Amazon’s new ‘Brand Referral Bonus’ program

After Amazon already began to take stricter action against sellers who violate the rules on its own platform a few months ago, the e-commerce giant has blocked even more Chinese sellers in recent weeks because they had used unauthorized tricks to obtain customer reviews. But Amazon also has to justify itself once again: The company has come under criticism for exploiting its dominance during the COVID-19 pandemic by supposedly setting prices too high.

On the other hand, the pandemic was a powerful accelerator for the growth of the e-commerce industry as a whole – the flipside of this development is now becoming visible in the form of a shortage of warehouse space though. In addition to expanding their online business, the two largest e-commerce groups, Amazon and Alibaba, are now focusing more and more on brick-and-mortar retail.

In the meantime, Jeff Bezos is expanding in a different direction: This Tuesday, he took off on his long-awaited first flight into space aboard a rocket from his own space company, Blue Origin. Who knows, maybe Amazon will soon even deliver packages on the moon?

General Updates

Amazon bonus program for traffic from other platforms

With its new ‘Brand Referral Bonus’ program, Amazon is encouraging brands to send potential customers to Amazon via Google and Facebook ads instead of directing them to their own online store. The brands will only pay a 5% transaction fee when they do so – normally they would pay 15%. In the end, Amazon profits from this: If customers buy again directly through the platform, merchants will again have to pay the regular 15% fee.

Amazon and Walmart will profit from child tax credit payments

Child tax credit payments will probably lift e-commerce sales in the U.S. The monthly payments of $250 or $300, depending on a child’s age, will begin this week. The additional money will most likely be spent on back-to-school items such as notebooks and sports outfits – and online shopping is expected to be done mostly on Amazon. The one-time increase to the child tax credit will provide $150 billion of additional stimulus to the U.S. economy.

Even more Chinese Amazon sellers blocked

Amazon has now blocked close to 300 Chinese sellers from its platform. Many of them sold best-selling products, especially in the ‘technology’ category. The sellers had used unauthorized means to encourage their customers to post reviews on Amazon. Removing the often low-priced but also high-quality Chinese competition now creates new sales opportunities for competitors.

New environmental labels added to Climate Pledge on Amazon

Amazon has added four new seals to its ‘Climate Pledge Friendly’ program. Products labeled as ‘EWG Verified’, ‘Regenerative Organic Certified’, ‘Animal Welfare Approved’, and ‘The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Safer Choice’ will receive the badge on the platform in the future. This brings the total to 31 labels that qualify products for the eco-friendly Amazon badge.

Did Amazon sellers take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis?

The UK regulator CMA is investigating whether Amazon exploited its market power in the Corona pandemic by overcharging. The Unite union had filed a complaint, saying products such as masks and disinfectants were up to 2,000% more expensive at certain times. Amazon explained that the prices had been set by sellers themselves, but that it was taking action against exploitative pricing.

Amazon and Alibaba invest in brick-and-mortar stores

Amazon is planning to expand its brick-and-mortar business – and has been able to recruit the Chief Strategy and Innovation Director of the largest British retail chain Tesco for this purpose. Alibaba is also focusing on brick-and-mortar retail and has just opened its third Spanish AliExpress store in Barcelona. Spain is one of the fastest growing markets for AliExpress outside of China.

No Digital Tax in the EU – Austria says it will stick to its plans

The planned Digital Tax in the EU will not be implemented, instead the G20 finance ministers agreed on a global minimum tax. The U.S. had repeatedly urged that the plans shall be dropped, calling the Digital Tax a ‘discrimination against U.S. companies’. However, the Austrian government has announced that it still wants to introduce the Digital Tax on a national level – it now faces the threat of U.S. punitive tariffs like those applying to France.

Shortage of warehouse space due to e-commerce boom

Four million square meters of additional warehouse space will be needed in Germany by 2025 – that is the result of a study by real estate service provider CBRE. The reason for this is the continuing global e-commerce boom. The increased demand for space is therefore not limited to Germany: In Europe, around 29 million square meters of additional space will be needed by 2025, and around 130 million square meters worldwide.

Remazing Update

Remazing is an official Amazon Advertising Partner

It has been eagerly awaited for a long time, and now it is finally available: the Amazon Advertising Partner Network. According to Amazon, by participating in this network, Remazing will be notified earlier about updates related to Amazon Advertising and receive exclusive access to webinars. It should also be possible to create separate cases.
We are very excited and are always happy about ways and means to expand the communication and collaboration with Amazon bilaterally.

What caught our attention

Amazon is gradually testing the Stores Product Collections that are available already in the U.S. now on the European marketplaces as well. The product collections are displayed on the search results page of a branded search and lead to a special landing page in the brand store. So far, we have only discovered the new feature in the ‘apparel’ category.

Starting September 1, 2021, Amazon will introduce ‘Regulatory Advertising Fees‘. The fees will be added to the cost of Sponsored Ads if they are clicked in a country that has introduced a Digital Tax. The affected countries are the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Austria and Turkey. The fees vary between 2% and 7.5%.
We are curious to see if the fees will still have to be paid even if the Digital Tax will not be implemented.

Remdash: Share of Voice

With our recently launched Share of Voice function, you can track your brand’s search performance in different ways:

• Defined Keyword Sets (e.g. Branded vs. Non-Branded)
• Paid vs. Organic Performance
• Historical Performance
• Automated Competitor Tracking

Interested in Remdash? Schedule your personal product demo here!

Top 5 Amazon Keywords

Corona-related keywords have not been discovered in the top 5 in the past week. In most countries, summer is in full swing as can be seen with the high amount of searches for pools, air conditioners, and sandals. Italian Amazon users especially searched for their national football team’s jersey to celebrate its European Championship victory.