Amazon Auctions off Warehouse Space

Amazon is planning the launch of “Buy with Prime” for all retailers in the U.S. At the same time, disagreements have arisen on the platform: advertising glitches caused lost sales for some Amazon retailers during Cyber Week — which is now leading to disputes about refunds. 

Remdash at the E-Commerce Germany Awards

Our software solution Remdash is nominated for the E-Commerce Germany Award in the category “Best Analytics/BI Solution” and every vote counts! 

Our software solution Remdash is nominated for the E-Commerce Germany Award in the category “Best Analytics/BI Solution” and every vote counts! 

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Updates: Amazon

FBA Sellers Can Bid for Extra Storage Capacity

Starting March 1st, sellers using the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) service will be able to participate in an auction for more inventory space. The extra capacity will be allocated to those with the highest bid first. Furthermore, Amazon states that sellers who won the auction can recoup a portion or all of their expenditures by earning a $0.15 performance credit for every dollar of sales generated using the additional capacity. The request must include the size and duration of the required additional space. Sellers can ask for up to 20% of their initial limit or 2,000 cubic feet, whichever is greater. 

“Buy With Prime” Soon Available to All U.S. Merchants

At the end of this month, Amazon’s previously invitation-based “Buy with Prime” option will become available to all FBA merchants in the U.S. who use Amazon Pay. Through this option, sellers will be able to offer Prime benefits, such as fast free shipping, in their own online stores. According to Amazon, this should enable them to increase their conversion rate by an average of 25%. Amazon’s offer is in direct competition with Shopify’s Pay function, which is currently used by many online retailers. 

Amazon’s Measures Against the Economic Crisis

Amazon is joining the wave of layoffs in the tech industry: CEO Andy Jassy has announced the elimination of 18,000 jobs. It is stated that this measure had to be taken in order to reduce costs. However, to put this number into perspective, at the start of the Corona pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Amazon had hired nearly 1 million new employees. It was also recently announced that the group has taken out a loan of over $8 billion, in order to position itself as monetarily “crisis-proof”.

Is Jeff Bezos Coming Back as Amazon’s CEO?

Events such as the plunge in Amazon’s share price and the imminent wave of layoffs are leading to speculation about the return of Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s CEO. The latter handed over the corporate leadership to his successor, Andy Jassy, in July 2021. This theory stems from a forecast by New York-based investment consultant Michael Batnick. According to rumors, many employees are also demanding Bezos’ return. A demand that comes at a rather critical time for Amazon: Pandemic-related growth has slowed dramatically, and the company’s stock price has fallen by about 50% in the past year. 

Is Amazon Planning an App Just for Sports Content?

The company has already secured broadcasting rights to, among other events, the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games, for its streaming service Prime Video. Speculators are saying that Amazon plans to venture further into the sports entertainment sector: Amazon is creating an app that will offer users exclusive sports content. Although separating entertainment content would reduce the size of the Prime Video offering, it could provide a more structured offering and facilitate the experience of finding different content types. Prime Video could also use this as an opportunity to expand its advertising business and thus tap additional sources of revenue. However, whether the sports app will make it onto the market or not, and if so, when, is currently unclear. 

Chaos in Refunds After Campaign Glitch at Amazon Advertising

During the deal week around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a reporting glitch on Amazon’s part led to inaccurate data on the performance and costs of campaigns for many advertisers. As a result, many spent either too little or too much money, had to act blindly in some cases, and thus presumably lost sales. Many of those affected are now demanding refunds from Amazon. However, this undertaking seems to be difficult — those who have received credits stated that the amounts were inaccurate. 

Updates: E-Commerce

More E-Commerce Deal Events in 2023

Insider Intelligence formulated predictions on shopping habit changes in 2023 based on a study looking at consumers in the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and the U.S. Although inflation will continue to shape consumers’ shopping behavior this year, the study shows a 23% increase in willingness to shop online within all of the investigated markets. An average of 47% of respondents in all the markets further state that they will be shopping for deals. According to Insider Intelligence, this deal-driven hunger is likely to prompt the emergence of further Prime Day-type deal events. 

Walmart Partners with Salesforce

Last week, Walmart announced its new partnership with software provider Salesforce. Companies using Salesforce e-commerce platforms will now be able to access Walmart’s “GoLocal” delivery service and “Store Assist” app to manage orders. This model creates additional revenue streams for Walmart, as well as increasing the efficiency of its delivery service by condensing delivery routes. The partnership could allow Walmart to catch up with Amazon in the area of logistics — because, as our study shows, fast delivery is the most important selling point for Amazon customers shopping on the platform. 

Instagram Soon Without Shopping Tab

Instagram has been experimenting with removing the shopping tap from the home feed of some users since September 2022. The social media platform has now announced that it will remove this tab from the navigation bar for good. Apparently, the expected revenue growth failed to materialize. Shopping in the app will still be possible, however, according to Instagram. In contrast, TikTok parent company ByteDance 2022 recorded a 76% increase in its e-commerce volume in China compared to the previous year and plans to expand its e-commerce activities to other countries such as the USA, Brazil, Spain and Australia.  

Fact of the Week

The 3 most important reasons for consumers in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the UK and the U.S. to shop at Amazon are fast delivery, large product selection, and low prices (source: Amazon Shopper Report 2022, Remazing & Appinio).

Remdash: Customizable Dashboards

Remdash enables the visualization of key KPIs through custom dashboards that include all Amazon data. 

• Cluster your portfolio into different product groups
• Review all Amazon data at one glance (PDP, VC, SC, Advertising)
• Create unlimited dashboards and share them with one click

Interested in Remdash? 
Just click here to schedule a personal product demo with our team.

Top 5 Amazon Keywords

These are the top five most searched keywords by country from January 8-14, 2023.

While Amazon shoppers in the U.S. already seem to be preparing for Valentine’s Day on February 14, search terms from the electronics segment such as the PS5 video game console and the Alexa voice assistant were high in the European markets. In the UK, Prince Harry’s biography “Spare” leads the most-used keywords.