| To: Zen Dollar Round who wrote (164646) | 11/29/2023 6:52:04 AM | | From: John Carragher | | | | Does Amazon provide shipping for sellers?
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You can enroll products in FBA and ship inventory to Amazon fulfillment centers for storage. When products sell, Amazon personnel can pick, package, and ship the orders to customers for you. Amazon fulfillment specialists can also process returns and exchanges, in addition to handling customer service.
i think this was added this year where they will ship for their wholesale customers and may be where majority of increase came from in shipments etc |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 11/29/2023 7:27:27 AM | | | | | | Second-hand shopping a $1-billion-plus business for Amazon in Europe
By James Davey
Reuters
November 28, 20236:08 PM CST
Updated 2 hours ago
LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Consumer demand for refurbished and pre-owned goods in Britain and across Europe has created a billion pound ($1.3 billion) business for Amazon (AMZN.O), its UK boss said.
Many retailers and manufacturers expect that trend to continue as shoppers, hit by rising prices and borrowing costs, look to save cash and buy more sustainably.
John Boumphrey, Amazon's UK Country Manager, told reporters that in the UK alone the online retail giant last year sold more than 4 million used or refurbished products at a discount.
In the first nine months of 2023, Amazon's sales of second-hand goods in the UK increased by more than 15% on the same period last year, he added.
Amazon UK's total revenue in 2022 was 24 billion pounds.
"Customers are telling us that they’re shopping second hand items to save money in the ongoing cost of living crisis and because they want to shop more sustainably," Boumphrey told reporters.
He was speaking at the launch of Amazon UK's "Second Chance Store" - a Christmas pop-up shop in London selling returned and refurbished items.
Amazon has a goal to have net zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Many environmental campaigners are sceptical about the willingness of major companies to cut emissions, seeing it as more of a public relations exercise. But large companies say they can make a difference due to their scale.
REGULATORY CHANGE
Boumphrey also told Reuters that Amazon bosses were frustrated by the amount of regulatory change in Europe, and Britain in particular, and were questioning whether they have enough visibility to invest.
"There’s an awful lot of changes to regulation, not only in the UK but also in Europe, and one of the things they’re asking is: is this going to give us long term certainty," he said in an interview.
He highlighted concerns over the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill, currently making its way through the UK parliament, which will give Britain's antitrust regulator legal powers to tailor rules for big tech companies.
Boumphrey's comments come after the UK government this week hailed 29.5 billion pounds of foreign investment as a sign Britain was regaining its business appeal following the uncertainty triggered by its departure from the European Union and last year's political turmoil.
Amazon has invested 56 billion pounds in Britain since 2010, including 12 billion in 2022 alone, Boumphrey said.
($1 = 0.7913 pounds)
Reporting by James Davey Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Pr
Second-hand shopping a $1-billion-plus business for Amazon in Europe | Reuters |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 12/8/2023 9:38:17 AM | | | | | | Amazon tests grocery subscription service for Prime members
PUBLISHED THU, DEC 7 20231:01 PM EST
UPDATED THU, DEC 7 20231:47 PM EST\
Annie Palmer @IN/ANNIERPALMER/
CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
- Amazon is betting members of its Prime program will want to pay a separate monthly fee for unlimited grocery delivery on some orders.
- Trial service will give Prime members in three cities the option to pay $9.99 a month for access to free Fresh and Whole Foods deliveries on orders more than $35.
- The company has tweaked its fee-free grocery delivery threshold in recent years amid mounting costs.
An independent contractor wearing a protective mask and gloves loads Amazon Prime grocery bags into a car outside a Whole Foods Market in Berkeley, California, on Oct. 7, 2020.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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Amazon is piloting a new grocery subscription for members of its Prime program, the company said Thursday, marking the latest recalibration of its online supermarket offerings.
Members of the company’s Prime program will have the option to pay $9.99 per month to get unlimited grocery delivery from Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh on orders more than $35. They’ll also have access to 30-minute pickup on orders of any size. To start, the service is rolling out in Denver, Colorado; Sacramento, California; and Columbus, Ohio.
“We’re always experimenting with features to make shopping easier, faster, and more affordable, and we look forward to hearing how members who take advantage of this offer respond,” Tony Hoggett, who leads Amazon’s physical stores business, said in a statement.
Amazon is betting Prime members will want to pay an additional monthly charge for fresh food to be dropped at their doorstep without pesky delivery fees. A Prime subscription costs $139 per year, or $14.99 per month, in the U.S., and the membership’s perks include free, speedy shipping and access to video streaming. With the add-on grocery subscription, the offering could drive bigger, and more frequent, food orders among Prime members.
