The Amazon Seller's Week in Review, March 13th, 2017

In this Amazon Seller's Week in Review, Julie Spear, our Operations Manager, shares her take on recent news highlights and what these could mean for brands selling on the Amazon marketplace.

1. Amazon Adds Prime in Mexico

Last week, Mexico became the 13th country where Amazon offers Prime membership to customers. Prime membership, costing about $46, would bring free 1-day delivery to Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla and Querétaro and free 2-day delivery to the rest of the country. Prime members will also enjoy access to free video streaming services.  

If you're planning to expand your brand internationally, you can learn strategies on how to plan and launch your brand on Amazon's international markets with our CEO's book, the "The Amazon Expansion Plan" by Kiri Masters. Learn more here.

2. Spanish Search Option Coming to Amazon.com

Amazon plans to roll out a Spanish-language option on Amazon.com. A spokeswoman told CNET: "Customers will be able to shop, browse and search for millions of products, view their shopping cart, and place orders in Spanish on Amazon.com and through the Amazon Mobile Shopping app." A toggle on the main dashboard will allow customers to select English or Spanish. While options such as this exist in other Amazon marketplaces (i.e. Canada which offers the choice of English and French) this is the first time such an option will exist on amazon.com. With more than 40 million native Spanish speakers, the US is the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.  

What do you think?  How will the addition of a Spanish language option impact sales on Amazon.com? Share your view in a comment below or join the chatter in our Amazon Facebook community.

Amazon Spanish Language Feature

3. Amazon Continues to Expand Brick and Mortar Bookstore Presence

With four brick and mortar bookstores already open to the public, Amazon continues to expand into this market. Amazon is now looking to open a total of 10 stores in cities across the US, including New York and Chicago.  These stores are much more than straightforward bookstores; they’re a showcase for Amazon’s technology like the Echo.  Amazon’s Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky says, “We test, we innovate. We think the bookstores, for instance, are a really great way for customers to engage with our devices and see them, touch them, play with them and become fans. So we see a lot of value in that as well.”  Others speculate they could also be an ideal testing ground for Amazon to expand its “just walk out” technology, introduced in its Amazon Go convenience store.   

4. Amazon’s Reach Continues to Expand

An analysis of Amazon’s performance on the stock market shared an interesting perspective on the e-commerce giant’s continued plans to expand their reach. As we mentioned in last week’s review, Amazon continues to develop their private label (Amazon Elements) brands.  In fact, according to One Click Retail, they’ve launched 50 private-label products in the past three months alone. As noted in the analysis on PYMNTS.com, a common thread exists amongst the products under these brands:  supermarket readiness. Perhaps Amazon is testing out their assortment for Amazon Go?

Expanding their private label brands isn’t the only focus for Amazon right now. Building out their search and advertising platforms seems high on their list of priorities as well. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Seth Dallaire, Amazon’s vice president of Global Advertising Sales said, “In the past 12 to 18 months, we’ve really been focusing on search. It’s still really early days for us. We’re still building a lot of the capabilities and tools some of these big buyers expect of us.” Word is Amazon is in the process of building out more ad search options, beyond sponsored product ad, product display ads and the headline search ads now available.  

Until next week's round of Amazon Seller's Week in Review, join us in our private community for brand owners and Channel Managers on Facebook: Amazon Chanel Mastery for Brands. We share insider tips about e-commerce and selling on Amazon. This is where you can get to know us, and your peers, a little better.