This was 2020 for Amazon

We hope that you can also look back on this year positively and already look forward to a healthy, happy, and successful new year 2021.

General Updates

Amazon’s 2020: Highlights, updates, and the pandemic

Time for a review through the lense of Amazon: The company grew exponentially in 2020, setting new revenue records and opening two new marketplaces in the Netherlands and Sweden. But Amazon also felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our MD Hannes Detjen summarized the highlights and lowlights as well as other developments on the platform.

Amazon is world’s biggest advertiser

Amazon’s ad spending grew 34% in 2019 to $11 billion – making the platform the largest advertiser in the world, according to an analysis by Ad Age. Amazon even overtook Procter & Gamble, which had topped the list every year since 1987. Overall, ad spend on the top 100 increased by 0.9% in 2019.

How 2020 went for other online marketplaces and prospects for Amazon in 2021

Marketplaces Etsy, Walmart, and Amazon have benefited from the e-commerce boom this year and have grown – but Google Shopping, Wish, and eBay have not been able to take advantage of the pandemic. Forbes predicts ‘Amazon 2021’ developments: Amazon Fresh and Amazon Ads, among others, will continue to drive the platform’s growth.

Amazon plans expansion into the medical field

According to Business Insider, Amazon is planning to enter the telemedicine market with its Amazon Care program. The online retailer wants to offer services ranging from online pharmacies to doctor’s visits for large companies in the US. Until now, the service has only been available to its own employees. Amazon is also said to be planning to buy an Indian pharmacy chain.

Changes in the FBA program in 2020

Since this year, an algorithm decides on what can be sold on Amazon’s FBA program – and has been criticized for being inflexible. Above all, restrictions for the number of products that can be shipped to Amazon are viewed with lots of skepticism. The products of many sellers were sold out on Amazon, although the online retailers could have delivered goods at a later point. Amazon countered by saying it did not have enough capacity to meet the increased demand, despite its big increases in new warehouse space.

Changes we observed

Amazon has announced it will remove the comment feature for responding to customer reviews for sellers. According to the company, the feature has supposedly been rarely used.

This reasoning surprises us as we know many brands that use the feature regularly. If the comment function is indeed removed, we are curious about new options that will probably be available soon.

Comment: Black Friday vs. Prime Day 2020

We wanted to know how Black Friday Week went compared to Prime Day Week on Amazon this year – especially because there were just 6 weeks between the Sales Events. Therefore we analyzed more than 400,000 products.

The sales increase compared to the previous week was

• in Black Friday Week + 51%
• in Prime Day Week + 93%

The sales increase was the highest in

• Black Friday: Germany & Spain with + 70%
• Prime Day: Italy with + 220%

The sales level in the week after the deal week compared to the week before the deal week was

• at Black Friday + 26%
• at Prime Day – 5%

All in all, the sales increase was higher in Prime Day Week 2020, but the uplift lasted longer after Black Friday Week. Because of Cyber Monday there was no sales drop after Black Friday Week – different to the week after Prime Day.

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