Amazon officially released this morning its Yahoo! Answers competitor, Askville.com. The site, quietly launched in beta in December 2006, takes a game show approach, rewarding smarty pants with points and temporarily Amazon gift cards. Read more
Amazon wins Cyber Monday battle
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Via the Wall Street Journal comes news that Amazon was the most-visited online retailer on Cyber Monday, receiving 10% of the visits to the top 100 US sites. Of course this is pointless since everyone is pinning their hopes on Green Monday (December 10th) as the peak of the 2007 holiday shopping season.
And while I am on the subject of holiday insanity, in my next life I want to be a toy seller on Amazon with 500 Wii’s in my warehouse. Significant shortages have driven the average price on Amazon.com from $330 just a few weeks ago to over $500 these days. Even the president of Nintendo America can’t find one.
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New Final Holiday Order Date feature
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The holidays brings out the best and worst in people. If you’re eager to only see the best in your Amazon.com buyers then the new Final Holiday Order Date feature is a must-do. When configured in your Shipping Setting within your store’s Information & Policies section, the Product Detail Page (if you own the Buy Box) will display a link to your shipping details so that buyers can determine what shipping option they need to select to assure delivery by December 24th. Read more
Amazon Currency Converter
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Amazon this week rolled out a cool new feature that will make it easier and cheaper for international buyers to purchase products on Amazon.com. The Amazon Currency Converter, at checkout, will offer qualifying consumers from select countries (paying with a MasterCard or Visa credit card) the option to pay in their local currency or in USD. The advantage of paying in your local currency is of course that you will not incur any foreign exchange fees which can be pretty significant. Read more
Free Amazon Prime!
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It appears that competing against Amazon during the current holiday season has just become a little tougher for third-party merchants. Similar to Q4 last year, Amazon is offering select buyers a free one-month Amazon Prime trial. Not only did I receive the offer after purchasing a great Sony kitchen radio but a good number of friends & family have seen this as well over the last few weeks.
Now that I am a member (although only on a trial basis) it will significantly drive my shopping behavior to look for Amazon Prime qualifying sellers and products both in the search results as well as the Product Listing page (”used & new”).
As a refresher, third-party merchants (3P) are eligible for Amazon Prime if their products are fulfilled by Amazon.
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Amazon’s blow-out quarter is partially a result of more merchants then ever selling on the fastest-growing marketplace West of the Mississippi. That is at best mixed news if you are already on Amazon.com as competition for the coveted Buy Box (the Amazon.com main Product Detail page) is growing. In fact, chances are high that most of your products are flying merchandising coach class already (the “New & Used” product listing page) alongside dozens of competitors. The only consolation of course is that Amazon grew their active customer base by 17% to 72 million in Q3 2007 so there are more shoppers to go around for everyone.
Unless you own the Buy Box your price and feedback on your product listing are by far the runaway criteria that will draw consumers to you. But how do you differentiate yourself if you don’t want to ruin your margins and everyone has a 90+% approval rating (other then buying something from your competitor and leaving bad feedback — wait, scratch that)? Read more
Amazon’s Kindle coming
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Amazon has scheduled a big announcement tomorrow, Monday, November 19, in New York City to announce its new eBook reader Kindle. While there have been few details, Newsweek managed to get the story. Highlights include:
- $399
- 10.3 ounces device
- dimensions of a paperback
- up to 200 books on the device (more on memory card)
- 30 hours on a single charge
- Almost 90,000 digital books with new books around $9.99 (plus magazines)
I’ll have to see and feel one to be convinced that it could ever replace the reading experience (not counting the books on your shelf that help you recount the many great stories you’ve read). On the road, maybe, but then I only want to take one device, my laptop.
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Last year’s “Customers Vote” event during Q4 brought Amazon to its knees with the site temporarily going down. Amazon.com is bringing the feature back starting today with six rounds of voting for 18 “ridiculous deals”. Head on over to www.amazon.com/customersvote to participate in:
- Round 1 “Game On” – Prices as low as $79
- Round 2 “Picture This”
- Round 3 “Toy Time”
- Round 4 “Go High-Def”
- Round 5 “Out & About”
- Round 6 “Home Stretch”
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Know your reviewer.
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The Telegraph is featuring an interesting profile of one of the most prolific Amazon reviewers in the United Kingdom, Peter Harris from Leicester. His reviews span mostly the books and music realm, but it’s worthwhile to get some insight into the people that spend hours sharing their opinions with the world. He was impressed when one of the reviewed sellers (musician Stacy Sullivan) reached out with a “Thank You” to him.
If you start to recognize reviewers in your category a small gift may be a smart investment to building good will (and in turn drive sales). Especially if your the only merchant offering a particular product (it’s tough to stand out in consumer electronics).
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Continuing the global roll out of Amazon Prime in all its markets, Amazon today launches Prime in Germany for 29 Euro (about $42 and rising with the US Dollar continuing its free fall). Announced in the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel, Jeff Bezos admitted that in the short term Prime will be a loss leader similar to the US and confirmed that the existing shipping promotions will remain in place.
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