Amazon in the news - Week 20
Max Leisten under Amazon in the News, Selling Strategies | Click here to add a comment
Quick summary of interesting Amazon-related news / events for this past week:
- Great new Amazon MP3 Widget for Amazon Associates that allows your visitors to listen to and purchase music right from your site.
- Several enhancements were released on May 14th to Amazon’s Packing Slip functionality (necessary tweaks such as removing the seller’s email address).
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) releases a Marketplaces Widget based on its Flexible Payment Service (FPS) to facilitate the transfer of money between buyers and sellers. Go build your own shopping cart in only a few steps!
- Citibank’s Mark Mahaney forecasts that Amazon’s Kindle could be quite popular in 2010, to the tune of $450 - $750 million in direct revenue. Not everyone’s convinced this is on track.
- Amazon invests in multimedia company Animoto which allows users to create videos from their photos and music (deal with Facebook). Animoto will use Amazon’s technology infrastructure.
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New Amazon.com chargeback process for third-party sellers
Amazon US announced today a new process for responding to chargebacks (the cardholder-initiated reversal of a credit-card transaction when, for example, the order was placed fraudulently or the product was not received). Read more
Amazon ClickRiver discontinued?
I don’t think there has been any official word from Amazon on the demise of ClickRiver, but I spoke to the Amazon team at a large online retailer yesterday that stated “the ClickRiver program has been discontinued”. Then I came across this complaint from an Amazon ClickRiver user on the WebmasterWorld forum:
Amazon UK advises on fraudulent emails
The Amazon UK team issued a warning yesterday that online retailers selling on its platform in the UK may receive fraudulent A-Z claim notifications.
Is Amazon a more profitable channel then eBay?
Just like the eternal epic struggle of “boxers vs. briefs”, the comparisons between eBay and Amazon will never cease among online retailers. At least as long as both command a significant share of traffic and online sales in the U.S..
To fuel the fire, I am focusing for this week’s e-commerce celebrity death match between eBay and Amazon on SKU profitability with two contrarian views from third-party merchants.
Amazon jewelry category continues to grow rapidly
Amazon announced yesterday that its retail diamond sales grew over 100% in the first quarter of 2008, following a so-so quarter by Blue Nile and a strong indicator that Amazon is gaining significant share in this category. Valuable to read to get an update on the top sellers: Read more
Learn how Amazon.com processes orders
Amazon has published a new interactive tutorial on the order process from the time the consumers buys the product until it is received. You may need to have an active US Seller Central account to view the tutorial (click the images for a larger version) but each of the order statuses comes with an overview that explains what is going on, and how long it may take. Read more
I am wrapping up my how-much-more-could-you-possibly-be-writing commentary on our Catalyst conference in Pinehurst with Amazon SVP Sebastian Gunningham’s overview of Amazon’s growth model. While not intentional, it does fit nicely with Amazon’s recent earnings announcement of another great quarter of “we’re grabbing more e-commerce market share” 31% growth in the US.
Amazon US sales grow 31% in Q1 2008
Amazon reported earnings tonight after market close and there are a few interesting highlights:
- Sales in North America are up 31%, International grew 41%. That’s about 13% (in the US) more then the anticipated 18% YOY e-commerce growth rate for 2008. Continuing to gain share of the overall pie.
- Fulfillment By Amazon adoption grew 50%, showing strong momentum. Probably a result of both good media coverage, sellers competing with FBA listings (tough one) and resigning to “if you can’t beat them, join them” and Amazon sales efforts (one seller on a Yahoo! store sent me a note that he was contacted by Amazon on basic fulfillment opportunities).
- Media as a product category continues to shrink with only 28% growth (CE/general merchandise grew 56%). Points to growing 3P sales as a share of overall revenue.
- Amazon’s “developer network” grew 10% to 370,000 developers in the last quarter. As opposed to eBay’s developer program which is laser-focused on growing traffic and sales, this is cool to see but really doesn’t have a significant impact on merchandising revenue on Amazon.
Amazon at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst (Part II)
As promised but long delayed, here’s the second part of my ChannelAdvisor Catalyst US thoughts and observations.
Amazon Enterprise
- Before WebStore there was Amazon’s enterprise platform, essentially managing a retailer’s e-commerce business and the foundation on which WebStore was built. Not all that well known since this is really only an option for a very small number of large online retailers.
- Great examples are Marks & Spencer and Target.com.