Episode Breakdown:

Amazon Continues to Dominate US eCommerce Market Share –
Over the last 2 years, both consumer behavior and expectations have changed significantly.

• Shoppers are moving away from brick-and-mortar stores and are relying on online shopping with little intent to go back.
• Brand loyalty plummeted as shoppers are migrating to other brands due to inventory constraints.

With driving factors such as product availability, convenience, and value, it is no surprise that Amazon continues to increase in popularity. According to eMarketer, “Amazon will account for 39.5% of all US retail eCommerce sales in 2022 or nearly $2 in $5 spent online. Altogether, the next 14 biggest digital retailers will make up just 31.0%, with the remaining 29.5% of the eCommerce pie going to everybody else.”

Amazon Outpaces Market in Four Categories –
Amazon’s digital sales growth is exceeding the overall market in four categories in 2022. At the top of the list are health, personal care, and beauty with a 24.4% growth versus total eCommerce growth of 15.1%. Additionally, Amazon is a dominant player in the toys and hobby category, expecting to increase its eCommerce market share to 45.5% later this year.

Next up is the furniture and home furnishings category with a growth of 15.7%: “while supply chain issues and growing logistics costs have hurt competitors like Wayfair, Amazon’s gains are outperforming the market in this category. Given the size of Amazon’s marketplace and the sheer number of SKUs it offers, it is less susceptible to inventory shortages in verticals that are heavily affected by supply chain issues.”
The Amazon marketplace is the platform to be on for brands in these categories.

Retailers Search For Last-Mile Delivery Self-Reliance –
Streamlining shipping processes and meeting customers’ expectations for rapid delivery is becoming a priority for retailers. Relying on third-party services creates issues when these companies experience high volumes resulting in delays.

• Amazon has been growing its cargo airline and building out its delivery network over the past several years as it looks to exert more control on every step of the fulfillment journey.
• Other major retailers like Walmart and Costco are leveraging their brick-and-mortar locations as fulfillment centers to send out orders faster. This trend is likely to continue to grow and retailers will seek to improve their logistics operations.

Amazon Diverts Freight as Some Chinese Cities Go On Lockdown –
Unsurprisingly, global supply chains are experiencing issues due to the pandemic. Amazon is now diverting available freight to neighboring warehouses not impacted by COVID lockdown/restrictions. It’s critical for merchants to adapt to the current market environment to maintain uninterrupted operations.

Prime Day Preparation –
Ahead of upcoming events, vendors and sellers should ensure that any participating ASINs detail pages are retail-ready and that they are able to satisfy the anticipated uptick in orders.

• Prime Day lightning deal sourcing window opens March 22, 2022.
• All deals must be submitted by Friday, April 29th.
• Participants should be prepared to ship products by early June.
• US PO’s will be placed in mid-May for approved Prime Day deals.
• Ship windows to be extended by 8 days to provide vendors with a buffer

Amazon Introduces Search Query Performance Dashboard Beta –
Amazon recently launched a powerful new dashboard that allows brand-registered brands to view their performance on up to 1000 search terms associated with their catalog and compare their performance to the performance of all competitors across Amazon. This dashboard covers both paid and organic performance and tracks search volume, impressions, clicks, cart adds, and purchases.

This tool is going to offer a lot of potential value for clients who can access it and provide opportunities for holistic improvement. Because Amazon is pulling top-performing search terms across a brand’s full catalog, this can serve as a way to identify general categories that are performing better than others and offer a granular look at the specific search terms that outperform similar ones. Additionally, the full-funnel view for each search term can identify where customers are encountering pain points and leaving the funnel and prompt an exploration as to why and what improvements can be made to help retain them.

Suggested Bid Recommendations Addition to vCPM Based Sponsored Display Campaigns –
Amazon continues to roll out added features and functionalities within the Amazon console specific to Sponsored Display campaigns. With the recent release of the viewable CPM-based campaigns – you can see that Amazon is clearly eliminating any barriers to entry into programmatic ads for sellers and vendors alike. Furthermore, with the most recently added suggested bids feature, it is easier to set up campaigns as this removes a lot of the guesswork in selecting a bid. The machine learning-powered bid recommendations update daily and are suggested as a range and calculated by analyzing groups of winning bids for recent or similar ads within a select category. This feature is available now in the following marketplaces: the United States, Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and Japan.

Amazon adds Turkey as the Newest Marketplace to Access Full Suite of Ad Products –
Amazon increases its global footprint in the middle east by adding Amazon Turkey to the map (Amazon.com.tr). There has been a near 30% increase in brands’ digital presence budgets in Turkey in the past 20 months. Now you can participate in self-service Sponsored Ads including Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. Brands can also drive awareness and consideration through the self-serve DSP to manage, optimize, and report on their programmatic video and display campaigns.

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