Prime time for Amazon
Amazon has announced the decision to offer its Amazon Prime service to China, with the intention of expanding foothold in the huge e-commerce market. Currently, Amazon controls less than 1.5 percent of the Chinese market – falling to competitors such as Alibaba and JD.com. Now is the time to expand operations in China due to rising wages and increasing demand for foreign products.
The Amazon Global Store will offer access to over 4 million international products, organized into 30 product categories to easily attract Chinese consumers to popular products. Membership will cost the equivalent of $57.23 per year, but will be offered at nearly a third of the price for the first year to encourage signups. The service will not, however, offer the same perks as in U.S.A or Europe; with movie and music services being withheld due to stringent rules for streaming platforms in China. Orders will be distributed from U.S fulfilment centers resulting in an estimated delivery time of 5-9 days in 82 cities, although the wait could be longer. This new service will certainly test Amazon’s logistics capabilities.
Read more information on the service here.
Black Friday’s not so unique deals
It has been revealed by Brad’s Deals, a discount tracking website, that many U.S retailers advertise the same products year after year for Black Friday. Reportedly, Target has featured a Razor scooter in its yearly Black Friday spread since 2008. Walmart’s newspaper inserts have included the same products for the past 2 years, without much difference in prices. There is in fact a lack of price variation across all major retailers; it was discovered that 43% of prices advertised by 6 major U.S retailers were identical.
It shows the retailers catering to customer tastes but lacks surprise and could lead to a decline in interest with the same expectations each year for shoppers and also gift receivers. Consumers may be more inclined to shop online instead of bracing the vicious and cold Black Friday craziness. However, regularity has its advantages with customers knowing which stores to go to for particular items, easing shopping on the infamous Black Friday.
Find more details on the retailers’ repetitiveness here.
Inviting impulse on Instagram
On Tuesday the social networking app Instagram began testing a new feature with the introduction of the ‘shop now’ button. It will allow users to be able to further look at items in an Instagram photo. Information such as price, sizing and colors will be displayed before having the option to click the link to be brought directly to the particular retailer’s site. At this time, it is only being trialed by a small number of IOS users in the U.S and includes 20 U.S. based retail brands posting photos with the new feature.
After Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion four years ago, its operations have been expanding. It has doubled the number of advertisers to 500,000 from February alone and could bring in billions of revenue from this source. Current big advertisers such as Gap and Michael Kors will be further benefited from the button.
The new feature has been slowly developed, seeing as a direct ‘buy now’ button was introduced in 2015. This advancement will fuel impulse buying and allow the Instagram-savvy user to easily purchase the latest trends. This is Instagram’s next step towards integrating into the on-going e-commerce boom.
Further information can be found here.
Have a great weekend!
