eBay vs. Amazon - Round 2
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Okay, so this doesn’t really count as part of the match, but is more commentary from a media seller that is active on both marketplaces. Courtesy of Scot’s eBay Strategies blog comes this video of Kevin Harmon at inflatablemadnessdvd.com who talks about the opportunities. And they’re significant all around.
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A view into Amazon’s future
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Whew, little bit of a break. I was so wrapped up in ChannelAdvisor’s launch of Amazon UK as an online channel that the blog had to take a backseat for a few days. Going to provide an update on this shortly.
I have long been a subscriber to Motley Fool’s Rulebreaker product (with pretty good results) and follow their analysis / coverage of eCommerce and technology companies. Here’s a fun post (thanks to Randy Smythe) that speculates on what Amazon may look like in 2010. Among the predictions you will find: Read more
Amazon UK adds Shipping Costs to Buy Box formula
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The Amazon UK team announced that starting on February 19 it will include a seller’s shipping costs in its Buy Box formula in addition to the product’s price, quantity, merchant performance (feedback, account age) “among others”. Of course the entire formula and the weighing of the various factors is unknown, but this is great news for consumers expecting a transparent, fast and worry-free shopping experience on this leading online shopping site. Read more
Going Gold on Amazon.com
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AuctionBytes features an interesting interview with Amazon.com’s Director of Business Solutions Matt Williams about the Pro Merchant program, Gold / Platinum-level requirements, account reinstatements and Amazon’s feedback system. Read more
Amazon has published new product attribute data for pretty much all of their US categories in the form of new Item Classification Guides (ICG) as well as Browse Tree Guides (BCG), essentially which category and subcategory you need to insert your products into to maximize your sales (after all a mis-categorized product not only will score poorly in tree navigation but also in search).
Upgraded Amazon Payment Reporting and ROI Analysis
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Amazon today announced an upcoming upgrade of their settlement reports within the Seller Central dashboard (does not apply for Amazon Marketplaces merchants), including a “completely new interface that makes it easy to examine your financial data, single login, quick filters to quickly refine a list of transactions and easy drill down to transaction details and order information”.
The key for online retailers is of course to view and analyze this information across many channels to determine not only if you’ve received all of your funds (which is important) but the ROI of Amazon compared to the hopefully many other channels you are sending your products to — at the SKU level. Otherwise how do you know that you’re maximizing your margins on that home theater receivers in your warehouse, and ultimately grow your business as efficient (and fast) as possible?
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From eBay to Amazon?
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Via Steve Weber’s Selling Books blog comes this Fortune Small Business article on eBay’s recent changes and the reaction in the 3P community. Of course the expansion, rather then migration, to Amazon is not a new phenomenon (3P sellers now drive around 30% of all products sold on this channel world-wide) but gains new interest in light of the somewhat controversial new policies and features announced by eBay at its recent eCommerce Forum in DC. Read more
Changes to “Sold, Ship Now” notifications in effect for Amazon UK and Canada
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Heads-up for Amazon 3P sellers: as of today Amazon no longer provides granular order and buyer information in the “Sold, Ship Now” emails in the UK and Canada. Amazon UK writes: Read more
News Flash: Jewelry still a very hot item on Amazon
Filed Under Amazon Announcements, Selling Strategies | 2 Comments
Continuing its tradition of sharing select category successes, Amazon announced this morning that its Jewelry category has grown over 100% during the holiday season (compared to Q4 2006).
“We’re very excited about the growth in our Jewelry store,” said Peter Lai, Director, Amazon.com Jewelry & Watches store. “Not only are our customers choosing to purchase shoes, electronics and beauty items from Amazon.com, but they are also choosing to make, at times, very personal purchasing decisions with us, such as diamonds, and we take that very seriously.”
The press release has a LOT of good information in it if you are already selling jewelry on Amazon (congratulations for getting and staying in this gated category) or if you’re trying to get your products onto this site. Top sellers included: Read more
Gourmet Food & Digital Downloads for Amazon UK
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Retail-Week reports that Amazon UK will be expanding into Gourmet Foods and Digital Downloads in 2008. Manging Director Brian McBride also shared that we may see a specialty shoe site in the UK similar to Endless.com and another Fulfillment By Amazon warehouse in Swansea, UK in April. Great to see that team build out the site, but there are a few other items on my 2008 Amazon UK wishlist:
- Launch Amazon Webstore to give UK-based online retailers more eCommerce options
- Redesign the site to match the US look + fee and offer better navigation options
- Launch Amazon Product Ads (I am pretty sure it’s US-only at this time)
- Offer ClickRiver contextual ads
- Adopt Amazon Vine in the UK to help merchants introduce and promote new products
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