Welcome to RepricerExpress’ weekly round-up of the top five stories from the world of Amazon and ecommerce.
Amazon US Prime membership growth slows: Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg reports that Amazon’s reward club which offers paying members two-day free shipping on millions of items and streaming video programs, grew just 8% over the past 12 months. According to CIRP, Prime has 97 million US subscribers, the slowest pace since the research firm started tracking membership in 2012. CIRP says Prime subscribers increased by 2 million in the most recent quarter, which included Amazon’s Prime Day sales promotion. Continue reading…
eBay files lawsuit against Amazon over ‘seller recruitment’: BBC News reports that eBay has filed a lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the US retail giant of using illegal tactics to recruit sellers. It says Amazon representatives abused eBay’s internal email system to contact sellers – a violation of the marketplace’s policies. Amazon declined to comment on the case, which follows a letter from eBay demanding an end to the activity. It had previously said that it was investigating the claims. Continue reading…
Amazon accused of review manipulation to promote own products: FeedbackExpress reports that Amazon has been accused of manipulating reviews to promote its own brands over third-party merchants. According to Bloomberg, review watchdogs and excluded merchants are now “alleging Amazon is guilty of review manipulation”. Allegedly multiple sellers experienced a drop in sales when Amazon introduced its own version of the same product and showed their own products higher in search results. Continue reading…
‘Shark Tank’ winners will now get a huge boost from Amazon — but there’s a catch: Dennis Green at Business Insider UK reports that Amazon announced on Monday that it is officially partnering with the show to sell merchandise made by entrepreneurs whose companies the Sharks have invested in. The items are collected on a dedicated page in Amazon’s Launchpad section, where it collects items sold by startups and young companies. Continue reading…
Jeff Bezos – Amazon will keep working with the DoD: Heather Kelly at CNN Business reports that Jeff Bezos says his companies will continue to do business with the US Department of Defense, despite internal and external criticism. The billionaire has faced backlash from Amazon employees over its business deals with government agencies. It has already worked with the DoD and multiple law enforcement agencies have used its facial recognition system, Rekognition. Amazon employees and civil liberties organisations claimed that the software could be used to violate human rights. Continue reading…
Bonus: The Best Products to Private Label on Amazon
Quote of the week:
“If you can push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.”
Marissa Mayer, President & CEO of Yahoo!
Happy weekend!
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