Tag: retail

Why Amazon Is Trialling A “Drive-Up” Grocery Store

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following the 3 pop-up storefronts it experimented with late last year, Amazon is now ready to step further into physical retail with a “drive-up” grocery store. Reportedly a new 11,600-square-foot building in Sunnyvale, this store will allow consumers to quickly pick up grocery items ordered online beforehand with a scheduled visit. Amazon has been getting serious with its same-day delivery service, especially in the grocery category, which it just expanded to U.K., the first market to receive such services outside the U.S. In that regard, the “drive-up” store could easily double as a distribution hub, should Amazon choose to further expand its same-day delivery services into new markets.

What Brands Should Do
There is no doubt that Amazon, along with other tech companies and startups, are set to disrupt the local market with the convenience of on-demand services. Therefore, retail and CPG brands need to take notes of Amazon’s rapid expansion into the space and find ways to work with it. One possible way would be to partner with Amazon to get your product featured on the “order” webpage. If Amazon can soon beat Macy’s in clothing retail, then grocery stores and supermarkets may just be its next targets to conquer.

 

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal

Jet Challenges Amazon With “Smart Items” & Dynamic Discounts

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
A new ecommerce site Jet.com, created by co-founder of Diapers.com parent Quidsi Marc Lore, launched on Tuesday, challenging ecommerce leader Amazon with lower pricing. Lore says that Jet uses a proprietary technology engine to link certain items that cost less to deliver when purchased together, creating a dynamic discount system that reprices items based on what shoppers already have in their carts. Such items are branded “Smart Items” and promoted on Jet with a special icon, similar to how Amazon promotes the “Prime-eligible” items.

What Brands Should Do
While it is still too early to tell if Jet’s offering is appealing enough to truly compete with Amazon. It does bring something new to the ecommerce space with the “Smart Items” system that enables dynamic discounts, which CPG brands and alike could potentially leverage to increase sales on digital outlets by encouraging bigger orders.

Source: Re/code

Amazon To Become The Biggest U.S. Clothing Retailer By 2017

Posted on by Lab Team

According to a new report by Cowen & Co released on Monday, Amazon is set to sell $27.77 billion worth of apparel domestically in 2017, possibly dethroning Macy’s as the No. 1 clothing retailer in the states. Such a rosy prediction is likely due to the ecommerce giant’s efforts to woo fashion brands during the last few years. More importantly, it also dovetails nicely with the rise of ecommerce in recent years, projected to top $440 billion by 2017 in revenue, while brick-and-mortar retail continues to decline.

Source: Fortune

Amazon Celebrates 20-Year Anniversary With “Prime Day” Sales Event

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: ZDNet

To celebrate its 20-year anniversary since launch, Amazon is planning a one-day-only sales event dubbed “Prime Day” that aims to encourage both transaction volumes and prime membership sign-ups.

Looking to make it into what Amazon calls “a global shopping event,” the ecommerce giant claims it will be offering “more deals than Black Friday,” exclusively for Prime members in the U.S., U.K., and 7 other global markets. Considering that Prime members on average reportedly spend $1,500 on Amazon a year, more than doubling the $625 non-members spend, it makes perfect sense for Amazon to create ways to lure more customers into Prime membership.

While it may be a first for Amazon, it certainly isn’t the first time an ecommerce site has tried to make a spectacle out of a sales event. In China, Alibaba has been single-handedly spearheading its Annual Sales on Single’s Day – a brand new holiday pushed into public consciousness by Alibaba’s marketing department – into a nationwide online shopping craze. Last year, it even broke the global single-day ecommerce sale record with a smashing $9.3 billion (RMB 57.1 billion) in total transaction volume. If Amazon could score half the success that Alibaba has bad with Single’s Day, Prime Day may very well become a yearly event.

How Digital Retailers Are Entering The Local Market

Posted on by Lab Team

As more and more brick-and-mortar retailers branches out into ecommerce in order to meet shifting consumer behaviors, online retailers are also increasingly exploring new, innovative solutions to bridge the physical with the digital, especially when it comes to local markets. This week, Groupon and Amazon stood out as two most recent examples.

Popular local deal-finding service Groupon just updated their iOS app to add support for the Apple Watch. On the watch, Groupon taps into the location data on the watch to trigger hyperlocal deals for users—instead of dividing deals on a city or regional level, it only notify users of the offers that are in close proximity. It also offer a “one-click-to-buy” function if user’s payment info is already saved on the Groupon mobile app, creating a remarkably seamless shopping experience to the wearable device.