Amazon has tweaked its fee-free delivery threshold for Fresh and Whole Foods orders in recent years amid mounting costs. In October, the company lowered its threshold for free Fresh grocery delivery to orders over $100, after setting the minimum at $150 months earlier. In 2021, the company introduced a $10 service fee for Whole Foods delivery orders to Prime members.
Prior to the fee changes earlier this year, the company offered free Amazon Fresh grocery delivery on orders above $35 at no extra cost for Prime members.
Amazon has been determined to cement itself as a grocery destination for shoppers. Since acquiring Whole Foods Market in 2017 for $13.7 billion, it has launched its own chain of Fresh supermarkets, and it’s taken steps more recently to unify its online and brick-and-mortar grocery operations, while appealing to a broader swath of consumers. Last month, the company opened Fresh grocery delivery to people without Prime anywhere in the U.S., after testing the feature in a handful of cities.
Amazon tests grocery subscription service for Prime members (cnbc.com) |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 12/27/2023 10:45:51 AM | | | | | | Amazon Is a Go-To for Toilet Paper and Batteries. Can It Sell Cars?
Company aims to make online car purchases as seamless as getting everyday essentials
By Sebastian Herrera
Wall Street Journal
Dec. 24, 2023 5:30 am ET
Amazon said car buyers would be able to finance and purchase Hyundai vehicles on its platform starting in 2024. PHOTO: ROBYN BECK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Willie Hall loves to browse and buy cars online, but he wants more options. Soon, he may turn to Amazon.com.
“I’m already a Prime member,” said Hall, who lives in Colorado and bought a used Fiat 500 Abarth on
Carvana in 2021. “I’ve been with Amazon for God knows how long and know the way they operate.”
Amazon is eager to see just how many Willie Halls there are in the U.S. The company last month said shoppers next year will be able to browse, finance and complete a purchase of Hyundai vehicles on Amazon. Shoppers will only have to visit a dealership to pick up their car; the company is also working on delivering the vehicles.
Car sales represent Amazon’s next bet in e-commerce dominance and come after the Covid-19 pandemic made online car purchases more popular. Amazon executives want to make buying vehicles through its website as simple as purchasing toilet paper or dog food, and the company is looking to strike broad partnerships with carmakers.
The company is set to face several challenges in expanding the program beyond a pilot phase for employees starting early next year: One is dealerships, which remain at the center of most new-car sales and depend on service revenue for profit incentives. A second will be trying to get customers who visit its website mainly for lower-priced items to turn to the platform for one of the biggest purchases of their lives. Amazon also will have to navigate different government regulations.
“Customers tell us it’s really hard to buy a car,” Fan Jin, Amazon’s director of vehicle sales, said in an interview. Vehicle-buying software is fragmented, with dealers using a range of software providers. Varying regulations across states also make it difficult. “It’s a process that we’ve heard time and again could use improvement, and we have an opportunity to go and prove it,” she said.
When the new service launches later next year, Amazon said shoppers will be able to complete every step of the car-buying process through its website. Only new Hyundai vehicles will be available at the start. Consumers will have different financing options, but the company said it is still working through details. Eventually, Amazon wants to expand to trade-in vehicles and used cars.
Many dealers might be loath to accept a high volume of online sales because they make a significant amount of money on service and warranty deals that customers agree to when they finance a car purchase.
Amazon and Hyundai executives spoke during a press conference in Los Angeles last month. PHOTO: ROBYN BECK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Mike Sullivan, who runs a Hyundai dealership in Santa Monica, Calif., that is part of the pilot program, views the Amazon partnership as a positive step. Salespeople at the dealership could make half as much per sale in commission in online sales versus in person, he said, but the upside is the time spent on those sales is expected to be far less. Overall compensation could increase, he said.
During the height of the pandemic, Sullivan and many auto-sales professionals learned to embrace online sales. His dealerships sold about 300 cars online during the health crisis. Selling with Amazon could be easier, because “we now have the power of Amazon guiding these people to us,” he said.
Another issue is that Amazon will be trying to get customers to think of its platform for car-buying. The typical transaction on Amazon is under $50, according to a recent survey by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, which studies Amazon customer habits. Only 11% of customers surveyed reported spending $1,000 or more on a single item.
“They’re great at getting you to spend $30 or $40, but it’s hard to break through to the bigger stuff,” said Josh Lowitz, co-founder of the research firm. “The bigger stuff is more infrequent, and so it’s more special for the customer.”
Jin, Amazon’s director of vehicle sales,said while many people go to Amazon for everyday purchases, the company also has an established base that makes infrequent, higher-priced purchases for items such as furniture and electronics.
