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While some experts see Amazon delivery bots as having potential to reach customers, in general, “it’s just not gaining as much traction as you’d expect at that point,” said one expert. Delivery robots, on ground or by air, have never gotten past the pilot phase. And recent Amazon changes help explain why.
Only about half of Amazon's overall revenue is coming from first-party retail, the business that first catapulted Amazon to prominence. The other 50% is coming from Amazon’s newer businesses: seller services; subscriptions, mainly through Prime and Twitch; Amazon Web Services; and advertising.
Though Amazon has warehouses virtually everywhere in the U.S. in order to meet its delivery commitments, its physical footprint is not equally spread out across the country. As e-commerce booms, it’s beginning to reshape the landscape of some cities. A new air hub in Cincinnati showcases this.
Acquirers are not just entering more countries. They’re also rapidly expanding the marketplaces where they are acquiring brands. Until this year, the rollup space was nearly singularly focused on Amazon-native brands -- but now acquirers are beginning to buy up brands native to platforms like Flipkart, Mercado Libre, Shopee and many more.
While other states have had conflicting rulings over Amazon's liability risk -- a court in Texas last month said Amazon wasn’t on the hook for a battery sold by a third party, for instance -- the growing number of legal authorities who are holding Amazon accountable is a concerning sign for the company. The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission lawsuit is only the latest.
Amazon's new climate badges, launched last September, have failed to make waves among sellers after their initial rollout. While they do hold promise for attracting new customers, even sellers that have received the necessary certifications are struggling to actually receive the climate badges.
As Amazon invests heavily in building new warehouses, leasing planes and hiring thousands of delivery workers, a new partnership with BigCommerce partnership offers a path for Amazon to monetize its new shipping capacity -- all using a carrier model not so dissimilar from a UPS or FedEx.
A new feature that Amazon started rolling out in June allows sellers to send messages -- scripted by the company -- to customers who leave one-, two- or three-star reviews of their products. That gives sellers the chance to respond to negative reviews is a strategic move for Amazon, as it once again battles a fresh round of scrutiny over fake reviews -- and it might let sellers keep their star ratings high without turning to paid reviews.
Anycart, which opened its doors to customers everywhere in May after undergoing beta tests stretching back to 2019, is a marginal player for now, but it captures a new, growing consensus for how to inspire people to make more impulse purchases online: build a platform for shoppable recipes.
Autonomous trucking might help Amazon with driver recruitment. The technology isn't just for the relatively pie-in-the-sky future of a fully driverless truck, but also for shorter-term demands, where certain parts of the trucking process can be automated in order to make the industry more attractive to drivers.
Despite offering competing sales, retailers are struggling to put a dent in Amazon's Prime Day momentum. Multi-category big box retailers like Walmart and Target, as well as Wayfair and Best Buy, all ran sales that overlapped with Amazon's June 21 to 22 Prime Day. Still, early data in app downloads and web traffic shows that these retailers are still seeing a modest uptick in shoppers relative to Amazon.
Most analysts don’t mark the beginning of back-to-school season until mid-July. According to one estimate, only 17.1% of back-to-school purchases typically happen in June, compared to 42.2% in August. But the new timing of Prime Day seems on track to jumpstart the season early.
Amazon is known for its in-house electronics products. But this year, it gave its private-label products in its other categories an extra push. That underscores the extent to which Amazon is pushing specifically its non-electronics products -- which, unlike electronics, might inspire more frequent repeat purchases -- into consumers’ lives.
The recently-introduced Inform bills are essentially disclosure measures, stating that third-party marketplaces have to vet the bank information, government IDs, tax documents and other records pertaining to what the bill classifies as “high-volume third-part sellers.” Here's how these proposed laws could upend the e-commerce ecosystem.
Over the last year, influencer-created videos have increasingly popped up on Amazon product pages. With these videos, Amazon is trying to bring some of the cues from social platforms onto its own site -- and rather than have its influencers only recommend products on YouTube or TikTok, and just link back to Amazon, now Amazon is trying to bring more content natively onto its platform.
The Nation Retail Federation predicts record Halloween sales of $10.14 billion this year with candy and costumes, in particular, growing 20% and 28%. Still, while in person shopping opens up alongside an in-person holiday, Halloween e-commerce continues to thrive in 2021. And retailers are preparing accordingly.
Read MoreAt the Modern Retail Summit, retail marketers will discuss everything from the Amazon effect to new infrastructure to the shift in the direct-to-consumer world.
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