If Groupon’s entry into Apple Watch seemed a bit advanced and out there, then Amazon’s new experiment would look endearingly retro in comparison. After testing out pop-up storefronts in NYC and California last year, the ecommerce giant continues to tap into physical retail with a new “Amazon Treasure Truck” initiative. Launched in Seattle this week, an Amazon truck will be cruising through various neighborhoods carrying stocks of one daily special item. Customers are encouraged to use their Amazon mobile app to track the truck and learn more about the daily deal. If interested, they can just complete the purchase within the app and then proceed to meet the truck for pick-up.

 

Header image taken from Amazon’s Launch Video on YouTube

Beacons Are Coming To Ford Showrooms

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: WardsAuto

Ford is set to begin a pilot test program for beacons in a handful of showrooms to aid a more independent sales process. Because car shoppers begin their research online, the purchase cycle has become compressed, enabling people to get the information they need faster, leading to a quicker purchase. Dealers will attach the beacons to models they want to feature in their showrooms. As a shopper walks around the vehicle, the devices will broadcast key information to the customer’s smartphone that might help close a sale.

Why Facebook Is Giving Free Beacons to Retailers

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Re/code

Facebook announced on Monday that it was expanding its new hyperlocal feature Place Tips to include all businesses in the United States, and as part of the expansion, Facebook will be handing out free beacons to retailers and businesses. It’s noteworthy that Facebook is producing and distributing these beacons for free, which will surely help the adoption of in-store beacons. Although retailers can’t advertise through Place Tips at them moment, it seems safe to assume that the company will add monetization to the Place Tips feature in near future, as it has done with most of its platforms.

Why Amazon Launched A New Pinterest-Inspired Retail Curation

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Next Web

Today Amazon launched a curated product page named Amazon Stream which, with a visual repository of daily updated products and a conspicuous “Save” button, took some clear inspiration from Pinterest. Currently, all items featured in Stream are part of the “Amazon’s Sponsored Products” program.

The ecommerce giant has two obvious reasons for experimenting with the new layout. Firstly, Stream offers a new platform to showcase the sponsored products, therefore adding more value to its sponsored ad program. More importantly, Stream transforms the conventional “search-led” online shopping experience into a more “browsing-led” experience that is closer to brick-and-mortar retail experience.

As ecommerce continues to erode physical retail sales, online retailers have also been experimenting with new formats and designs to improve user experience. For more, you can click here to read our POV on “Shoppable Media” to learn how leading ecommerce brands like Amazon are integrating points of sale to create a consistent customer experience across platforms.

 

Head image screen-cap’ed from www.amazon.com/stream

 

How eBay Is Quietly Staging A Comeback

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: WSJ Blog

In recent years, eBay has been lagging behind its competitors like Amazon and Alibaba, which was partly why it decided to spin off PayPal last year. Now just months before the planned split, the former ecommerce leader has quietly started to stage its comeback.

New reports claim that eBay is testing an Amazon Prime-like subscription program in Germany. The program, known as eBay+, promises customers free, expedited shipping and returns for just €15 to €20 (about $17 to $22) per year. For sellers, eBay will be offering discounts on selling fees and a subsidy to help cut the cost of shipping and returns.

Moreover, eBay is also reportedly planning a new ad unit called Promoted Listing that will allow some sellers to elevate their listings above others among the search results. Instead of the usual pay-per-click model, sellers only have to pay when a promoted listing translates into sales.

While it remains to be seen whether this comeback plan will work or not, it is clear that the ecommerce landscape will continues to evolve and expand. Brands operating in ecommerce space need to keep up with the constant changes, as well as the new opportunities they bring.

Philips Develops VLC Lights For Retail Indoor Navigation

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Engadget

Philips has developed a new indoor navigation system for retailers that uses special lights equipped with visible light communication (VLC) technology, which enables it to beam out a code imperceptible to the human eye. The corresponding smartphone app utilizes the forward-facing camera to read the VLC, thereby identifying the user’s locations and redirecting the user to where they need to go.

Among early partners is French supermarket chain Carrefour, which is already trialing the system at its flagship store in Lille. In addition to providing hyperlocal indoor navigation, the company is also reporting that the lights have helped reduce its energy bills by half.

It’s always important for retailers to explore new ways to improve the in-store experience, especially at a time when brick-and-mortar retailers are increasingly feeling the pressure from the digital competitors, such as Amazon and FreshDirect. Whether or not this new VLC lighting system will perform better than Bluetooth beacon systems, however, remains to be determined.