Welcome to RepricerExpress’ weekly round-up of the top five stories from the world of Amazon and ecommerce.
Amazon opens a supermarket with no checkouts: Chris Johnston at BBC News reports that in a move that could revolutionise the way we buy groceries, Amazon opened its first supermarket without checkouts to shoppers on Monday. Amazon Go, in Seattle, has been tested by staff for the past year. It uses hundreds of ceiling-mounted cameras and electronic sensors to identify each customer and track what items they select. Purchases are billed to customers’ credit cards when they leave the store. Continue reading…
Amazon patents a mirror that dresses you in virtual clothes: Thuy Ong at The Verge reports that Amazon has patented a blended-reality mirror that lets you try on clothes virtually while placing you in a virtual location. The patent describes the mirror as partially-reflective and partially-transmissive and uses a mix of displays, cameras, and projectors to create the blended image. The imagined mirror works by scanning the environment to generate a virtual model and then identifies the face and eyes of the user to determine which objects are to be seen as a reflection. Once this process is completed, the virtual clothes and scene are transmitted through the mirror to create the blended-reality result. Continue reading…
Amazon bumps up the cost of monthly Prime subscription: Daniel Keyes at Business Insider UK reports that Amazon is raising the cost of monthly Prime subscriptions from $10.99 to $12.99. The price of monthly subscriptions for students will also increase from $5.49 to $6.49, while the price of annual subscriptions, monthly subscriptions for those with an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) Card, and monthly Prime Video subscriptions, which don’t include shipping perks, will not change. This increase may make Prime less attractive to lower-income consumers. Continue reading…
(Amazon) We’re not secret, we’re just quiet: Joe at Marketplace Pulse reports that Amazon keeps its card close to its chest when reporting statistics. Recently, Amazon representatives have become more vocal about the fact that half of the sales on Amazon.com are by third-party sellers. But many still confuse their net sales figure ($136 billion in 2016, expected to be more than $150 in 2017) for the total volume of sales on the platform. Amazon thinks long-term, and thus metrics and news today are only a glimpse of what they are building towards. Continue reading…
Why you should consider selling on Amazon Australia: Chris Dawson at Tamebay reports that based on data from Hitwise and SimilarWeb, eBay is by far and away the biggest marketplace in Australia with a 26.1% market share, with Amazon lagging behind on 7.2%. Of course, it’s still early days for Amazon in Australia, which only launched on the 4 December, just in time for Christmas 2017. That’s a relatively short space of time to gain traction and of course to recruit third party merchants. Continue reading…
It’s Friday!!
