Bezos Letter Highlights; 50 New Amazon Tools; Walmart Leading Online Grocery

By Cleveland Admin

Bezos Shareholder Letter Highlights 3P Strength
Jeff Bezos released his annual shareholder letter today, which aimed at highlighting just how big of a positive impact the company has had on small business, employees, and advancing the economy.  The letter comes off to us at least as an attempt at quelling the growing antitrust rhetoric taking big tech by storm.  As it relates to the retail business, Bezos highlighted the tremendous growth in 3P sales on Amazon, averaging 52% annual compound growth rate since 1999 (vs. 25% for 1P and 20% for eBay). This has enabled 3P sales to reach 58% of total GMV sold on the platform in 2018, which Bezos attributes to Amazon offering better tools than other eTailers, its Fulfillment by Amazon service and Prime. Bezos notes that these were big expensive risks when they first started, and emphasized the continued importance of making risky bets on the future. Other examples he highlights of these risky bets include AWS, Amazon Go Stores, and Alexa/Amazon Echo.

Amazon Announces 50 New Tools for 3P Sellers Year to Date
This week Amazon announced that they had released 50 new tools for small and medium-sized sellers in their 3P marketplace. Some of these tools include enhanced brand analytics (providing relevant search terms and comparable products), limited waivers of FBA storage and removal fees (only for a limited period on new-to-Amazon products), Sell Across the World workflow to ease global expansion, and improved Seller University content to allow brands to test before going live on Amazon.

Our Recent Polling Indicates Brands Expect Walmart to Lead Online Grocery in 2019
Polling from our LiveCast event last week points to Walmart.com as the expected leader in online grocery for 2019, with Amazon and Kroger.com as distant runners up.