Jeff Bezos’s Transition; Walmart Connect; Amazon 4Q Results
Amazon announced this week that Jeff Bezos would be transitioning from CEO to Executive Chairman, passing the baton to Andy Jassy, long-time CEO of Amazon Web Services. Based on reports, Jassy is a well-respected executive at Amazon, essentially starting and leading the industry-changing AWS business, which some estimate would be…
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Amazon Fresh Stores; Walmart Distribution Centers; eCommerce Growth in 2021
Amazon has launched five Fresh (“Mendel”) B&M stores to date, including four in California and one in Illinois. The Amazon Fresh team appears to have ambitious goals for store expansion this year (indicating to many brands that it plans to open 100+ stores this year), and has suggested these B&M…
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A Career-Defining Internship… But Make It Virtual?
Ah the junior year summer internship. Pivotal in many collegiate journeys, yet it's also the first thing to get cancelled in a world-wide pandemic (understandably so). That's exactly how my spring semester at Zoom University (Miami Univeristy) was coming to an end... with a cancelled internship. Instead of wallowing in despair…
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WFH Expectations; Lowe’s Supply Chain Improvements; Kroger Looks to Expand
Consumer expectations for returning to the office have worsened according to our latest consumer study results, with 51% of workers expecting to go in for work in the month of October compared to ~70% in our July study. This aligns with recent announcements that Google has extended its remote work policy until…
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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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Amazon Shipping Times, Best Buy Online up 250%, eCommerce Share Gains
Our most recent Amazon Vendor Benchmark indicates shipping times are delayed by 2.5-4.6 days on average for manufacturers in the benchmark. Our research suggests this has hurt conversion rates to a degree on Amazon, opening the door for its rivals like Walmart.com, HomeDepot.com, Wayfair and others to gain new customers…
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Consumer Routine and Fastest Growing eCommerce Categories
Our most recent consumer study published this week shows 86% of consumers are drastically altering their daily routines (+12 points from earlier in March) and on average expect the crisis as well as their altered shopping behaviors to persist for about 6-7 weeks. Of those that reported stocking up over…
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Essential Product Sales, In-Store Shopping Bans, Amazon COVID-19 Cases
The second round of our Amazon manufacturer benchmark indicates that Amazon’s focus the last 10 days has resulted in a widening performance disparity between essential and non-essential categories. This played out with a much wider dispersion in sales in March (66% of essential category manufacturers seeing 100%+ lifts vs. 11%…
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