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Tag: Amazon

  • What is Uniquely Different About the New Amazon 4-Star Store?

    What is Uniquely Different About the New Amazon 4-Star Store?

    Amazon 4-Star is Amazon’s first retail store focused on selling Amazon’s products. The first of presumably many stores just opened in the Soho area of New York City and of course has made a big splash in the media. But what’s special about this store and what makes it a unique shopping experience?

    Amazon Physical Stores VP Cameron Janes answers that question in a Bloomberg interview:

    Amazon 4-Star is Built Around What Our Customers Our Loving

    What is uniquely different is that we really built this store around our customers. It’s a direct reflection of our customers, not just what they’re buying, but really what they’re loving.

    Everything in the store is rated 4 star or above by our customers, is a top seller or is the newest trending on Amazon.com. Our goal is that customers can walk into this store and pick up anything and know that it is going to be a great product because customers online have already said so.

    The average rating of products in this store is 4.4 stars and collectively we have about 1,800 products in the store and they earned 1.8 million 5 star reviews. These are really high-quality products that our customers love. The product with the most customer reviews in Amazon 4-Star is actually the Fire TV Stick with Alexa voice remote with over 197,000 customer reviews and it’s rated 4.4 stars.

    Curation is What 4-Star is About

    Whenever your working offline you can’t have the endless aisle that you have online. When you are working offline you really have to curate and that’s actually what Amazon 4 star is all about. We have a highly curated selection from some of the top categories, the most popular categories on Amazon.com. We’ve got devices, electronics, kitchen, toys, home, and all of these hit that 4-star selection bar that we think is so important.

    Here at 4-Star what we are trying to do is create an experience where customers can come in, browse, have fun shopping find products they love. With all of these experiences, we are trying to find more ways to connect with our customers. Of course, customers love to shop online, but a lot of customers love to shop offline as well. What we can do with these experiences is create a new type of shopping experiences and help them discover new products.

    Our Focus is Connecting With Customers

    Another thing you can do in offline that you can’t do online is that customers can come in and touch the products themselves. Certainly, with our device category, customers can come in the store, play with the Fire TV, they can read on the Kindle, they can interact with the Amazon Echo and Alexa products and see how those products work in first person and make a more confident buying decision.

    Our focus here is on connecting with customers and if customers come in here and discover products that they love, we know they will come back and over time that can be something big. That’s really what we are focused on today.

  • The Case for Amazon Hitting $2 Trillion First

    The Case for Amazon Hitting $2 Trillion First

    Keith Fitz-Gerald, an experienced trader, and analyst for Money Map Press was asked by Stuart Varney on Fox Business today to explain his rationale for Amazon hitting a $2 trillion valuation before Apple:

    “There are four key businesses here, artificial intelligence, entering your home, big data, and distribution into advertising. That’s the four business segments that are going to move Amazon faster and farther than Apple, which is now under Tim Cook’s leadership falling behind in the home market.

    I’m still working on the math, it varies with each earning season, but I’m saying 24 months, possibly less.”

    “Unbelievably, many investors still think of Amazon as a “shopping” company,” noted Fitz-Gerald in his investor report. “I get it – my family and I seem to single-handedly support the company’s shopping revenues. And, like many people, I’m saying that only halfway in jest! But Team Bezos is much more than that, and the fact that most investors can’t see beyond the packing tape is a huge opportunity for you to jump in… before the markets recognize the profit potential we’re about to discuss.”

    He says that many analysts believe that the single biggest driver will be Amazon Web Services (AWS), but he believes the real value creator is artificial intelligence (AI) led by Alexa:

    “Voice-driven technology is going to be an $18 billion market in under five years, according to Markets and Markets, but I think that is far too conservative. $30 billion is probably far more likely. That’s because Alexa learns from everything it hears.”

    Fitz-Gerald added: “Imagine telling Alexa… “I want a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday morning and my test results slated for midday. Oh… and I’d like my medicine delivered to my home that afternoon – all at 10% or less of what I’ve paid in the past.””

    Read his full investor report on how Amazon will hit a $2 trillion market cap first here.

  • Jamie Siminoff of Ring – From a SharkTank Reject to an Amazon Success

    Jamie Siminoff of Ring – From a SharkTank Reject to an Amazon Success

    You’ve all heard the story of Jamie Siminoff, creator of Doorbot, later renamed Ring, who was famously rejected on national TV on SharkTank, but then went on to create a wildly successful business. Earlier this year Amazon paid a reported $1 billion in cash for the business.

    Recently, Jamie Siminoff, Founder and Chief Inventor of Ring, had a discussion with John Biggs at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018.

    Here are the key highlights of how Jamie and his small startup hit it big:

    From a SharkTank Reject to an Amazon Success

    If you can get acquired by Amazon your about as lucky as you get because they really do let you just keep going.  Five years ago I was very much on the other side. I was on Shark Tank looking for money trying to get an investment.  I did not get one on the show and now it’s funny because everyone says to me, well you were so smart not to take that money. I’m like no, I was driving back from there to my garage almost in tears broke. I actually needed the money.

    I think Shark Tank has been a great show for families. Families watch the show, people watch it with their kids, it’s aspirational, and it shows that people can do things. It obviously has to be entertaining because it is TV so you need people to watch it but I think it has been good for overall for startups in general.

    For Ring, we were Doorbot at the time, it gave us awareness and credibility that we never would have had that sort of jumped us up. It was a great platform for us to launch off of and we really used it. We turned out to be the largest company ever to be on SharkTank and it was it was a great experience.

    We Were the Consummate Hustlers

    We were the consummate hustlers. Looking back at those days, you work the booth at TC, you go to CES, you just grind. You wear your shirt everywhere, you just grind and embarrass yourself. I think that level of a start-up at the beginning you almost have no shame. You have to just put yourself out there, get the stories out there, and get the name out there. You have to focus on the business, but you have to hustle.

    I always get asked by people that have a startup, what worked? What they really want is the one thing. They want me to tell them we did X, and then I can just go do X and be successful. The truth is it’s like 5,000 things that you have to do to make a successful company. The first thing though is you have to have a reason to be a business.

