According to an Internet Retailer report Amazon won 54.9% of online transactions at the top 50 retailers’ websites on Black Friday. Don Davis says, “Walmart.com and BestBuy.com followed Amazon (No. 1) in terms of number of transactions on both Thanksgiving Day and the following day, widely known as Black Friday. Target Inc.’s (No. 20) Target.com was fourth on Thanksgiving and fifth on Black Friday, with Kohls.com fifth on Turkey Day and fourth the following day. Amazon didn’t win in every respect in the data from Hitwise, part of digital marketing firm Connexity Inc. In terms of conversion... [...]

Twitch is a live streaming video platform owned by Twitch Interactive. It is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. Econsultancy columnist Patricio Robles has published an article on how Amazon is using Twitch for influencer marketing. Robles says, “Currently, Twitch has over 100m monthly visitors and claims to reach more than half of all millennial males in the U.S. More than 2m of its 10m daily active users actually broadcast their own streams and nearly half of Twitch users consume more than 20 hours of content on the service weekly. Put simply, even though Twitch is niche, it boasts a ton of highly-engaged... [...]

Marketing Land’s Tim Peterson has published a video ‘Amazon Spark is already overrun with #sponsored posts’. Peterson says, “Amazon Spark, the e-commerce giant’s Instagram/Pinterest mashup, is only a couple of weeks old, but it’s already overrun with ads. During a recent scroll through Spark’s feed, 20 posts out of 55 were labeled #sponsored (by Amazon, no less). That Amazon would use Spark as a thinly veiled marketing channel to boost its own sales should surprise no one; its community guidelines prohibit brands from steering customers to products sold off Amazon.... [...]

Amazon has launched Amazon Spark within the Amazon app. Here’s how Amazon describes it: Amazon Spark is a place to discover things from people who share your interests. Whether you’re looking for inspiration for home décor or seeking advice for the best long-distance running shoes, Spark makes it easy to discover—and shop—stories and ideas from a community that likes what you like. Spark asks the first time visitors to select interests with which Amazon creates a feed of personalized content from other Amazon customers with similar interests as the customer. Amazon Spark  [...]

According to a report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, LLC (CIRP), Amazon Prime has reached 85 million US members. The average spend of these members is $1,300 per year. The research states that 63% of Amazon customers are Prime members and these Prime members shop at Amazon.com 25 times per year. Josh Lowitz, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP says, “Amazon Prime membership basically doubled in the US in the past two years. Quarterly growth measured as a percentage continues to slow down, which makes sense as the base of Prime members grew and penetration of the Amazon US customer... [...]

According to a new eMarketer report, Amazon’s US digital assistant device market share has reached 70.6% with its Amazon Echo device. Google Home‘s reach is 23.8%. The report states that in 2017, 60.5 million Americans will use Siri, Cortana or another virtual assistant at least once a month. The maximum number of people who use digital assistants are in the age group of 25 and 34. Martín Utreras, vice president of forecasting at eMarketer, says,  “Consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with the technology, which is driving engagement. As prices decrease and functionality... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Amazon’s effort to take over the world continues unabated. This week, the online retail giant announced a big push into a new market with the launch of Subscribe with Amazon, a new marketplace that will allow third parties to sell subscriptions through Amazon. The marketplace, which is said to have been in development for the past year, was born out of Amazon’s homegrown subscription initiatives. “Over the years, Amazon has gained extensive experience in the memberships and subscriptions space, innovating across programs like Prime and Kindle Unlimited,”... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Many companies that offer a subscription-based product or service have an easier way to sell their wares to Amazon.com customers with today’s launch of Subscribe with Amazon, a self-serve platform that’s already being used by several major publishers and well-known brands. Subscription offerings are available to consumers now on a dedicated subscription storefront. Major publishers like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, People magazine and Consumer Reports are selling there already, as are subscription product providers like Sling TV, Dropbox and The Princeton... [...]

Allison Enright says, “Amazon.com Inc., the largest online retailer in North America and Europe, has released its 2016 annual report. Data in the report shows where and how Amazon generates revenue, and the contributions of each business segment. By key geographic market Amazon generates two-thirds of its total revenue from its business interests in the United States, including its retail business, marketplace, seller services and its computing business, Amazon Web Services. Amazon’s next-largest markets for sales are Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. By business segment Retail products... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Amazon dominates online shopping, cloud computing, and now, it has its sights set on advertising. The online shopping giant has been quietly beefing up its ads business in recent months, and Wall Street is starting to take notice. An analyst at Morgan Stanley predicted this week that the company could pull in $5 billion in ad revenue by next year. For context, that’s more than twice Snapchat’s forecasted revenue for that year and about half of Twitter’s entire market value at the moment. That number could swell to $7 billion by 2020, according to the... [...]