The strongest quarter for Amazon is going strong, the sale capacity exceeded all possible expectations and Amazon officially announced that Cyber Monday this year will be the largest shopping day in the history of Amazon.
Shopping hasn’t ended yet; Christmas and Hannuka are still ahead of us and so sellers know that they continue to enjoy much traffic and many leads.
The insane shopping holidays are raising many questions in regards to the power and control of Amazon as a fair competitor in the market.
Recent newspapers asked Alexa this past Monday, what are the best “holiday sales on Amazon?” The answer was five products that are sold & manufactured by Amazon:
A Blink security camera
A Ring video doorbell
Another Blink security camera
An Alexa-powered Echo Dot, and
An Alexa-powered Echo Show
This raises many questions among legislators, vendors, and customers in regards to Amazon’s power and dominance in its own market. Below you can read about additional events that raise similar questions, and Amazon’s response to it.
By the way, you can see the best selling products on Amazon for Black Friday / Cyber Monday at the following link:
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-cyber-monday-top-selling-items-2019-12
As always, thank you to the clever people of Edge by Ascential for gathering the main activities for Amazon each month. Down below, you can read some of their reporting including interesting perspectives.
If you want to have the monthly report of Amazon News emailed to you, sign up at the bottom of the page.
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Amazon Business
1.Amazon answered difficult questions at the press conference in front of congress. One of the questions being – “Is Amazon using sales information used by Priave label companies to develop its own competing products?
Amazon’s answer was, that they do not specifically analyze White Label Companies products, but rather analyze current demand and themes.
Private Label Companies are small brands that are small and not popular, and they are made and sold on Amazon. These brands are expanding the product options and usually have large profit margins.
Amazon has its own White Label brands that they constantly develop and grow. Amazon analyzes the information, identifies popular demand for specific products and product categories. Then, Amazon develops its private label (Amazon Essentials) and becomes competitors to smaller brands.
2.Amazon invested $1.5 Million supporting the city of Seattle candidates. The main conversational topic is tax obligations by large companies.
The interesting part about it is that the positive “donation” and/or “investment” of large companies such as Amazon in Seattle is both positive and negative. As a result, the real-estate value rises, the quality of life rises, and the cost of living rises too. This causes a significant crisis and an increase among homeless people in the city. Last year, the city council decided to mandate “Head Tax” on large companies according to the number of employers working. The goal is to sponsor homeless people and others with low income. Amazon strongly opposed. After collaborating their fighting efforts with other large companies, the tax law was canceled. Then, the council was reelected with only 2 out of the 7 candidates supported by Amazon chosen. However, the few candidates Amazon tried to forfeit from the electoral race, was chosen. This means that the Head Tax law will be difficult to stop again.
3.Amazon provided a report with a list of all factories used to manufacture its products.
Shockingly, under the new transparency policy for Amazon, a 51-page document was publicly published, disclosing interesting information. The list includes all of the vendors and manufacturers around the world with whom they do business to develop their White Label. In the report, it isn’t specified what products are made in each factory, or what category. Still, this data is useful to hold Amazon accountable for fair human rights, environmental, and fair workers’ conditions values.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/20/amazon-takes-transparency-step
4. Amazon will open offices in Manhattan in 2021. The new offices are expected to employ 1500+ workers.
Amazon Marketplace
1. Amazon is closing its “Free Samples” program. The campaign that debuted earlier this year was used to collect information about consumers’ consumption habits. The program was a test for Amazon’s machine learning that analyzed what each person needed/wanted and sent out samples of products accordingly. A few customers complained that this program is scary and began questioning Amazon’s privacy policy. For Amazon’s companies, it was an excellent method of advertisement.
2.This past month, Nike announced that it will no longer sell its products on Amazon. Meaning, Nike products sold on amazon will be handled by third-party sellers. Nike is interested in strengthening their personal consumer experience online instead of outsourcing it to Amazon.
Nike also claims that Amazon was unsuccessful in identifying/ fighting fake copies or monitoring who is selling their brand.
More sellers will probably start selling Nike on Amazon, and it will be interesting to see how Amazon monitors those sellers.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/14/20965434/nike-amazon-partnership-deal-breakup-counterfeits
Amazon Hardware & Services
1.Amazon expands the Dash button concept and transforms it into a smart shelf device that identifies when certain office stocks are missing to order it automatically. The “shelf” device comes in three sizes that operate on batteries and are connected online. The shelf will identify automatically when certain products are running out according to their weight and will order a new stock automatically. These shelves will be available for purchase next year, and their price is still unknown.
Photo: Techcrunch – https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/21/amazon-launches-a-dash-smart-shelf-for-businesses-that-automatically-restocks-supplies/
2.Apparently, one of the most useful uses of voice-operated robotic software is – finding recipes. Amazon and Google announced in November on new functions for “Hands-Free Cooking” operated by voice. Amazon launches a variety of services collaborating with the recipe website “Tasty”. The service offers a step-by-step guide with voice/video guidelines for Alexa & Echo.