    A Company Should Start With a Core

    At Amazon, they call it thinking from the customer. That’s starting with the customer and working backward. We called our customer’s neighbors, so we always start with the neighbors and it’s always around a mission to reduce crime in neighborhoods. As a company you should start with some core that says why am I hustling, why am I trying to track you down at CES to get you to write a freaking article? You have to have that reason.

    There are a thousand things you have to do and wearing the shirt yeah, it’s all these little things. Wearing the Ring shirt, for example, creates a conversation on an airplane with someone who asks a question and then that leads to something. My family’s laughed at me because I literally wore the Ring t-shirt almost non-stop for seven years!

    Why Did I Sell Ring to Amazon?

    Why Did I sell Ring to Amazon? You hear all this stuff like this did you sell out? The company was started with a mission to reduce crime in neighborhoods.  From day one that’s been our mission. We’re going to reduce crime in neighborhoods by delivering effective and affordable products and services. We were working with Amazon on some integrations and other things and when Amazon came to us they had bought into the idea that the mission to reduce crime in neighborhoods made sense for Amazon on a strategic level. For Ring that became the best possible outcome, the fastest and most scalable with the best foundation. Amazon has enabled us to accelerate our business.

    The Truth of Business is Luck

    It’s cool when you get inside Amazon. They really do start, and this is from Jeff down, with customer backwards and infinite truths. Are people going to want to have a safer home and neighborhood in 50 or 100 years? Yes. They look at these like bigger truths around things. When they’re making these big decisions it’s really about an infinite truth of something that can make a customer’s journey or life better.

    The truth of business is luck, luck, luck, luck, luck. I worked hard, I focused, I did everything right, but the amount of luck that happened along the way,  getting on Shark Tank and having the right investors come when they did, having a house where if the freaking doorbell had reached to the garage I’d probably be here trying to pitch some other hardware thing in the roundup group.  

    Especially at this scale, to build a business to the size that we have so far and to have that success I think luck is a huge part of it. Timing is not in your control, you don’t know what’s gonna happen next year or the year after and all of these things went our way. You know, luck.

  • Jeff Bezos: Experimentation is Key to Invention

    Jeff Bezos: Experimentation is Key to Invention

    Recently, Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, in a talk at the 2018 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, discussed the need for businesses to always be inventive. Businesses should seek out failure if it’s in pursuit of a radically new idea. He says that these experiments are crucial to business success.

    Bezos also is a proponent of real substantive delegation so that managers can easily greenlight these business opportunity experiments. Additionally, companies should not shy away from hiring mavericks, people that may be difficult to get along with, but who also might be the person that transforms your business.

    In the words of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos:

    To Be Innovative You Have to Experiment

    To be innovative you have to experiment. If you want to have more invention you need to do more experiments per week, per month, per year, per decade. It’s that simple. You cannot invent without experimenting and here’s the other thing about experiments, lots of them fail. If you know it’s gonna work in advance it is not an experiment.

    What happens in big organizations is that we start to confuse experimentation with operational excellence. Operational excellence is one of our four key principles at Amazon.

    We Want Failures Where We’re Trying To Do Something New

    We’ve built over 150 large fulfillment centers around the world now, we know how to do that and that is not an experiment. If we build the 151st fulfillment center and screw it up that’s just a failure, but that’s not the kind of failure we’re seeking. We want failures where we’re trying to do something new, untested, never proven, that’s a real experiment, and they come in all scale sizes.

    You need to teach people that those two kinds of failure are different. At Amazon, one of the things we try to do is have multiple paths to yes.

    A Bezos Thought Experiment

    Here’s here’s a little thought experiment. If you are a junior executive at Amazon and if Amazon did this in the typical kind of corporate hierarchy way, here’s what would happen if you had an idea. You need to get your boss to greenlight that idea and then your boss’s boss needs to greenlight that idea and then your boss’s boss’s boss needs to greenlight that idea. They’re probably five levels or more before that idea gets the go-ahead.

    Assume instead that you’re an entrepreneur with a startup company idea and you need venture capital. You go to Sand Hill Road and you go to the first venture capitalist and they tell you no and you go to the second one and they tell you no. Maybe your 20th one tells you yes. You got 19 no’s and one yes and you’re still good to go.

    That venture capital model has multiple paths to yes. There were 20 people who could give you a yes and it didn’t matter how many gave you a no.

    Empower Your Executives to Quickly Greenlight Experiments

    If you want innovative thinking you have to think about how can we get a large number of high judgment people empowered to greenlight things. You want multiple paths to yes. You want a system where a junior Air Force officer with a good idea if the first five people tell me no somehow I can still go pursue that idea. That’s an organizational challenge that big organizations have to figure out a way to do.

    By the way, this happens all the time at Amazon. I’ll say I don’t think that’s a good idea but somebody else will greenlight it and I’m fine with that because usually, the cost of the experiment is pretty small.

    Experiments Only Get Expensive When They Work

    Things only get expensive when they work. Once something works you’re like whoa, we need to double down on that. Then the spending can get heavy and then those become big consequential decisions and that’s where the hierarchy and using the judgment of the most senior people really helps.

    Hire the Radical Thinker, the Maverick

    You also have to select people who like to invent. When you’re hiring and in your promotions process you need to say is this a person that likes to be innovative and do they have a bit of a pioneering spirit. Maybe they’re also a little bit annoying because they might be a little bit radical or a bit rebellious. They’re not always the easiest people to get along with but you want them in your organization.

  • Inside the Mind of Jeff Bezos as He Reveals the Secret Sauce of Amazon

    Inside the Mind of Jeff Bezos as He Reveals the Secret Sauce of Amazon

    Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos recently talked about why Amazon is so successful, what he looks for when buying companies and how the business miracle of AWS came about.

    Here are some key excerpts from his Q&A at The Economic Club Of Washington:

    The secret sauce of Amazon, the number one thing that has made us successful by far is our obsessive-compulsive focus on the customer, as opposed to obsession over the competitor. I talk so often to other CEOs and also founders and entrepreneurs, and I can tell that even though they’re talking about customers they’re really focusing on competitors. It is huge for any company to stay focused on your customer instead of your competitors.

