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Amazon news

05 February 2015
After Amazon trialled drone delivery, Alibaba in China also started a trial on drone delivery in a three day pilot program from February 4th to 6th. According to Alibaba's official account on Weibo, the test is on a small scale - only 450 Taobao shoppers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou will receive the delivery of the specific product, ginger tea by drone. These shoppers should expect the prod...
30 January 2015
Amazon’s annual report has revealed 2014 sales growth in its major markets of Germany, the UK and Japan. Strong growth for the UK and Germany In its largest international market in Germany Amazon’s sales grew by 13.1% in 2014 to reach US$11.92bn (€10.52bn). Meanwhile in the UK the company increased sales by 14.4% to US$8.34bn (£5.53bn). In both these mature markets Amazon faced strong c...
29 January 2015
Amazon announced its results for the fourth quarter and full year ended 31 December 2014. Full year revenue increased 20% to US$88.99bn from US$74.45bn in 2013. The company posted a net loss of US$241m against net profit of US$239m a year ago. During its key fourth quarter Amazon’s net profit reached US$214m on sales up 15% to US$29.33bn. ...
22 January 2015
Amazon has pulled its Elements private label nappies less than two months after launch. Separately, in the UK the company says that Sunday deliveries have quadrupled in the past year as demand for the service increases. Not so premium private label The Amazon Elements private label line was launched in early December in the US, as an exclusive range that was made available solely to Amazon ...
07 January 2015
Amazon China has released its online shopping trends for 2014 with a prediction of what's going to happen the year ahead. In 2015, Amazon said it will enhance its innovation and localisation in China, while investing further in logistics, advertising and training. Four trends for online shopping in 2014 Young shoppers with higher education and income are their main target group : 80% sh...
18 December 2014
Amazon has launched a new one-hour delivery service exclusively for Prime members in Manhattan. The Prime Now service is available through a new mobile app and focuses on rapid delivery of everyday essentials. Prime Now on mobile The new Amazon Prime Now service is exclusively available to Amazon’s Prime members, giving customers more reasons to sign up to the loyalty programme. Customers m...
20 November 2014
Earlier this week, IGD held its 4th Online & Digital Summit. Here we have captured some of the key take-outs: 1. Multichannel According to BT’s Josh Pert, multichannel will increasingly be ‘business as usual’ and he suggested that in the future we won’t use this term. After all, in a multichannel world, the customer must be at the heart of the business and they don’t talk about ‘multichanne...
20 November 2014
Amazon is launching eight days of Black Friday deals from Friday 21 November and will give priority to its Prime loyalty members. Driving loyalty In a bid to reward loyalty and drive subscriptions to its service, Amazon is offering its Amazon Prime members the opportunity to gain access to its Lightning Deals promotions 30 minutes earlier than regular customers. Eight days of deals A...
13 November 2014
Amazon is reportedly set to test drones in the UK and today launched a dedicated amazon.nl site for the Netherlands. Meanwhile, same day delivery recently launched in Canada. Amazon.nl goes live Following long-standing rumours of a Netherlands launch, Amazon has gone live with with a Kindle store, which is similar to Amazon’s local language operations in Brazil and Russia. The site has laun...
12 November 2014
So the dust has settled as Alibaba set another record of online sales in one day. On Alibaba’s platforms alone: 57.1 bn RMB (US$9.3 bn) in gross merchandise volume was sold 278 million orders were received 217 countries and regions joined in the shopping spree Source: Alibaba An opportunity for everyone Though Alibaba has been the main driver of the shopping festival, other...