disparity between tennis and pickleball court availability was highlighted. While there is roughly one tennis court for every 30 tennis players, the ratio significantly drops to only one pickleball court for every 250 players.
“As anyone who’s tried to play on a public court and waited for hours to play would tell you, we need more courts, and Picklemall is working to try and bring more courts and bring a great experience to more players,” said Kuhn.
The indoor concept of Picklemall emphasizes inherent advantages, including a controlled climate and championship-style courts. It also allows you to schedule court time and record your game through the Picklemall app.
The Challenges With Indoor Pickleball While transitioning pickleball indoors presents numerous benefits, it also introduces certain noise challenges. A study by a retired engineer and a professor from Carnegie Mellon University found that a solid hit in pickleball generates around 70 decibels of noise, surpassing the noise levels observed in tennis and approaching those produced by a vacuum cleaner.
Picklemall CEO West Shaw has emphasized the company’s commitment to addressing concerns regarding the noise generated during pickleball matches.
“We’re doing our best to mitigate those complaints by putting sound dampening devices in our facilities, trying to capture some of that noise,” said Shaw. “The great thing is, being indoors, we don’t have to deal with the neighbors hearing the noise. We just have to deal with our tenant.”
Is Pickleball a Temporary Solution or Does It Have Staying Power?Despite skeptics questioning the enduring nature of pickleball as a sport, Kuhn, a noted driving force behind Major League Pickleball, founded in 2021, remains steadfast in his conviction that pickleball is not merely a passing trend.
To drive its point home, Picklemall plans to open 50 locations nationwide in the next two years, including in cities like San Antonio, Texas and Chicago, Illinois.
Shaw explained that Picklemall leverages Google queries to map the geographic distribution of pickleball players across the United States. However, the widespread growth of the sport itself also serves as a crucial factor in guiding the startup’s decision-making regarding future locations. Consequently, Picklemall heavily relies on its well-defined growth strategy to identify the most suitable areas for establishing new facilities.
“You can see sometimes four generations of a family playing together, and I think that makes [pickleball] completely unique and special,” said Kuhn. “It’s building family memories for people.”
The State of the Shopping MallGoing back to 2016, PYMNTS was writing about the decline of the shopping mall with a dire statistic: at the time, a new, enclosed shopping mall hadn’t opened in the United States in a decade.
In a 2020 opinion piece for trade publication Chain Store Age, Colin Shaughnessy, executive vice president at commercial real estate firm Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and U.S. leasing chief at its Westfield malls division wrote at the time: “The millennials and Gen Z-ers whose feet will provide most of the foot traffic in retail centers in the coming decades seek retail, entertainment and dining with a point of difference. A destination with a cool factor is what gets them out of the house.”
Shaughnessy, whose firm owns 28 U.S. malls, wrote that “we make sure our centers are places people want to be by improving both the physical and digital infrastructure, as well as the tenant mix itself — a combination of traditional retail with a focus on dynamic, industry-leading concepts in food, health and wellness, fitness and entertainment.”
Although the concept seemed optimistic and grounded in reality, it ultimately fell short due to premature assumptions about the inclusion of Gen Z and their expectations. At the time, the world had yet to fully grasp the persona of Generation Z, as individuals belonging to this generation were born anywhere between 1997 and 2012.
That said, three years later, the Westfield Mall has been noted as a symbol of San Francisco’s decline and has revealed that it would be handing back the ownership of the San Francisco Centre mall to the bank due to a massive decline in sales, occupancy and foot traffic.
As consumer behaviors have undergone significant transformations, real estate investors, brands and retailers find themselves caught in a challenging predicament. Consumers now seek and anticipate unique experiences, leaving the fate of dying malls uncertain. While pickleball or any other solution remains uncertain, only time and consumer choices will ultimately determine the outcome. However, it remains to be seen if anyone has the patience to wait that long.
The post Can Pickleball Save Shopping Malls? appeared first on PYMNTS.com.
Three in five Americans say inflation has affected their summer travel plans. But that doesn’t mean they’ve opted to forego their trips. It just means they need to be more savvy.
To satisfy their travel aspirations while being budget-conscious, some are opting for road trips as an alternative to air travel and selecting affordable accommodation options. Others are willing to work.
The sentiment follows a recent PYMNTS report that states that consumers view travel as essential but still look for deals. That said, between the first quarter of 2022 and Q1 2023, two categories related to travel activities showed the highest increases in digital engagement. Online travel information experienced an 11% growth, while online airfare saw a rise of 14%. This surge in digital engagement indicates consumer interest in travel, and airlines are optimistic about the upcoming months, anticipating increased demand.