    On Buying Companies: Is the Founder a Missionary or a Mercenary?

    Amazon buys a lot of companies, usually, there much smaller than Whole Foods, but we buy a bunch of companies every year. When I meet with the entrepreneur who founded the company,  I’m always trying to figure out one thing first and foremost, is that person a missionary or a mercenary? The mercenaries are trying to flip their stock. The missionaries love their product or their service and love their customer and are trying to build a great service.

    The great paradox here is that it’s usually the missionaries who make more money!

    You can tell really quickly just by talking to people whether they are a missionary. When I met John Mackay who’s the founder of Whole Foods, it’s a missionary company and he’s a missionary guy.  What we’re able to do is take some of our resources, some of our technological know-how and expand the Whole Foods mission.

    They have a great mission which is to bring organic nourishing food to everybody, but we have a lot to bring to the table in terms of resources, but also in terms of operational excellence and technology know-how.

    How AWS Reinvented the Way Companies buy Computation

    We started AWS (Amazon Web Services) about 15 years ago and worked on it behind the scenes for a long time before we finally launched it. Since then, it has become a very large company that has completely reinvented the way companies buy computation.

    Traditionally,  if you’re a company and you needed computation, you would build a data center. You’d fill that data center with servers, you’d have to upgrade the operating systems of those servers,  keep everything running and so on. None of that added any value to what the business was doing. It was kind of the price of admission. It was undifferentiated heavy lifting.

    What we saw at Amazon while we were building data centers for ourselves is that there was a tremendous waste of effort between our applications engineers and our networking engineers, the ones who run the data centers. They were having to have lots of meetings and planning fleet sizes and all these non-value-added tasks.

    We said what we can do is develop a set of hardened API’s  that allow these two groups, the applications engineers and the networking engineers, to have roadmap meetings instead of these fine-grained meetings, and then we’ll expose those API’s to the applications engineers and they can just take as much compute resources as they want. As soon as we hatched that plan it became immediately obvious to us that every company in the world was gonna want this.

    Then A Business Miracle Happened

    Then a business miracle happened. This never happens. This is like the greatest piece of business luck in the history of business.  We faced no like-minded competition for seven years. It’s unbelievable.

    When I launched Amazon.com in 1995, Barnes & Noble launched Barnesandnoble.com in 1997, in just two years. That’s very typical if you invent something new. When we launched Kindle, Barnes and Noble launched Nook two years later. After we launched Ecco, Google launched Google Home two years later.

    When you’re a pioneer if you’re lucky you get a two-year head start. Nobody gets a seven-year head start! That was incredible.

    I think it was because of a whole confluence of things. The big established enterprise software companies did not see Amazon as a credible enterprise software company and so we had this long runway to build this incredible little feature-rich service. It’s just so far ahead of all the other products and services available to do this work today and the team doesn’t let up.

  • Brands Are Waking Up to the Inevitable of Selling on Amazon

    Brands Are Waking Up to the Inevitable of Selling on Amazon

    “Ecommerce is essentially digital disruption,” says David Spitz, ChannelAdvisor CEO, at the recent Retail (R)evolution 2018 conference. “If you are a brand or retailer and you are in that supply chain, or flow of commerce, digital disruption for ecommerce is like what Netflix did to Blockbuster. There’s a lot of retail disruption. The alternative of being able to click and get products very quickly, where you can now get deliveries in as little as an hour, makes the value proposition of getting in your car and going to the store very diminished.” Spitz says this leaves retailers looking for what they can do to remain relevant.

    He says that if you are a brand, manufacturer or CPG type company the path to the consumer is changing very rapidly. “In the US, ecommerce is still only 10 percent of total retail spend,” notes Spitz. “Most companies are still driving 90 percent of their revenue through the traditional retail channels, but the growth is in that (ecommerce) 10 percent. The path to the consumer is changing and it’s creating a new world order with the landscape shifting very rapidly.”

    Spitz is focused on the challenges of retailers. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking to a variety of brands such as paint manufacturers, tire manufacturers, apparel companies, etc. They are in this interesting crossroads because the bulk of their revenue still comes from the traditional retail channel and those are partnerships that are important to them and they don’t want to upset those partnerships. On the other hand, if you look at the rate of growth of Amazon, they are approaching half of US ecommerce. It continues to grow at roughly twice the rate of the industry so it’s not hard to imagine waking up in a world where Amazon accounts for 60-75 percent of US ecommerce.”

    If you are a brand, how do you reach those consumers? “Consumers are saying this is how I like to shop, it’s an easy app, I click and know I’m going to get the product quickly,” says Spitz. “Last summer, Nike decided to start selling on Amazon, and Nike had resisted selling on Amazon for the last 10 years. I think there was some dawning realization at some point that this is how customers want to shop. So a lot of these brands see it as inevitable, that’s how consumers like to shop and why make life hard for your customers?”

    “I think that channel mix conflict is very much real for brands but at the end of the day, the customer is what matters the most. If the customer says this is how I want to purchase your product if you are a brand you have to listen to that.”

    New world order indeed…

  • Trump Blasts Amazon Yet Again, Says eCommerce Giant Uses USPS as Its ‘Delivery Boy’

    Trump Blasts Amazon Yet Again, Says eCommerce Giant Uses USPS as Its ‘Delivery Boy’

    President Donald Trump once again attacked Amazon and the Washington Post in some of his recent tweets.

    In his latest Twitter rant against the company, the President railed that the Washington Post “has gone crazy against me” since Amazon lost their Internet Tax Case in the Supreme Court. He also jibed that the Washington Post is losing a fortune and described it as “nothing more than an expensive lobbyist for Amazon.”

    Trump also blasted Amazon for using the US Postal Service as a “delivery boy” for its packages at only “a fraction of real cost.”

    Trump’s latest tirade came on the heels of a Washington Post’s report that was critical of how he handled North Korea. The paper claimed the president was frustrated with how long it was taking to see some progress after his talk with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Trump tweeted the country had not launched a rocket in 9 months and that “all of Asia is happy.” He also said what the “Fake News” is claiming is wrong and said that he was “very happy” with the way things with North Korea were proceeding.

