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Amazon Estimated to Have 65 Million Prime Users
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-clue-number-of-prime-users-2017-2
Amazon has historically shared as few details as possible regarding the size of its Prime member base, but numbers released in a recent financial report have shed some light on how massive the program has become.
Based on the metrics in the report, an analyst from Morgan Stanley estimates the total number of Prime members worldwide to be 65 million.
Morgan Stanley has also recently estimated that 40% of Prime members spend $1000+ a year on Amazon and spend on average 4.6x more than non-Prime users. These numbers spell out a pretty clear benefit to making your products Prime-eligible!
Amazon Lost $7.2 Billion on Shipping in 2016
http://www.geekwire.com/2017/true-cost-convenience-amazons-annual-shipping-losses-top-7b-first-time/
Photo credit: cafecredit via Visual Hunt / CC BY
The flip side of Amazon growing their Prime membership base so high is that their net shipping costs have hit record numbers. According to the same financial report mentioned above, Amazon lost $7.2 billion on shipping in 2016, and $2.6 billion in Q4 alone. Both of these metrics are substantially higher than the 2015 figures.
These losses shed some light on the motivation behind Amazon’s recent investments in ocean freight and air freight as they try to bring more of these services in-house.
How successful they are in managing costs could end up having a significant impact on the fees that FBA sellers will pay in the future.
How to Rank Your Ecommerce Site Higher in Google
A hot topic among private label sellers these days is how to reduce dependency on Amazon by diversifying on to other platforms. For sellers focused on growing their own e-commerce sites, a recent in-depth study by Searchmetrics into the most important ranking factors for e-commerce sites is a must-read.
A few of the many interesting takeaways, as summarized in an article by Search Engine Land:
- Across the top 20 of Google’s search results, well over half of e-commerce pages have an online store above the fold. This is more than double the overall average.
- Video plays a less significant role in e-commerce than for websites in general. Only 35 percent of e-commerce pages in the top 10 have embedded videos.
- The e-commerce websites among the top 20 search results have less than a third as many social signals as the overall average.
- Only 3 percent of the top 10 e-commerce pages have Google AdSense or Adlinks on the pages.
The full study, which includes much more actionable info, can be downloaded here.
Amazon Named the 2017 Most Innovative Company by Fast Company
In it’s annual list of the 50 most innovative companies worldwide, Fast Company has named Amazon the top company for 2017, citing the many ways they’ve continued to rapidly evolve and improve in multiple industries.
This long-form article digs into what makes Amazon successful, what they’ve been getting up to recently, and which directions they seem to be headed.
As a seller, there are plenty of reasons to be both excited and cautious as Amazon makes serious headway on its ambitious goals.
