Amazon and Kindle News
Whole Foods met with some of its suppliers earlier this week to share details of its new affinity program and assure its suppliers that the Amazon acquisition isn’t reason for concern, Fortune reports.
In the time since the grocer was acquired by Amazon last year, food companies have speculated that Amazon has been behind some of the less well-received changes at Whole Foods, such as asking suppliers for more fees to get their product on the shelves.
During the meeting, W...
Once Toys “R” Us completes its recently-announced liquidation, it will leave more than 700 large, empty retail spaces throughout the US. Could Amazon be poised to fill them?
A report by Bloomberg News cites people close to the situation as saying the retail giant has kicked around the idea of picking up at least a few of them. It would be a quick and fairly inexpensive way to expand the company's physical presence.
While dominating the retail world through online sales, A...
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With holiday gift-buying season upon us, retailers are hiring extra temporary workers to help handle the rush, and a BBC reporter who went undercover to work in an Amazon warehouse in Swansea, England, discovered working conditions that would cause “mental and physical illness,” including layouts requiring workers to walk up to 11 miles per shift, to fill orders at a rate averaging one every 11 seconds.
Correspondent Adam Littler, armed with a hidden camera, ...
Back in June, Amazon announced that it would be acquiring Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Critics were quick to respond that the deal was a huge threat to competition in the grocery industry and that it shouldn’t receive approval from regulators.
Nevertheless, it looks like the deal will likely close by the end of 2017. Both Whole Foods shareholders and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared the acquisition on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report.
“The FTC con...
It's an unavoidable fact of modern life that online companies know a lot about your online activity – buy stuff on Amazon, and of course that means Amazon knows what kind of stuff you buy. Post political content on Facebook, and Facebook knows what sort of political content you're wont to post. It's as obvious as pointing out “When you introduce yourself to people, it lets those people know who you are.”
But for all the potentially disturbing privacy implications of comp...
If you're an Amazon Prime member, you probably know already that the annual cost of membership is going up to $99 the next time you renew.
Still, the argument goes, it's a good deal for frequent Amazon shoppers because, in addition to e-book lending and other free-with-subscription content, Amazon Prime gets you free shipping on all qualified purchases (as opposed to non-Prime Amazon, which only offers free shipping on certain items, and then only when your total purchas...
For a third year, Amazon hopes to have Christmas in July.
The online retailer has unveiled its plans for its third annual Prime Day, a 30-hour shopping period that not only tries to move merchandise, but sign up additional members for its Prime service.
The deals offered during the promotion will only be available to Prime members. The company hopes more people will sign up for Prime in order to get an early start on the holiday shopping season.
This year, the promotion wi...
Critics have already expressed their displeasure with Amazon’s bid to purchase Whole Foods on antitrust and labor grounds, and now reports say the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may be looking at the company's pricing strategies.
Citing an unnamed source, Reuters reports that the agency is looking into allegations that Amazon routinely misleads its customers with its discounted list prices. The initial complaint was originally filed by consumer advocacy group Consumer W...
Amazon is launching a PayPal-like service, hoping to greatly expand its Amazon Payments program. Dubbed the Amazon Payments Partner Program, it is being made available to merchants in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan.
With 304 million customers, Amazon brings an enormous base of signed-up, ready-to-pay consumers to merchants who join the program. Like PayPal, it eliminates the need for consumers to set up an account with each merchant, potentially providing better secur...
There is no question Amazon has been a disruptive force in the economy, finding ways to sell more things to consumers, often using technology to do it as efficiently as possible.
The online behemoth is now going about disrupting music, announcing a new service, Amazon Music Unlimited. It's a direct shot across Apple's bow, which itself disrupted the music industry more than a decade ago.
The company says Amazon Music Unlimited will provide users with tens of millions of s...
Last week, analysts at investment bank Leerink Partners reported that Amazon had contacted middle-market pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), in what they say may be a step towards entering the pharmaceuticals market.
In basic terms, PBMs are companies that act as middlemen to connect companies who sell drugs with the insurer or agency that pays for consumers’ drugs. They also dictate which drugs consumers can and cannot have access to through their management of formularie...
In a new program announced yesterday, Amazon said that Prime members can earn a 2% rewards bonus for money they spend on the company’s site. The catch? They’ll have to stop using their credit cards to make purchases.
Under Prime Reload, customers are encouraged to deposit money into an account using their debit cards instead of just using their credit cards to make purchases, which will cut down on those pesky fees that Amazon has to pay.
To get started, consumers will fi...
Consumers will no longer be able to take advantage of unlimited cloud storage plans under Amazon Drive.
Now, instead of paying around $60 per year to store as much data as they want, users will have a choice between two plan tiers: a 100 GB plan for $11.99 per year or a 1 TB plan for $59.99 per year. Additional data storage space can be purchased up to a cap of 30 TB for an additional $59.99 per terabyte.
“Amazon is now providing options for customers to choose the storag...
The online rivalry between Amazon and Walmart is continuing to heat up.
In an announcement made Tuesday, Amazon said that it will be offering a 45% discount on its Prime subscription service to shoppers who receive government aid from welfare or food stamp programs, a move that experts say takes aim at Walmart’s key customer base.
“We know when people try Prime they love it, because they save time and money with low prices on millions of items, unlimited access to premium...
Brick and mortar retailers continue to lose business to Amazon.com, which works to make the buying process easy and seamless. You search for a product, it pops up in the buy box, and you add it to your cart.
But if it is too easy, you may not be getting the best price. At least, that's the conclusion of marketing researchers at Northeastern University.
