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Amazon's continued push into healthcare pits it against an assortment of competitors, ranging from startups to pharmacies to retailers like Target and Walmart and even third-party sellers on its marketplace. Naturally, some of those businesses and entrepreneurs are closely monitoring Amazon's investments, and how the e-commerce giant impacts pricing and profit margins as it wades further into their market.
Growth within Amazon’s third-party marketplace has been on a downward trajectory since the spring, with the lifting of lockdown restrictions spurring shoppers to return to brick and mortar stores. At the same time, Amazon has spent more on fulfillment to meet demand amid the pandemic, while also placing restrictions on the amount of stock sellers can send into its warehouses for storage and shipping. This means that its next earnings may have some tough numbers as it relates to third-party sellers.
Amazon is increasingly giving beauty startups access to its premium and indie brand programs. It gives them entry into a gated section on Amazon’s platform free from third-party resellers, and with additional perks such as early notice and access to upcoming promotions and revenue-boosting placement on curated beauty pages. Meanwhile, it makes Amazon more competitive against large retailers like Ulta and Sephora.
After sprouting out of an aggregator space focused on supercharging e-commerce brands, Amazon roll-up companies are now looking at growing their physical retail presences. By onboarding brands and personnel from companies with established brick and mortar relationships, they are hoping to bring even more of their portfolio to traditional retailers.
Despite Amazon’s foray into luxury fashion, shoppers are still flocking to casualwear on its platform. The biggest brands on the online marketplace specialize in basics or activewear, according to data from Similarweb. Here's what's driving this apparel growth on the platform.
Thrasio, an Amazon aggregator that has snapped up over 200 brands in just three years, is launching in India after acquiring a home appliances startup called Lifelong Online, which manufactures and sells over 100 products ranging from toasters to treadmills on its website and through marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Thrasio is looking to make a big splash in South Asia's biggest economy, home to 750,000 sellers.
Amazon is losing ground to social commerce apps in Asia. Singapore’s Shopee and India’s Meesho are two e-commerce platforms that leapfrogged it last year to become the first and third biggest global shopping apps. There may be some clues for why Amazon's overseas growth is flagging: Despite stiff competition, Amazon has yet to embrace social commerce.
Fashion has become big business for Amazon, but apparel brands are facing challenges around pricing that could dictate how the category performs this year. The issues range from inflation to competition from third-party sellers. Within the fast-paced and dynamic selling environment of Amazon, businesses are increasingly investing more capital and time in a bid to entrench themselves in the e-commerce marketplace, according to sellers and consultants.
With more than $3 billion in funding raised this year, three Amazon aggregators are planning to bolster their product portfolios and launch into new markets in 2022. Thrasio, Goja and Olsam follow the roll-up playbook of acquiring third-party businesses from Amazon’s platform and boosting their sales using proprietary data. But that’s where the similarities end.
Makers of premium and indie skincare and cosmetic products say they are spending more on ads and obsessing over customer data to establish a foothold on Amazon. Some are benefiting from the unique perks that the e-commerce giant offers to select brands as incentives to use its platform.
Third-party sellers say Amazon has been wielding restock limits over the last year-plus, imposing them on a weekly or bi-weekly basis in some cases, giving them short notice before reducing the amount of goods they can send to its warehouses. The fluid changes have created more logistical challenges for small- to mid-sized online businesses, amid rampant supply chain issues.
Cyber Week has traditionally been considered one of the most important selling holidays for third-party merchants on the platform. But this year, sellers and agencies say that sales event didn't produce eye popping results like years past.
After steadily increasing its physical footprint in the U.K., Amazon is reportedly plotting an aggressive expansion. Rumors have been swirling for over a year about its plans to enlarge its footprint of convenience stores across the pond. Now, the company is making big -- and expensive -- moves to expand into the region. Here's why.
Two recent partnerships are transitioning Amazon away from reliance on credit and debit cards and toward more flexible payment systems. In August, Amazon announced it was partnering with the buy now, pay later service Affirm to allow customers to split their purchases into installments. More prominently, Amazon followed up this week with a second new payment option for the platform: Amazon customers can now use Venmo, the peer-to-peer payment platform owned by PayPal, at checkout.
Free returns were optional -- but now, in the Fashion category, Amazon is making it a requirement of doing business. It’s a niche policy change, but it comes at a moment in which return rates and shipping costs are skyrocketing -- and it has bigger implications for how Amazon is continuing to pass the costs of customer-friendly policies to its third-party sellers.
Earlier this month, resale platform Rebelstork – which buys back and sells refurbished baby gear – launched in the U.S. The Canadian startup, founded in 2019, is positioning itself as a white-glove and sustainable shopping service for parents. As resale continues to become more popular, more companies like Rebelstork are trying to corner the secondhand market in niche product categories.
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