Eric Siu says, “Ten years ago, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launched Amazon Prime, a special service for Amazon customers that offered unlimited two-day shipping for an annual fee. Amazon Prime is now more successful than even the most optimistic Amazon executive ever could have predicted. This case study should be an inspiration to every digital marketer. Related: Your Amazon Prime Subscription May Get More Expensive The fabulous success of Amazon Prime According to consumer intelligence research partners, Amazon Prime has become extremely popular in recent years. Demand has grown by 35 percent... [...]

Thomas Smale says, “Many online entrepreneurs are sharing news of their successes with the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) business model — where client companies store their products at Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and Amazon picks, packs, ships and provides customer service for those products. Related: Fulfillment by Amazon Poses a Great Option for Those Looking to Break Into Ecommerce The entrepreneur success stories circulating out there are one of the many reasons FBA continues to grow in popularity. But, there still isn’t much information available about how to grow... [...]

Allison Enright says, “The e-retailer says 47% of units sold in Q4 were by sellers on its marketplace, and that Prime membership grew 47% in the United States in 2015. Amazon.com Inc. today reaffirmed its leading position as the top e-retailer in North America, reporting 2015 full-year revenue of $107.01 billion, up 20.2% from $88.99 billion in 2014. Excluding revenue from service sales, such as computing power and commissions paid by Amazon marketplace sellers—revenue streams that are growing rapidly—product sales totaled $79.27 billion, up 13% from $70.08 billion in 2014. Amazon’s... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Amazon released a flurry of performance stats for 2015 on Tuesday, including updates on just how popular sponsored product advertisements have become on the e-commerce platform. The company says global adoption of Sponsored Products grew by 100 percent among Amazon sellers in 2015. The ads drove more than $1.5 billion in sales globally last year, according to Amazon. During the holiday shopping season, clicks on Sponsored Products in the US increased 200 percent year over year. Amazon made several updates to Sponsored Products that helped drive these increases, including... [...]

Antony Maina says, “You would think that in 2015 – a year in which personal drones, so-called hover boards, autonomous cars and virtual reality were major hits – all the hottest sellers on Amazon would be making a killing selling the latest high-tech gadgets. But that wasn’t entirely the case. Hottest Sellers on Amazon 2015 Amazon released details in its press release on how its holiday deals went and it turns out that some of its best sellers were a bit “old-fashioned.” For instance, among the hottest sellers on Amazon were top-selling home audio products such as turntables while... [...]

Jay Lagarde says, “Product reviews are a major reason why consumers love Amazon. Where else can you go to read hundreds of candid testimonials — or complaints — about every aspect of an item? In this post, we’ll show why product reviews matter to sellers, too. 1. Consumers love online reviews. Study after study has shown that consumers are increasingly reliant upon online reviews when making purchasing decisions. In fact, a recent Nielson study found that 70 percent of global consumers trust online reviews, up 15 percent within a four-year period. Industry experts project... [...]

Allison Enright says, “Consumers can pick up their Amazon orders in more locations and find Amazon gadgets in stores this holiday season. Amazon.com Inc. this week continued to set up for holiday season sales, announcing distribution agreements and new order pickup options for consumers. It also began marketing its discounts for Black Friday. Amazon news for the week ended Nov. 13: Echo distribution: Consumers will be able to buy Amazon’s voice-activated personal assistant device Echo in more than 3,000 physical stores this holiday season. Certain locations of The Home Depot, Sears, Brookstone... [...]

Allison Enright says, “Amazon discontinues AmazonLocal, refines its family leave policy and announces holiday plans. Amazon.com Inc. cleaned house during the past week, announcing plans to shut down several services and strengthening its employee policies. Amazon news for the week ended Nov. 2: Discontinued services: Amazon is shutting down AmazonLocal, its take on the deal-of-the-day voucher model popularized by Groupon Inc. A message posted to local.amazon.com says deals will not be offered after Dec. 18 through the site or the AmazonLocal app. AmazonLocal launched in 2011. Amazon this... [...]

Edwin Bos says, “A couple of weeks ago, Amazon sued over 1,000 people for posting fake reviews on its site. The defendants in question had offered their services on fiverr.com. But is Amazon addressing the symptoms, not the cause? Let’s go back to the future for a second. In 2012, Gartner said that by 2014, 10-15% of social media reviews would be fakes, paid for by companies. According to the BBC program Rip Off Britain this year, it’s been estimated that as many as one in five reviews online might be fake. It’s a big problem with even bigger ramifications for those playing... [...]

ReadWrite team says, “Two years ago VMware president Carl Eschenbach snidely suggested that he found it “really hard to believe that we cannot … beat a company that sells books.” Two years later, the truth has become blindingly clear: He can’t. What’s less obvious is just how big Amazon Web Services has become, in terms of overall value of the business. Logging $2.09 billion in its latest quarter, AWS is on a $8 billion run-rate, booming 78% year over year. So, if AWS were a standalone company, what would it be worth?“. Amazon’s Cloud Business Is Worth... [...]