    Amazon’s shares dipped slightly after Trump’s tweets. However, the loss was minuscule when compared to the company’s 55 percent gains since the start of 2018. Trump’s tirade also did little to harm Jeff Bezos’ standing as the world’s richest man. The owner of Amazon and the Washington Post has a net worth amounting to about $150 billion.

    This isn’t the first time that Trump attacked Bezos and Amazon regarding the e-retailer’s use of the USPS. In a tweet last December, Trump questioned why the USPS was charging the online store so little when they “Should be charging MUCH MORE!” He also tweeted in April that the Post Office was losing a fortune but that this will change.

    It is true that the Post Office is losing money. The USPS reported a loss of $2.7 billion in 2017. Increasing the rates of shipping packages is one way to resolve the situation. However, the USPS’ main function is not to generate profit but to serve civilians. This is why the department’s shipping rates are very low.

    Amazon also isn’t the only company using the US Postal Service. FedEx and UPS also drop off packages and utilizes the USPS as their “last mile” delivery. If the postal service does raise prices, it would affect all companies that ships packages, including small businesses that may find it difficult to cover increased shipping costs. 

    [Featured image via YouTube]

  • Amazon Sets Sales Record on Prime Day 2018, Reports 100 Million Products Sold

    Amazon Sets Sales Record on Prime Day 2018, Reports 100 Million Products Sold

    Amazon has concluded its record-setting online shopping event this year. Called Prime Day, the 36-hour shopping period that ran from July 16 to July 17 was said to have surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and last year’s event. In a recent press release highlighting its success, the company didn’t disclose sales growth or exact figures but reported that Prime members bought more than 100 million products during the sales event.

    According to CEO of Worldwide Consumer Jeff Wilke, Prime Day was an opportunity to reward its members with the best deals and exclusive access to Amazon’s new products. In fact, two of the bestsellers during the worldwide event included Amazon’s Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and Echo Dot.

    Aside from Fire TV devices, other Amazon products that made a killing were Kindle e-readers and the kids’ versions of the Fire tablet and Echo Dot.

    Other than electronics, members also purchased millions of toys, beauty care, computer accessories, apparel, and kitchen products. Since it’s back-to-school season, buyers also stocked up on school supplies and household essentials, taking advantage of the convenience of buying online with low shipping rates. After all, Amazon Prime members enjoy same-day delivery and free shipping on millions of products.  

    Prime Day also put the spotlight on small and medium-sized businesses that sell on Amazon’s platform. During the event, total sales from these businesses surpassed $1 billion, which reportedly exceeded sellers’ expectations.

    Despite its successful run, Prime Day actually began with a glitch that prevented customers from checking out their purchases during the first few hours of the sale. Amazon recognized the problem but skirted disclosing the reason for it. Others pointed out that it was probably due to the unusually heavy traffic on Amazon’s site as the sale began.

    July is considered a slow month for retail, but with Prime Day, Amazon upped the ante and spurred shopping activity. Taking advantage of the bargain hunting hype, some of the larger retailers, like Walmart, eBay, and Macy’s, also ran their own sales campaigns and offered a few bargains online.  

    Target, for instance, had a couple of promotions on July 17, which generated this year’s highest single-day traffic and sale on its website, Target.com. The retailer even took a jab at Amazon Prime’s $119-membership fee, saying that buyers don’t have to pay to enjoy the site’s deals.

    With the upcoming holiday season, large retailers are bracing themselves for faster sales growth as more buyers turn to online shopping for convenience and experience. Until other retailers catch up with the online giant, Amazon will likely break its Prime Day 2018 record.   

    [Featured image via YouTube]

  • Walmart Joins Forces With Microsoft to Fend Off Amazon

    Walmart Joins Forces With Microsoft to Fend Off Amazon

    In its bid to overtake its largest rival, Walmart announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft on Tuesday. According to the biggest US retailer, the company inked a five-year deal with the tech giant to speed up its digital transformation for a faster shopping experience online. Walmart will be utilizing an array of Microsoft’s cloud solutions as its preferred provider.

    It’s no secret that Walmart and Microsoft are two of Amazon’s closest rivals in retail and cloud computing, respectively. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the battle against Amazon was “absolutely core” to his company’s teamup with Walmart. He further stated, “How do we get more leverage as two organizations that have depth and breadth and investment to be able to outrun our respective competition?”

    Under the deal, Walmart will use Microsoft’s machine learning and AI technologies to optimize the retailer’s entire supply chain and improve its delivery system. With the Internet of Things platform on Microsoft’s Azure, the retailer can better manage which products should go on the shelves from the ones that go into the refrigeration units. This is one way to reduce costs in operating its physical stores.

    Utilizing technology to assess operations seems to be one of Amazon’s strong suits, one that Walmart appears to lack. Over the past few years, the online retailer has developed its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, to become the leading cloud service provider. Microsoft, however, remains second in terms of market share with Azure, but still a worthy alternative for other companies.   

    Although Walmart has developed its own cloud computing operation, it wasn’t as extensive as Amazon’s or Microsoft’s. The retailer only began using Azure recently when it acquired Jet.com, whose operations ran entirely on Microsoft’s cloud platform.  

    Walmart has been more open to the idea of working with tech firms to enhance its systems and improve shopping experience. Last year, it teamed up with Google by adding some of its Walmart.com products on Google Express to allow for voice-ordered purchases, directly competing with Amazon’s Alexa. And for its back-to-school offering, Walmart has also launched its app for faster location of items in-store.   

    Microsoft, on the other hand, has been teaming up with other brick-and-mortar retailers, such as Macy’s and Marks & Spencer, for better retail experience using artificial intelligence.

    Despite the strategic alliance, Walmart won’t be using the tech giant’s services for its planned cashierless stores – another area where Amazon has taken an early lead with its Amazon Go store in Seattle. Microsoft, however, is still keen on developing hardware and software solutions for automated grocery stores, even if it’s not for Walmart.

