Amy Harrop says that becoming a successful publisher is within the reach of anyone. Best of all, you can be a successful publisher with little or no original content. Harrop has been experimenting with something called Companion Publishing, that allows you to quickly and easily create content that needs little-to-no-writing and that leverages hot trends, your own content, and even other people’s books and content. With companion publishing, the reader is doing the majority of the writing for you! Her new training, called Companion Publishing Profits explains in detail how to build a business... [...]

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... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Can influencers and affiliate marketing be a match made in heaven? Online retail’s 800-pound gorilla is apparently interested in finding out. Last week, it was revealed that Amazon has launched a beta of an invite-only Amazon Influencer Program “exclusively designed for social media influencers with large followings and a high frequency of posts with shoppable content.” According to TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez, the program functions like the company’s affiliate program in that participants are paid a commission for product sales that they... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “By one estimate, nearly 40 cents of every dollar spent in the US on online purchases is spent on Amazon. Some 65 million Prime members spend an average $1,200 a year on Amazon. This eclipse of one marketplace over the orb of e-commerce has forced brands big and small to reevaluate where to put their energies and invest their resources. Amazon’s scale, coupled with consumer trust and one-click shopping, has proven a potent combination. The sales volume can be intoxicating, outweighing margin hits from seller fees and advertiser costs paid to Amazon. Amazon’s dominance... [...]

Allison Enright says, “Amazon.com Inc. will begin collecting state sales tax on orders from consumers in Hawaii, Idaho, Maine and New Mexico starting on April 1. In doing so it will conclude a near decade-long story about sales tax collected on online orders, regardless of whether the e-retailer selling the goods has a physical presence, or nexus, in the state. Amazon has no physical presence in these four states and thus is under no legal obligation to collect sales tax on orders from residents in those states. It also doesn’t have a physical presence in Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi,... [...]