Visa credit cards on Amazon UK after all
As the first new year’s resolutions have already been forgotten about, Amazon has also quickly revised a decision it made at the end of 2021: The e-commerce giant’s British marketplace will continue to allow payment with Visa credit cards after all.
Meanwhile, US competitor Walmart is already looking into payment via virtual currencies and is thus picking up on the “metaverse” trend. We are curious to see Amazon’s reaction – the company has not yet paid much attention to this development, at least not publicly.
Last but not least, we would very much appreciate your participation in our survey about your expectations for doing business on Amazon in 2022 – more on this in the next section.
Amazon Merchant Survey 2022 by Remazing
After the success of our first Amazon Merchant Survey in 2021, we would like to kindly ask you also in 2022 to share with us your insights and ideas on how you expect your e-commerce activities to develop on Amazon in the year ahead.
For this purpose, we have put together a short questionnaire.We would be thrilled if you could take the time to fill it out.
Answering the questions will take no longer than 5 minutes – thank you in advance for your support!
In case you missed it: The results of our Amazon Merchant Survey 2021 can be found here.
Updates: Amazon
Visa credit cards still accepted on amazon.co.uk after all
Amazon had announced that it would no longer accept Visa credit cards as a means of payment on its British marketplace from January 2022 onwards. The reason for this are payment processing fees, which were no longer capped due to Brexit and were probably too high for Amazon. Now the two groups have apparently come to an agreement: payment is still possible with Visa credit cards on the British marketplace.
Amazon simplifies return process for American customers
For customers in the US, a free return of Amazon products to delivery points throughout the country is now possible. To do this, a QR code must be generated online in the Amazon returns center, which then has to be presented at the desired drop-off point. The products can be returned without a box or label, as they are packaged by Amazon employees on site. Drop-off locations include Amazon stores such as Amazon Books, Kohl’s, Whole Foods supermarkets, and UPS stores.
Fake reviews still get incentivized via Facebook and Twitter
According to the consumer organization “Which?”, groups on Facebook and Twitter are still offering refunds for Amazon products in exchange for five-star reviews – even though Facebook deleted more than 16,000 of such groups in 2020. Most of the profiles claimed to be based in China, while others were in India, Pakistan or the US. 18 Facebook groups with a total of more than 200,000 members were uncovered, some dating back to 2011 and 2014.
Updates: Other marketplaces
Walmart prepares for the metaverse
Walmart has filed for several new trademarks, indicating plans to develop and sell virtual items. The US retailer has also filed to develop its own virtual currency and NFTs. Without disclosing details of the filings, the Amazon competitor said it is continually exploring new technologies that could shape the future of retail.
The first European JD stores have opened in the Netherlands
Chinese online marketplace JD.com has opened two robot-powered “Ochama” stores in the Netherlands. As an innovative feature, there is only a pick-up area in the stores: fresh food, household appliances, baby products, fashion and home furnishings have to be ordered beforehand via app and are then provided fully automatically. CNBC.com sees this as a possible attack on cashierless Amazon stores.
What caught our attention
For Amazon Sellers, uploading locally customized Gallery Images is now possible on each national Amazon marketplace. This new option is interesting for international sellers who usually had problems with the use of text on the images.
The overview provided by Amazon for budget optimizations is now also available as a beta version in the Campaign Manager on the EU marketplaces. On the page, Amazon primarily shows estimated “missed” metrics such as impressions, clicks and sales that could be achieved with more advertising budget. The goal of this page is clear: Amazon wants to generate more advertising revenue.
Remdash: Vendor & Seller Central Revenue
With Remdash it is possible to track your own revenues from Vendor Central and Seller Central:
filter Ordered Revenue vs. Shipped COGS
Compare product groups
Compare individual ASINs
Compare global sales with sales on individual national marketplaces
Interested in Remdash? Just click here to schedule a personal product demo with our team.
Top 5 Amazon keywords
When analyzing last week’s Amazon search terms, it becomes clear that the “omicron” variant continues to gain ground at this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. While French consumers were the only ones searching for rapid antigen tests, Italians and Americans in particular were looking to buy FFP2 face masks. Only in the UK, online shoppers seem not to be too concerned about it.