Keep in mind that not everything you buy comes directly from Amazon. The company works with many third-party sellers to provide products, especially for specialty items.
Algorithmic pricing
When you search for a product, what pops up first might not carry the lowest price. The study, led by Northeastern's Christo Wilson, discovered that Amazon is much more likely to feature sellers in the buy box who adjust prices using an automated system called algorithmic pricing. And a consumer should not assume this seller has the lowest price because Wilson says, more often than not, it doesn't.
"For example, we found that 60% of sellers using algorithmic pricing have prices that are higher than the lowest price for a given product,” Wilson said.
He admits the price will not be much higher. In fact, 70% of the time the price in the buy box was only a dollar higher. The rest of the time, though, other sellers had the same product $20 to $60 cheaper.
To find the lowest price, Wilson says you have to take the extra step of clicking through the “other sellers on Amazon” button under the “add to cart” button.
Anyone can use algorithmic pricing
More companies are using algorithmic pricing than you might think, and they don't have to be all that large and sophisticated. For a relatively small fee, any independent seller can obtain the services of a firm that will adjust its prices in real time.
The Northeastern team found these third party sellers have access to a number of different pricing strategies that include finding the lowest price offered by competitors and going above it by a set dollar amount or percentage.
"Amazon has a relatively low number of algo sellers--from 2% to 10%," Wilson said. "But they cover almost a third of the best-selling products offered by outside merchants, so the impact is large."
Amazon has its own system for selecting companies whose products get featured in the buy box, but Wilson says consumers can't assume the product has the lowest price. The chief take away from the study, he says, is that consumers need to take the time to look through the other seller options and consider them carefully.
Brick and mortar retailers continue to lose business to Amazon.com, which works to make the buying process easy and seamless. You search for a product, it pops up in the buy box, and you add it to your cart.
But if it is too easy, you may not be getting the best price. At least, that's the conclusion of marketing researchers at Northeastern University.
Keep in mind that not everything you buy comes directly from Amazon. The company works with many third-party sellers to p...
Amazon and Walmart are going at it today in a battle of high-profile sales, trying to win over consumers who don't normally go on a shopping spree in the middle of July.
When Amazon announced its Prime Day for July 15, it boasted that its one-day deals for its Prime members would beat those offered on Black Friday, the traditional start to the holiday shopping season.
BestBlackFriday.com, operated by Jones-Dengler Marketing, threw down a challenge of its own, listing some of last year's Black Friday specials and challenging Amazon to beat those prices. After viewing the Prime Day deals at midnight, BestBlackFriday.com's Philip Dengler had to admit, Amazon did what it said it would do.
“To our surprise, they are beating Black Friday 2014 prices on some of the most sought-after items,” Dengler told ComsumerAffairs in an email.
Side-by-side comparison
Dengler and his associates reached that conclusion after doing a side-by-side comparison of last year's Black Friday deals and Amazon's Prime Day prices.
“While Black Friday wins in a few areas, Prime Day is winning where it counts,” Dengler said. “They have the lowest price on the very popular 32" and 40" televisions.”
Dengler said Amazon is also winning on the Kindle Fire 7, Kindle Fire 7 Kids Version, Crucial MX100 Drives, VTech Kidizoom Smartwatch, Bose SoundTrue Headphones On-Ear Style and many other items.
“Judging by the information available to us now, we think Amazon was right in their Prime Day comparison to Black Friday,” Dengler said.
Walmart's response
These prices, of course, are only available to consumers who have paid $99 a year to be Prime members, a point Walmart has made in its none-too-subtle promotion of its own sale. Visitors to Walmart.com are greeted with a bold banner declaring “thousands of new rollbacks, no upfront fees!”
Why would these two retail giants be duking it out in the dead of summer with seemingly little at stake? As we reported yesterday, consumers were sitting on their wallets last month, resulting in disappointing retail sales.
Amazon's motivation probably lies in a desire to boost Prime memberships. Walmart's response may be driven by a determination not to let its rival get out in front on anything. Both are taking the opportunity to try to win over consumers who do most of their shopping online.
Increasing e-service quality
"Increased e-service quality is associated with increased customer satisfaction, which then leads to higher repurchase intentions," said Vikas Mittal, professor of marketing at Rice University. "In other words, increasing e-service quality enhances customer satisfaction and the likelihood of customer repurchase. If Amazon and Wal-Mart want to keep their customers coming back, they must focus on increasing satisfaction via e-service quality."
Mittal and an international team of colleagues have completed a study of what makes up e-service quality. Price is only one part of it.
Their analysis identified four core dimensions of e-service quality: website design, fulfilment, customer service and security/privacy. Together, these four dimensions strongly impact overall e-service quality, the authors conclude. And they should be there 365 days a years – even when the sale prices aren't.
Amazon and Walmart are going at it today in a battle of high-profile sales, trying to win over consumers who don't normally go on a shopping spree in the middle of July.
When Amazon announced its Prime Day for July 15, it boasted that its one-day deals for its Prime members would beat those offered on Black Friday, the traditional start to the holiday shopping season.
BestBlackFriday.com, operated by Jones-Dengler Marketing, threw down a challenge of its own, listing some...
The plastic bins that a Florida couple ordered from Amazon arrived in a box that was oddly heavy. When they finally wrangled their order out of its UPS packaging, they discovered why.
The couple, who asked to be kept anonymous, later told a local ABC news station that their plastic bins were filled with 65 pounds of marijuana. They said they reported the illegal shipment to police, who subsequently seized it. Amazon offered the couple a $150 gift certificate in exchange ...