    [Featured image via Walmart.com]

  • Snapchat and Amazon Could Be Teaming Up on a New Visual Search Tool

    Snapchat and Amazon Could Be Teaming Up on a New Visual Search Tool

    Snapchat is seeking to expand its horizons and utilize its camera to go beyond social media with a new visual search feature. This novel search capability and a team-up with Amazon could open a new revenue stream for the company.

    According to reports, a new Snapchat version for Android smartphones includes a secret code for a new “Visual Search” feature. This new feature, dubbed Project Eagle, can allegedly utilize Snapchat’s camera to send a barcode or product image scans to Amazon. The retail powerhouse will then display the results of the product search.

    The secret code was reportedly discovered by Ishan Agarwal, an app researcher. Agarwal then tipped off TechCrunch about his discovery. On their end, the company was quick to spot a source code in Snapchat that had a pop-up text with the lines — “Press and hold to identify an object, song, barcode, and more! This works by sending data to Amazon, Shazam, and other partners.”

    The discovered code doesn’t really explain how the visual search feature will work. However, the application’s code enumerates the capacity to bring “reviews” and “sellers” to the surface, “Copy URL” of a specific product as well as “Send Product” or “Share” it with friends. These actions could be done through Snapchat Stories or simple Snap messages.

    Project Eagle will undoubtedly change the way people see Snapchat. Instead of being just a social media app, it could become a clever tool for navigating retail. It can also provide the company with a new revenue source if it works out an affiliate referrals deal with Amazon.

    This is something that Snapchat desperately needs at the moment. The company has suffered a loss of $385 million in the previous quarter, with its missing revenue pegged to be at $14 million. Snapchat’s stock also closed Monday at $13.65 per share, way below the $17 offering price.

    Amazon is so far keeping mum about Snapchat’s visual search feature. It should be pointed out that there’s no definitive proof to indicate that the retail giant is working with Snapchat or if it’s just the end destination of the search results. As for Snapchat, mother company Snap Inc. just issued a “no comment” when asked about the rumored visual search.

    One thing is certain though, a solid visual search feature could turn Snapchat into something more than a selfie aficionado’s favorite app. It could usher in a groundbreaking way for consumers to search for products to purchase.

    [Featured image via Pexels.com]

  • Amazon and Google are Starting to Look More and More Alike

    Amazon and Google are Starting to Look More and More Alike

    The eCommerce landscape is in constant flux, with Amazon becoming more like a search-ads platform aside from being an eCommerce venture while Google seems to be doing the opposite. That’s one of the key takeaways from Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report.

    Meeker recently presented her report at Recode’s Code Conference. Among the highlights of the talk was her observation that Amazon and Google are starting to evolve and converge. 

    While this convergence might seem strange to some, it’s inevitable that companies evolve as eCommerce continues to grow steadily every year.

    Amazon the Search Engine

    There’s no question that Amazon is lording it over in online sales. The company had a 28% share in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2017, a big jump from its 20% share in 2013.

    The past few years has also seen Amazon becoming the start-off point for more product searches than Google. A reported 49% of shoppers begin their product search on Amazon while 36% opt for other search engines. What’s more, Amazon shoppers are a loyal group. A PricewaterhouseCooper’s survey revealed that 14% of shoppers use this site exclusively. The company is also perfectly suited to take advantage of these searches with key features like one-click purchasing, which allows customers to purchase from Amazon once they find the results they want.

    [Graphic via MediaPost]

    Amazon is also aggressively growing its advertising side. More marketers are investing in the company’s paid search products, with 82% of Amazon Marketing Services users purchasing sponsored products while 65% buy headline search and product display ads.

    Google as an eCommerce Platform

    Google and Facebook continue to dominate ad revenues; Amazon is currently in fifth place. But with Jeff Bezos nipping at their heels, the Alphabet group is not resting on its laurels and has started to develop ways to ensure shoppers remain onsite. The company’s new AdWords feature – Shopping Actions – will ensure that happens.

    Shopping Actions essentially turns Google Assistant and Google Search into marketplaces that retailers can tap into while also allowing users to make direct purchases. Shoppers can add what they find in their search to a common shopping cart and easily check out using payment data already filed with Google. What’s more, the program works across various devices. This can provide Google a major advantage, given the increasing popularity of voice search.

    Home Depot, Target, Ulta, and Walmart are just some of Google’s retail partners. However, these partner retailers would have to sacrifice some of their sales and control of their customer’s online shopping experience to Google, it’s a small price to pay for being able to utilize the company’s vast resources, technology, and millions of potential customers.

  • Amazon Now Delivers Right to Your Car Trunk, Covers Select US Cities

    Amazon Now Delivers Right to Your Car Trunk, Covers Select US Cities

    On Tuesday, Amazon launched another option for package delivery, not to your doorstep, but right to your car trunk. The latest feature is an iteration of its Amazon Key service that lets delivery drivers place parcels inside your home.  

    Similar to its in-home service, in-car delivery works by giving Amazon access to your vehicle via the Key app. Delivery people can now unlock your parked car and put the package in the trunk. With a few taps, the car can be locked again.

    This delivery service is less intrusive than the in-home option that received numerous complaints when it was introduced in November of last year. Shoppers feared that the service would let intruders into their homes, and others felt it was an infringement of their privacy. However, unlike deliveries made inside your home, in-car deliveries don’t require the installation of a camera and compatible smart lock, making it less secure. Customers will only get updates once the item is delivered and alerts when the car is unlocked and relocked through the Key app.

    Users might be wary of granting short, unrestricted access to their cars, but Amazon assures that the entire process is secure. There are several layers of verification, including an encrypted authentication process, before the car is unlocked. And to prevent unauthorized access, couriers are allowed to unlock vehicles only once for every delivery.

    On the day of delivery, customers get a four-hour window of time in which to receive their package. They have to park their cars within the two-block radius of the delivery address. In-car deliveries can only be made to stationary vehicles in open, street-level public spaces to locate them easily. Satellite signals are weaker in multi-level or underground parking garages and couriers can’t enter restricted gated spaces.  