See also: Consumers See Summer Travel as Essential but Look for Bargains
But as prices continue to rise, 35% of consumers have made the tough choice of switching to cheaper, lower-quality goods to manage their expenses, even when it comes to travel. With that, the desire to escape and travel has proven to be advantageous for hotel reservations. For one, Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel noted during a Q4 2022 earnings call that increased reservations resulted in room nights exceeding 2019 levels across all major regions for the quarter.
See also: Booking Holdings Says Hotel Stays Finally Eclipse Pre-COVID Levels
He added that this activity in Q4 led to a record-breaking achievement of nearly 900 million room nights booked on their platforms for 2022, representing a 52% increase compared to the previous year. And more recently, in March, AirDNA reported that travelers created a new record by making unprecedented bookings for short-term rentals, which amounted to 21 million nights reserved for future stays.
But even with cheaper bookings, the booking receipt has to get paid. So, how are consumers doing it?
Some Are Swapping Their Home DigsThe concept of unlimited house-swapping is becoming popular among travelers. HomeExchange, a company based in the United States, has witnessed a noticeable growth in membership levels during the first quarter. With a year-over-year increase of 77%, the membership base has reached 110,000 members.
Moreover, the platform has experienced a substantial rise of 63% in the number of exchanges conducted through its services.
But if house swapping isn’t in the cards, labor might be in exchange for a place to stay.
Consumers Opt To Work During Their Vacations“I took care of three cats and 20-plus plants while I was in Morocco, one dog in Tokyo, one dog in Kobe, and two cats in South Korea,” said 30-year-old freelance designer Lillian Smith who has worked as a house-sitter in various countries such as France, Morocco, Japan and South Korea.
By paying $169 in an annual membership to TrustedHousesitters, a platform that connects homeowners with trusted in-home sitters, she has saved over $11,000 on accommodation expenses alone, despite still needing to cover the costs of plane tickets.
Compared to 2019, TrustedHousesitters has reportedly experienced a significant surge in new member sign-ups, increasing by 130%. Moreover, there has been a doubling in the number of requests from owners seeking U.K. sitters on the platform.
Nomador, a housesitting platform headquartered in Paris, has also seen a substantial increase in new sitters joining the platform. From the fourth quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023, there was a notable surge of 60% in new sitters registering on Nomador.
But working on vacation has its legal implications and, if not properly planned, can be filled with horror.
Not for EveryoneAccording to TrustedHousesitters, its sitters typically face minimal immigration issues when housesitting. However, in certain countries like the U.S. and Britain, housesitting has been viewed as work rather than a tourist activity and has resulted in situations where a work visa is required instead of a tourist visa.
The U.S. State Department said tourists are “not permitted to accept employment or work” while in the country. However, tourists can seek to switch a tourist visa into a nonimmigrant temporary work visa.
Still, there’s confusion over whether or not housesitting is work.
New York-based immigration attorney Afia Yunus commented to Reuters that as long as homeowners do not require work and compensation solely for that work, housesitting cannot be considered unauthorized employment under the Immigration Nationality Act. Yunus added that even platforms like Airbnb might involve certain responsibilities, such as taking out the trash or performing basic tasks related to staying in the home.
However, after Yunus made this statement, many individuals turned to Reddit to share their perspectives.
“I like to think that I’m an immigration lawyer “who knows their stuff” , and I disagree with the advice in the article, Reddit user epmlassie said.
Another user, Material-Appeal3756 said, “is [this] just further evidence that the conversation is so disputed that two lawyers the one in this thread and the one in the article are interpreting the law differently. Again, makes me think you need to get a good lawyer so you can visit the U.S. again or sue THS if you believe you are in the right.”
One TrustedHousesitters user, Madolline Gourley, and the writer for One Cat At A Time, shared her personal experience with the company, highlighting an incident where her use of the service resulted in her deportation from the United States.
“It’s been a long, very frustrating few months following my deportation from the United States. United States Customs and Border Protection says unpaid house sitting is work, and tourists need a work visa to do it on their travels. TrustedHousesitters says U.S. immigration got it wrong,” said Gourley in a post.
“TrustedHousesitters has known about what happened at LAX minutes after it happened. I emailed them to say I’d been refused entry to the United States because I was told I had the incorrect visa to undertake unpaid house sitting on my sight-seeing holiday/vacation,” Gourley continued.
But for others like Nicki Grihault, the experience with TrustedHousesitters has been rather pleasant.
“We have done weekends and month-long stints, and looked after pets from a budgie to an adorable pair of rescue donkeys, but mostly dogs and cats. With constant attractive profiles coming online, housesitting can become addictive,” said Grihault in a submission to The Guardian.
Grihault, however, does note that checking in advance whether a work visa may be required for an international destination country is key.
The post The High Cost of Housesitting appeared first on PYMNTS.com.
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