Instacart Activations; Kroger eCommerce Profitability; Consumer Holiday Shopping Plans
Our latest research on Instacart suggests brands should first turn to Featured Products (i.e. paid search) with their activation budgets, maximizing that spend before moving to other activations. This is analogous to how many brands have approached their paid activation strategy on Amazon. Our consumer research shows search remains the…
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Prime Day; Amazon’s Partnerships with Kohl’s and Toys R Us; eCommerce Growth Forecasts
We expect the holiday shopping season to kickoff early this year, as Prime Day is expected to run in mid-October and Amazon’s competitors are following suit with holiday-type promotions planned to start earlier than normal (Home Depot the most recent example). We expect the consumer to react reasonably well to…
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Direct Import Program; Walmart+ Launch; Increasing Budget for Amazon Paid Search
We estimate Amazon’s GMV growth rate nearly doubled in 2Q20 as pandemic-driven buying behavior increasingly shifted online. We expect this trend to continue, forecasting 37% and 40% growth in 3Q and 4Q respectively. With massive growth comes fulfillment challenges and ordering and supply chain initiatives are increasingly being discussed in the manufacturer…
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“Overstocked” Items at Amazon; CVS Media Platform; Retention Expectations
Since July, weighted average inventory amounts at Amazon have remained in normal ranges, although some manufacturers are seeing changes to inventory on certain ASINs (Amazon increasing inventory on high volume ASINs, decreasing on low volume, especially as it preps for 4Q demand). As part of this dynamic, 15% of those…
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Back-To-School; Post Office Raises Rates; eCom Market Booming in the US
According to an analysis from Stackline, online growth across Amazon, Walmart and Target has decelerated in back to school categories year-to-date. Both Walmart and Target had discussed back-to-school sales across digital and store formats during their earnings calls this week, although both expect the selling period to extend longer than…
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Amazon 2Q Earnings; Home Depot Enhances Omnichannel; Wayfair Turns Profitable
Last week Amazon reported earnings for what proved to be a phenomenal quarter, despite the high costs related to COVID-19 ($4B+). During the second quarter, the company grew its GMV an estimated $36B+, to ~$113B. To put that in context, this level of incremental growth in 2Q surpassed what it accomplished…
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eCommerce Growth; Bezos’ Testimony; eBay and Shopify 2Q Results
According to our interview with Michael Lagoni, Founder and CEO of Stackline, eCommerce growth has normalized around 60-70% year over year for the past several months. This is down from 80-90% growth in March and April, but is well above the 17% rate at which eCommerce was growing pre-pandemic. Stackline…
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Consumers Returning to Stores; Walmart’s Special Bonuses; ’21 Growth on Amazon
Our consumer research suggests delivery to home has continued to decline for the past month for groceries but has remained relatively consistent for general merchandise purchases. For groceries, the peak appears to have occurred in May with 31% of consumers reporting they received deliveries to the home vs. 17% in…
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Instacart’s National Reporting; New Amazon Warehouse Rules; Return to Normal
In our most recent research, Instacart has been called out as offering a range of good activations including search advertising, national coupons, and free shipping programs. The one downside to participating in these programs is that Instacart only reports the national results, rather than illustrating performance/results at the individual retailer…
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