    Few cars support door openings through an app or connected car services plan. For now, in-car delivery is limited to Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac with active OnStar subscription, and Volvo with active On Call accounts. All vehicle models must 2015 or newer. But Amazon assured its members that the service will be expanded to include more car makes and models.

    In-car delivery is available for millions of items on the eCommerce platform. However, there are certain restrictions to this option, such as big boxes that won’t fit inside the trunk and high-value items that require a signature. And if your car gets damaged during delivery, Amazon will take care of it.  

    Amazon is currently delivering to 37 US cities but intends to cover more areas in the near future. According to Peter Larsen, Amazon’s delivery technology vice president, the Key service is “working as designed” and recorded fewer redeliveries of packages. Innovations like these, although controversial, are Amazon’s response to rising incidents of package theft as online shopping becomes increasingly popular.  

  • Walmart Competes Against Amazon for Flipkart Buy-In, $12 Billion Offered for Controlling Stake

    Walmart Competes Against Amazon for Flipkart Buy-In, $12 Billion Offered for Controlling Stake

    US companies Walmart and Amazon are competing to acquire a controlling stake in Flipkart, India’s leading eCommerce company. Walmart has completed an in-depth due diligence on its proposed majority ownership in the Indian firm. However, rival Amazon also wants to put in a bid and offers a ‘breakup fee’ of $1 billion to $2 billion, a penalty to be paid in case the deal fails to proceed.

    Unnamed sources revealed that Walmart is willing to pay $10 billion to $12 billion for a controlling stake of 51 percent or more, valuing Flipkart at roughly $20 billion. But the deal isn’t sealed yet because Amazon is reportedly interested as well.

    Insiders privy to the matter disclosed that Flipkart’s board recently discussed the competing proposals. They seem to agree that Walmart’s offer is better since the US retailer will face fewer regulatory hurdles. On the other hand, Amazon is considered as Flipkart’s primary competitor. It will face tighter scrutiny for possible monopoly since both companies control the majority of India’s online retail market.

    Founded by two former Amazon employees, Flipkart is taking on the eCommerce giant to have a piece of India’s expanding online retail market. According to Morgan Stanley estimates, eCommerce in the country is predicted to grow annually by 30 percent and will be worth $200 billion by 2026.

    Because of its vast potential, Amazon is investing heavily in the emerging market. The eCommerce giant has spent $5 billion for its India operations but is losing to homegrown startups like Flipkart that know the market well.

    Flipkart announced recent plans to construct a 4.5 million sq. ft. logistics facility in Southern India. This is significantly bigger than Amazon’s largest warehouse measuring 400,000-sq. ft. in the country. But the US online retailer also has 62 fulfillment centers and delivery stations located all over India.

    Walmart’s entry will give the startup its much-needed funds to compete head-on with Amazon. Flipkart will also benefit from the retailer’s unparalleled experience in logistics and supply chain management.

    The largest US retailer’s stake in Flipkart will depend on which of its shareholders are willing to sell. SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Naspers are just some of its largest investors. Insiders said that SoftBank prefers a deal with Amazon because of its success in online commerce. Tiger and Naspers will likely sell their holdings to Walmart for the right price, according to sources.

    As of writing, Walmart, Amazon, and Flipkart have declined to comment on the matter.

    [Featured image via Flipkart website]

  • Donald Trump Attacks Amazon on Twitter for Not Paying Enough Taxes

    Donald Trump Attacks Amazon on Twitter for Not Paying Enough Taxes

    Donald Trump once again used social media to attack Amazon. This time, Trump accused the online retailer of being a threat to small businesses as well as “paying little or no taxes.”

    By now, everyone is probably aware that Trump is not really friends with Amazon as well as its CEO Jeff Bezos. So, it came as no surprise when the president decided to tweet his concern against the eCommerce giant last Thursday. Aside from accusing the company of not paying enough taxes, Trump also asserted that the government actually suffered losses due to Amazon’s use of the US Postal Service in its deliveries.

    However, Trump’s statement about Amazon’s tax practice is a bit misleading. While the retailer previously collected sales taxes only in a few states, the company has since corrected its operations and is now collecting in 45 states or all states that impose the collection of sales taxes.

    Trump is a known critic of Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. In fact, Trump had attacked both Bezos and his company via Twitter more than a dozen times since 2015. Some of his vitriol no doubt comes from unfavorable stories printed about him by The Washington Post, which is also owned by Bezos.

    Regardless of his intentions, many business analysts agree with Trump’s view that Amazon’s size has strangled competitors, particularly the brick and mortar retailers. This concern first surfaced way back in the 90s when the company started out as an online bookstore. These days as a retailer of all things, Amazon’s has a far bigger presence in the world of eCommerce, accounting for a staggering 40 percent of all online sales.

    “The Trump administration should rein in giants like Amazon because they have an unfair stranglehold on the competition, not because the president has a personal feud with a company’s CEO,” Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison said in a statement, which echoed Trump’s concern.

    Of course, Amazon is aware that its ballooning size is bound to raise some antitrust issues soon. Eyeing the storm that is yet to come, the company wants its bases covered and has reportedly hired numerous antitrust consultants over the past year.

    Amazon’s tax history is not entirely blemish-free either. The company recently ran into problems in its international operations and settled a tax dispute with French authorities for an undisclosed amount. However, the EU ruled Amazon to have an “illegal tax advantage” and ordering the company to pay $294 million to Luxembourg.

  • Amazon Gets Patent for Delivery Drones with Gesture and Voice Recognition

    Amazon Gets Patent for Delivery Drones with Gesture and Voice Recognition

    Amazon has obtained approval on a new patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a delivery drone that can respond to human gestures and voices on Tuesday.

    The patent, filed in July 2016 and published recently, is in line with the company’s goal to maintain a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles that will rapidly deliver packages in 30 minutes or less. Through visual cues, voice commands, and a person’s gestures, the drone can establish its flight path, release the package, or ask humans about the delivery.

    Patent illustration for Amazon drone

    The document included several illustrations of the design, one of which shows the delivery drone and a man outside his home. He was wildly flailing his arms in what Amazon called an “unwelcoming manner,” a gesture as if to shoo away the drone overhead. A blank voice bubble suggests possible voice commands for the drone.

