Amazon UK advises on fraudulent emails
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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.
Amazon at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst (Part II)
Filed Under Amazon Events, Amazon Fulfillment, Amazon International, Amazon Product Ads, Amazon Webstore | 1 Comment
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.
econsultancy reports that over the weekend Amazon UK adopted the new UI introduced by Amazon on its US site in late 2007, leaving Amazon France, Germany, Canada, Japan and yes, also China on the old design. The upgrade appears to be somewhat spotty, I have run into several pages that still show the old design.
I am a big fan of the new shopping experience and it’s great to see it now also available one of Amazon’s fastest growing sites.
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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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InternetRetailing.net published this morning the first edition of their Top 30 UK Online Retail Satisfaction Index. Not unexpected Amazon UK was on top — but not number one. That spot belongs to we-are-going-to-beat-you-at-your-own-game media marketplace Play.com which also just published their Q4′07 results with a respectable 24% YOY growth rate.
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Procrastinator unite! In what must be the fastest holiday shipping support in eCommerceland, Amazon UK has announced that it will guarantee Christmas Eve delivery of eligible items for a charge of £14.99 per delivery. Orders must be placed by 8.30 a.m. GMT and can only be shipped to Birmingham or London. I anticipate that this includes all Amazon UK Prime products (sourced directly by Amazon UK or Fulfillment By Amazon).
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Amazon.co.uk launches Amazon Prime
Filed Under Amazon Features, Amazon International | Leave a Comment
Very good news for Amazon-crazy UK shoppers: Amazon UK today launched the Amazon Prime program with an announcement from Jeff Bezos himself on the home page. Introduced in the US in February of 2005, Amazon Prime offers Amazon customers fast shipping for a flat monthly fee for qualifying products.
£49 / year gets you “unlimited Free One-Day Delivery on millions of eligible items sold by Amazon.co.uk.” plus a discounted rate of £7.49 for same-day evening delivery window in London and Birmingham (serviced from the Stafford Amazon Fulfillment Center, I assume). Read more
Amazon.co.uk updates order notification emails
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Following a recent change in the U.S., Amazon UK has announced that effective October 22nd it will also be modifying its “sold, dispatch now” email notifications (sent to third-party sellers) to strip all sensitive buyer information. Read more
Updated return policy on Amazon.co.uk
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Amazon UK is changing its return policy for most of its categories (Consumer Electronics will remain at 7 days) to bring it more in line with its US policy: you can now play with you purchase for 30 days before sending it back (like that XBox 360 and the Halo 3 game you were “evaluating”). Read more