eTailer Feature Improvements, Amazon Europe B&M, Social Commerce

By Cleveland Admin

In an effort to better compete with Amazon’s leading marketplace, several pure play eTailers have recently highlighted new features on their marketplaces in an effort to drive improved conversion and improve the customer experience. Many of these match existing offerings on platforms like Amazon including better support for variants on Etsy, improved product detail pages on eBay, video offerings on Shopify, and better personalization and recommendations on Chewy. We would recommend that branded manufacturers who sell on these platforms utilize these new features and emulate strategies that have had success on Amazon.

Amazon Expanding B&M to Europe
Reuters is reporting that Amazon is considering opening B&M stores in Germany, its second largest global market. This potential expansion follows on the heels of Amazon planning to open a grocery store under a different banner than Whole Foods in southern California, several Amazon Go locations, and Amazon Books and 4-star stores. Amazon’s strategy with physical retail has thus been an experiment with a range of different models. Most manufacturers, particularly those in the grocery category that could potentially sell into Go stores and the yet to be built grocery stores, suggest the sales opportunity will likely be limited over the next several years until Amazon can reach greater scale. 

Shoppable Social Media Use Limited
A majority of manufacturers surveyed during our Livecast at the end of 2019 are not yet participating in shoppable social media offerings. For those manufacturers that have ventured into this new territory, Instagram stands out as the preferred platform. That being said, of those who are selling products directly on social media, almost half are selling across multiple platforms. We expect commerce on social platforms to continue to grow in importance over the next 3-5 years, in addition to the efforts Google is making to increase commerce on its site.