    A diagram of the drone’s communication system includes speakers and microphones, as well as navigation components like depth sensors and cameras to detect visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light. Through its array of sensors, the delivery drone would recognize audible and visible gestures and react accordingly.

    The patent also detailed the steps a drone would take when it reads body language—thanks to its human gestures database—as it delivers the package. Once it’s clear to deliver, the drone releases the parcels from the air or lands on a certain spot to place the package. It would be able to verify the recipient’s identity via an app, speech recognition, or remote operator.

    Moreover, the delivery drone can add new movements to its database to improve the accuracy of its gesture-recognition system. “In some examples, when in the learning context, a human operator may interact with the UAV in order to ‘teach’ the UAV how to react given certain gestures, circumstances, and the like,” the patent stated.

    The eCommerce giant has declined to comment on the gesture-recognition concept, but this isn’t the first time that Amazon has applied for something this ambitious. Since announcing plans to design an air delivery service, the company filed patents for mobile flying warehouses by using airships and self-destructing drones.  

    [Featured image via Amazon]

  • Amazon is Now the World’s Second Largest Company, Surpasses Alphabet

    Amazon is Now the World’s Second Largest Company, Surpasses Alphabet

    Amazon became the second most valuable company as it overtook Google parent Alphabet for the first time amidst Tuesday’s trading.

    The eCommerce giant’s shares surged by 2.7 percent, pulling up its stock market value to $768 billion. Over the past 12 months, the online retailer has added around $350 billion to its market capitalization, surging by 85 percent. This was attributed to Amazon’s aggressive expansion into other markets, such as cloud computing and brick-and-mortar stores.

    More investors are betting on Amazon’s profitable and fast-growing cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, to fund the company’s new ventures like original content, physical stores, and building data centers and warehouses.

    Amazon is still behind Apple, the largest publicly traded US company with market value of $889 billion. But analysts think the eCommerce giant can close the gap. “They could have Apple in their sights at some point,” Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York, said.

    On the other hand, Alphabet’s stock tumbled by 0.4 percent, trimming its market cap to $762 billion. The Wall Street ranking shake-up was traced to Monday’s tech sell-off following the political backlash over reports that a consulting firm leaked the personal data of 50 million Facebook users. Similar to the social media company, Alphabet also relies on obtaining massive amounts of personal data to target online advertising.

    Although Amazon also collects data from site users, some analysts believe that the online retailer will not be affected by concerns about the new regulation on online advertising, unlike Facebook and other tech companies.

    Fred Weiss, a managing director at CIBC Atlantic Trust, pointed out to Financial Times, “It is clearly companies that have proprietary personal data that they are able to market to advertisers. Those are the ones that are vulnerable, not so much Amazon. It does very little on advertising and is not being impacted the same as Google and Facebook.”

    [Featured image via Amazon blog]

  • Amazon Reportedly Wants to Venture into Banking

    Amazon Reportedly Wants to Venture into Banking

    In its bid to strengthen its relationship with its millions of existing customers, eCommerce giant Amazon is carefully considering a foray into the highly regulated banking industry. While The Wall Street Journal reported the initial talks between Amazon and financial services firms that include JPMorgan Chase and Capital One, the online store remained mum on such speculations.

    A report by WSJ revealed that discussions are still in the early stages and mentioned that Amazon would be offering checking accounts to its wide customer base. This could prove to be a good move for the online shopping platform where millions of subscribers purchase a bevy of products, rivaling that of brick-and-mortar retailers. With the Amazon-labeled checking account, payment will be easier and more affordable, sans the bank processing fees.

    Experts, on the other hand, are unfazed by the news, citing Walmart as an example of how strict banking regulations foiled the retailer’s plan to establish its own bank. Obtaining a bank charter is no walk in the park—something that Walmart discovered early on as industry players opposed the retailer’s deposit-taking initiatives.

    Given Walmart’s experience, Amazon’s proposed partnership with financial firms to tap into the unbanked segment of its customer base barely spooked the markets. The market response, however, is a good indicator that the online retailer will likely work with large banks, instead of going head-on against them.

    It isn’t the first time that the online retailer teamed up with banks to roll out financial services for its customers and suppliers alike. Amazon had already launched a Visa-powered Prime rewards credit card in partnership with JPMorgan Chase. Moreover, the eCommerce platform has an Amazon.com Store card issued by Synchrony Bank, the financial services arm of General Electric divested in 2015.

    However, Amazon’s entry into financial services doesn’t end with its credit cards and checking accounts. According to a CNBC report, the eCommerce giant has been offering loans to its sellers through an invitation-only program to assist them in expanding their operations. A quick look at Amazon’s annual report filed on the SEC website revealed that sellers receivables amounted to $692 million as of end-2017, slightly higher than prior year’s $661 million.

    [Featured image via Amazon]

  • Walmart Builds Giant Private Cloud to Take on Amazon

    Walmart Builds Giant Private Cloud to Take on Amazon

    Walmart knows that to win big, it has to bet big as well. In its multibillion-dollar battle against online retailer rival Amazon, brick-and-mortar giant Walmart made a big bet in upgrading the technology behind is operations which include putting up with the world biggest private cloud. And it seems to be paying off.

    In order to effectively compete against Amazon on its turf, Walmart made multi-million dollar investments in cloud computing putting up six giant server farms which took nearly five years to complete, obviously mimicking its rival’s model. But the bold move worked. For the past three quarters, online sales have continued to surge. In fact, the company’s online revenue surged by 50 percent year-over-year during the third quarter of 2017, its strongest quarterly growth since 2009.

    Being the world’s largest brick and mortar retailer, Walmart is a relatively new entrant to the eCommerce segment. At the moment, its 3.6 percent market share of the U.S. eCommerce pie is significantly smaller than Amazon’s 43.5 percent share. Obviously, it has a lot of catching up to do and that includes in the cloud computing arena.

    “The battle between Walmart and Amazon has been playing out on all fronts and the cloud is the latest frontier,” Rubikloud Technologies CEO Kerry Liu explained. His firm specializes in artificial intelligence technology services to retailers.