Some analysts estimate that two-thirds of customers already know what they want before purchasing their vehicles, with many people conducting their research on the web. But even if Amazon customers are ready for online car purchases, signing new carmakers will be complex and will depend on how much the Hyundai partnership succeeds, said Chris Sutton, vice president of automotive retail at consumer-data analytics firm J.D. Power.
Amazon and Hyundai first partnered in 2021 through an online Hyundai showroom where viewers could “build” a car and locate inventory. Amazon said consumers responded positively to the showroom, and the company surveyed shoppers who indicated they were interested in going through the entire car-buying process with Amazon.
To entice Hyundai, Amazon struck a broad business partnership that included cloud computing, advertising and integration of its Alexa technology in the brand’s cars beginning in 2025. It is also expected to provide dealers with performance data. AWS customers who make long-term cloud commitments can pay lower rates.
The company has turned to more corporate partnerships in numerous other business segments in recent months, including a partnership with Meta Platforms’ Instagram for product sales and a logistics deal with Canadian e-commerce company Shopify
Amazon has dabbled in the automobile industry for years. In 2000, it linked its website to an online car retailer that was later bought by a competitor. Amazon began an online car parts and accessories store in 2006 and a vehicle research tool a decade later, when it also ran a test in Italy to allow customers to start purchases of some Fiat vehicles through its website.
The various experiments gave Amazon insight into the automobile industry, but company executives said it wasn’t ready to go all in until recently. Amazon saw opportunity expand in the pandemic.
From 2020 to 2022, Carvana’s U.S. e-commerce market share rose to 1.3% from 0.7%, according to market research firm Insider Intelligence. Automakers expanded at-home delivery programs during the health crisis, while dealers improved their websites to help customers use online.
Some of those trends have receded, challenging Amazon and other companies betting on online car sales.
Sullivan, the dealer in Santa Monica, said since the height of the pandemic most of his customers have returned to purchasing their vehicles in person.
He is hoping Amazon can lure a share of customers back to online purchases. “People will go to Amazon,” he said.
Write to Sebastian Herrera at sebastian.herrera@wsj.com
Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the December 26, 2023, print edition as 'Amazon Adds Cars To Online Offerings'.
Amazon Is a Go-To for Toilet Paper and Batteries. Can It Sell Cars? - WSJ |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 1/5/2024 4:55:52 AM | | | | | | Amazon Captured 29% of Online Orders in Weeks Before Christmas
- Company’s speedy delivery benefited procrastinating shoppers
- Chinese upstarts offer discounts but can’t match arrival times
By Spencer Soper
Bloomberg
January 4, 2024 at 4:04 PM UTC
Amazon captured 29% of global order volume in the final two weeks before Christmas, up from 21% the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg
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Amazon.com Inc.’s share of online orders spiked in the final days of the holiday shopping season, demonstrating how big investments in delivery speed paid off with procrastinating shoppers looking for a wide selection of products they could get quickly.
Amazon captured 29% of global order volume in the final two weeks before Christmas, up from 21% the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, according to Route, a package-tracking app that captured holiday season data from 55 million orders.
“It’s a pretty sharp shift in how consumers shop,” said Michael Yamartino, Route’s chief executive officer. “The top priority in the days leading up to Christmas is on-time delivery, and when Amazon says it will take two days, it only takes two days. It’s a combination of speed and confidence.”
Amazon Share of Online Order Volume by Week
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has touted speedy delivery as a key competitive advantage, saying shoppers are more inclined to buy something if they get it quickly. The company’s logistics prowess has become increasingly important amid rising competition from such stalwarts as Walmart Inc., as well as Chinese e-commerce upstarts like Temu, Shein and TikTok, which offer steep discounts but can take a week or more to deliver packages.
Amazon in July announced plans to double the number of same-day delivery facilities in the coming years. The company said it achieved the fastest-ever delivery speeds in the three-month period ended Sept. 30 after moving inventory closer to customers. Amazon currently operates more than 50 US same-day facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Miami, Boston and other big metro areas that ship about 200 million packages a year, according to MWPVL International Inc., which monitors the company’s delivery operation.
Amazon’s fastest deliveries mostly benefit members of its Prime subscription program. About 70% of Prime orders in the US arrive within two days, and almost one in four are delivered within a day, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Fewer than 15% of orders arrive that quickly for shoppers without Prime subscriptions, the Chicago-based firm said.
— With assistance from Matt Day
Amazon Quick Shipping Helped It Get 29% of Orders Before Christmas (AMZN) - Bloomberg (archive.ph) |
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