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This Week In Amazon News
There's been a number of important developments this week that I think are worth being aware of.
1. eBay is suing Amazon for attempting to poach their sellers
1. eBay is suing Amazon for attempting to poach their sellers
They're accusing Amazon representatives of using the internal messaging system on eBay to market to top sellers in an attempt to get them to jump ship and start selling on Amazon.
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They allege that this has been going on since 2015 and are requesting monetary damages for this.
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2. eBay is suing Amazon for attempting to poach their sellers
- 3rd party seller services revenue doubled from $16 billion in 2015 to $32 billion in 2017.
- Advertising revenue went from $1.7 billion in 2015 to $4.6 billion in 2017
- So far in 2018 third party seller services revenue is up 40%.
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Amazon is now available in over 16 different countries, generally all featuring an FBA program. This should help continue to drive significant growth for them.
The most recent marketplace being Amazon Turkey which we discussed in an earlier newsletter.
3. The Growth Of Amazon Prime In The US Is Slowing Down
New data released by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners shows some interesting insights:
- 60% of Amazon customers are using Prime
- The difference between Prime spending and non-Prime spend is getting bigger.
- In 2015 Prime members spent an avg of $1,100 per year and non-Prime spent $600. In 2017 it's $1,400 vs $600.
- After 12% year-over-year growth in July, CIRPestimates just 8% annual growth as of October.
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4. Bloomberg shines mainstream light on the unfair advantage Vendor Sellers have over FBA Sellers re: reviews
- Select Vendor central sellers and Amazon's own brands get access to the special Amazon Vine program,
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- This allows new listings to accumulate a large amount of reviews by using a Amazon-run free product platform.
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- It's considered to be less biased because there's no direct contact between the brand and the customer.
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- But it's also considered unfair since FBA sellers are completely shut out of this program, while elite vendor brands and Amazon's own brands use it to quickly accumulate a ton of reviews.
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5. Trump announces intent to pull out of the Universal Postal Union, which lets Chinese companies ship for cheap to the US, at the US's expense.
5. Trump announces intent to pull out of the Universal Postal Union, which lets Chinese companies ship for cheap to the US, at the US's expense.
- This is a 144 year old treaty originally made when China was a much smaller economic power, today it allows Chinese companies to send small packages to the USA at extremely low costs.
- The receiving end subsidises the cost.
- "A one-pound package that costs the U.S. Postal Service about $10 to deliver can be mailed from China for just $2.50, according to White House figures."
- This is in relation to parcels weighing less than 4.4lbs, this has no effect on the Private Label business model the majority of our customers follow.