If you have an Alexa at home, try asking: “Alexa, find chicken recipes from Tasty”.
Let me know how it worked out for you!
Amazon Music
It feels like there isn’t one industry Amazon hasn’t entered. Amazon’s music app caused a 5% decrease in Spotify’s stock. The Amazon Music app launched a new free service (with ads) optimized for various devices and platforms.
This is a Win-Win for Amazon. Customers that choose to participate in Amazon Music’s free service will be exposed to commercials paid for by Amazon sellers. Customers who choose to use the upgraded paid version will pay Amazon directly. So, Amazon will profit either way.
Obviously, this is also an excellent method to strengthen the value given to Amazon Prime members and provide them value. Prime members can access the upgraded ad-free Amazon Music app as part of their membership.
Spotify in response launched its free platform (in several countries) on various devices such as Amazon Echo, Sonos, Bose. Up until then, those devices were optimized to use only for paying members.
It feels like there isn’t one industry Amazon hasn’t entered. Amazon’s music app caused a 5% decrease in Spotify’s stock. The Amazon Music app launched a new free service (with ads) optimized for various devices and platforms.
This is a Win-Win for Amazon. Customers that choose to participate in Amazon Music’s free service will be exposed to commercials paid for by Amazon sellers. Customers who choose to use the upgraded paid version will pay Amazon directly. So, Amazon will profit either way.
Obviously, this is also an excellent method to strengthen the value given to Amazon Prime members and provide them value. Prime members can access the upgraded ad-free Amazon Music app as part of their membership.
Spotify in response launched its free platform (in several countries) on various devices such as Amazon Echo, Sonos, Bose. Up until then, those devices were optimized to use only for paying members.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/promotions/PrimeMusic
Amazon Groceries
Amazon’s food strategy might be clear to Amazon itself, but to an outsider, it looks like one big mess. There are too many platforms: Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, Wholefoods…
And now, Amazon is launching a new format with an Amazon-branded company that will compete with WholeFoods. Also, Amazon is looking for employees in Los Angeles for “Amazon’s First Grocery Store”
https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-will-launch-new-grocery-store-as-alternative-to-whole-foods/
Amazon HealthCare
1. From now on, Alexa will remind you to take your medicine. This service in collaboration with the pharm organization Giant Angel allows patients to remind taking and reordering medicine.
The group manager of Amazon Wellness and Alexa Health said that this service was developed once they noticed that many of the Alexa users are using it for reminders regarding medical concerns.
In April of this year, Amazon announced that Alexa is eligible for honoring HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), a policy that determines how to handle, store and share private medical information.
This allows Alexa to connect with pharmacists, and remind patients to take their medications, renew prescriptions, and order them home. This is an additional step that will strengthen Amazon’s stand in the health market. This is just another step in a long journey Amazon started in early 2018 after buying PillPack and starting Amazon Care Clinic. Amazon also bought the health startup – Health Navigator, which you can read in the October News report.
Amazon Blog – https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/new-ways-to-manage-your-medications-at-home-using-alexa
CNBC – https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/amazon-alexa-will-now-remind-you-when-to-take-your-pills.html
TechRanch – https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/amazon-launches-medication-management-features-for-alexa/
2.The online medicine company PillPack which was bought out by Amazon in 2018 changes its name. From “PillPack, an Amazon company” to – “PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy.” This is the first public name using Amazon Pharmacy.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/15/tech/amazon-pharmacy-pillpack/index.html
3. Project “Heaven”. Amazon initiated a collaboration with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway. The Employees of those companies are offered health insurance called “Haven Healthcare” in several countries. This is probably a pilot to test out the new service quality.
https://www.healthexec.com/topics/care-delivery/haven-opens-first-healthcare-plans
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/11/10/amazon-makes-healthcare-buy-as-plans-take-shape.aspx
Amazon China
Earlier this year, Amazon decided to stop its grounds trading arena in China. Amazon struggled to compete with local companies such as Alibaba and JD.com
This month, Amazon announced that they will open a Popup store over the Pinduoduo platform.
There are also high sale rate reports on Black Friday.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/04/WS5de77ee6a310cf3e3557bff3.html
Amazon Around the World
1. Rummors has it that there will be a full launch of Amazon in the Netherland this February.
2. The customer committee / first partnership in Turkey (Amazon Turkey) is celebrating its first birthday. In the conference the partners discussed potential expanding to additional arenas of Amazon (USA, Canada, Japan, India). This move teaches us about entering and globalizing business in the middle east. This might be the first step into accessing Amazon in Israel too.
3. Israel is in the news too: Amazon was translated into Hebrew and allows free deliveries on orders over $50.
https://www.calcalist.co.il/marketing/articles/0,7340,L-3773457,00.html
And here is the new commercial for Black Friday in Israel:
