Amazon is testing a new "Top Brand" badge for products from established brands. If and how this badge gets rolled out could have a substantial impact on how shoppers decide which products to buy as well as how established brands defend against price-aggressive private label products.
Read more
This week Walmart has expanded the next-day delivery service to Massachusetts, Missouri, Virginia, and West Virginia, growing the number of states with next-day delivery to 33.
Read more
In an interview with an antitrust expert Sally Hubbard, we discussed what makes Amazon a monopoly, how that affects consumers, businesses relying on Amazon, and competitors, as well as what actions and regulations antitrust investigations might bring in the future.
Read more
The new Google Shopping homepage, now hosting 2,000 stores, attempts to unify the company's shopping efforts into one. Google has merged the marketplace-turned Google Express into Google Shopping, a service which used to focus on price comparison.
Read more
eBay introduced Managed Delivery, a fulfillment service not unlike Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), enabling sellers to store, pack and ship their products through logistics partners managed by eBay. Replicating what drove sellers to use FBA is the hardest challenge eBay will have to solve.
Read more
On Prime Day 2019, the biggest winners were known brands and Amazon devices, as Amazon-owned private label brands took a back seat, according to Marketplace Pulse research. Over a million products were available with a Prime Day deal, but as competing retailers like Walmart and Target launched their shopping events, Amazon shifted focus to exclusive products and new product launches.
Read more
The number of AmazonBasics best-sellers has grown by fifty percent in a year - from just over 700 in July 2018 to surpassing 1,000 this July. Amazon continues to launch new products, validate demand for them, and stop selling those which fail to attract customers.
Read more
Less than 24% of the top Amazon third-party sellers are large resellers, each representing hundreds of brands on Amazon. Their share of the top sellers has been decreasing by two percentage points a year - down from 26% in 2018, 29% in 2017, and 31% in 2016 - indicating the challenges of growing a reseller type business on Amazon.
Read more
More than three-quarters of Amazon searches are unbranded, seeking for generic products rather than name brands. Search terms highlight how Amazon shoppers' behavior is shifted from a brand-driven world observed elsewhere to a needs-based decision process.
Read more
Amazon has single-handedly - and permanently - raised the bar for convenience in online shopping. However, across the digital sector, some people are asking what the long-term negatives of convenience are. This convenience driving the Amazon flywheel hides some severe issues.
Read more