    Walmart’s decision to build its own private cloud has helped it maintain its competitiveness against Amazon in terms of pricing. In addition, the tech upgrades also enabled the company to exert a tighter control on key functions such as inventory and even streamlining its services.

    “It has made a big difference to how fast we can grow our eCommerce business,” Walmart’s head of cloud operations Tim Kimmet confirmed. Of course, maintaining its own private cloud is critical to any company engaged in retail, an industry that is currently in a constant state of flux where data-based decisions are ever more important to take advantage of emerging shopping trends.

    The battle between the two titans is bound to get even more exciting in the future. While Walmart has utilized its private could to help grow its eCommerce business, odds are it may use it to do more.

    In fact, there are predictions that Walmart may have plans on going beyond retail. With a massive cloud infrastructure in place, does the brick-and-mortar retailer plan on directly challenging Amazon’s cloud computing business as well?

    [Featured image via Walmart]

  • Amazon is Now Worth More Than Microsoft, Becomes the World’s Third Most Valuable Company

    Amazon is Now Worth More Than Microsoft, Becomes the World’s Third Most Valuable Company

    The race in becoming the first company to reach the trillion dollar mark in terms of market capitalization is still ongoing. However, Amazon is a strong contender as its long-running market rally continues unabated. Thanks to a sharp rise in its company’s shares on Wednesday, Amazon became the world’s third most valuable company, overtaking Microsoft for the first time.

    Amazon shares surged by 2.6 percent on Wednesday—an increase of $36.54 a share in just a single day of trading. Closing at $1,451.05 per share, the online retail giant is now valued at $702.5 billion. Its market value went up by $17.69 from the previous day’s close.

    While Microsoft managed to post some gains on the same day, it was not enough to offset Amazon’s increase. The software giant’s stock rose by 1.6 percent or $1.40 per share, translating to an increase in total market cap by $10.78 billion. The company is now valued at $699.22 billion on Wednesday’s close.

    At the moment, only two companies are worth more the Amazon. Gadget maker Apple is still number one with a market valuation of $849.2 billion. Meanwhile, Google’s parent firm Alphabet is in the second spot currently valued at $746 billion.

    Amazon continues to dazzle investors and has managed to post a 73 percent increase in the past year. As a result, CEO Jeff Bezos overtook Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the world’s richest person. Microsoft’s 41 percent increase in the past 12 months was not enough to offset the online retailer’s meteoric rise.

    [Featured image via Amazon]

  • Instacart Gets Ready to Take on Amazon, Grocery Delivery Service Raises $200M

    Instacart Gets Ready to Take on Amazon, Grocery Delivery Service Raises $200M

    A new player may soon challenge Amazon’s hold on the grocery delivery business. San Francisco-based Instacart has recently beefed up its war chest with another infusion of funds from its latest round of financing activity.

    Instacart reportedly raised $200 million in a fundraising campaign led by investment firms Coatue Management and Glade Brook Capital Partners. The company, which is known for its grocery delivery service, is now valued at $4.2 billion, a sharp rise from its March 2017 valuation of $3.4 billion.

    With the recent capital infusion, Instacart has now received a total of almost $900 million in funding from investors which include big names in the financial market such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. However, one big investor that failed to participate in the company’s latest financing round is Whole Foods.

    Whole Foods is one of Instacart’s big shareholders and major partners. However, since it was acquired by Amazon in June of 2017, its relationship with Instacart can only be described as complex as they will now essentially be competitors in the same market.

    Just last week, Amazon commenced testing on a two-hour delivery service of groceries purchased from Whole Foods. The service will be available to Amazon Prime members and will initially be available in the Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas and Virginia Beach areas. However, the company plans to expand the service coverage for the entire continental U.S. before the end of 2018.

    Despite its relatively small size, Instacart is confident that it will be able to compete with Amazon by forming alliances with more grocery stores. In fact, co-founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta announced big plans for the raised capital, which includes expansion outside the U.S. and Canadian markets as well as the addition of new businesses beyond delivery.

    [Featured Image via Instacart]

  • Amazon Exceeds Analyst Predictions, Posts its Highest Q4 Profits Ever

    Amazon Exceeds Analyst Predictions, Posts its Highest Q4 Profits Ever

    Buoyed by strong holiday sales and the robust performance of its cloud computing division, Amazon exceeded previous expectations set by analysts for its fourth quarter performance. The eCommerce giant posted a staggering $60.5 billion in revenue, surpassing Wall Street estimates which projected its revenues for the period to only reach $59.83 billion.

    For the fourth quarter last year, Amazon posted a net profit of $1.9 billion, which is a record for the company. By comparison, the 2017 Q4 profit is more than double its net profit for the same period the previous year.

    However, Amazon’s profits got a big boost from a tax benefit. The company received a provisional $789 million boost from a new tax law passed in December.

    In addition, the strong performance of its cloud computing business Amazon Web Services (AWS) is also a contributory factor to its record performance. AWS’s $5.11 billion revenue for the same period likewise defied analysts’ expectations, which was only anticipated to reach $4.97 billion.

    The biggest factor to Amazon’s stratospheric Q4 performance still comes from holiday shopping especially during the period starting on the Thanksgiving holiday until New Year. Pushed by the holiday shopping rush, Amazon’s sales rose to $60.5 billion or a 38 percent increase from the year-ago level.

    According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the company’s success is, in large part, a result of its AI-powered digital assistant Alexa. In fact, there are indications that Amazon could be investing more in the technology given its initial success.

    “Our 2017 projections for Alexa were very optimistic, and we far exceeded them. We don’t see positive surprises of this magnitude very often—expect us to double down,” Bezos said in a statement.

    For its 2017 full year performance, Amazon posted a 31 percent rise in sales with its 2017 full year revenue of $177.9 billion, as compared to its 2016 sales of only $136 billion. However, its operating profit is only $4.1 billion, a 2 percent decrease from the previous year due to reinvestments.

    Wall Street still remains overwhelmingly positive on Amazon’s future prospects. Recently, its stock rose by 70 percent which resulted in Jeff Bezos overthrowing Bill Gates as the world’s richest man.