Amazon

Amazon quietly opens its logistics network to third-party merchants in India • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Amazon, Amazon India, Commerce, Flipkart, WalmartNo Comments

Amazon is quietly beginning to offer its transportation and logistics network as a service to third-party merchants, businesses and direct-to-consumer brands in India, tapping its large delivery chain to drive revenue in the key overseas market as the e-commerce group attempts to replicate a model it has been testing in the U.S. for several months. The service, called Amazon Shipping, offers “extensive reach and the highest reliability – all at the lowest logistics cost,” the company describes on its website. Amazon Shipping “will pick up your parcels 7 days a week, and deliver them to your customers,” the company adds. The retailer, which has poured over $6.5 billion in India over the past seven years, says it’s offerings its shipping at “competitive rates,” and includes a dedicated support channel. There’s no additional fee for deliveries on weekends and customers are not tied to any contract for a consignment, allowing them to cancel the service at any time. It has partnered with local firms Shiprocket, Unicommerce, Easyecom, Clickpost and Vinculum for order and delivery management systems, it says on the site. The company has been testing the service for at least a few months in India, according to an analysis of the archived pages. As Amazon expands the Shipping service, it may become a headache to local firms including Delhivery, Ecom Express, and even legacy logistics giants including Blue Dart and India Post. Flipkart, the Walmart-backed rival of Amazon in India, also began to open its logistics network to third-party firms earlier this year. Indian newspaper Economic Times first reported about Amazon Shipping, and added that Amazon Shipping covers all types of products other than dangerous and hazardous goods. On a policy page, Amazon says Shipping currently offers the ground mode of deliveries and resricts the number of shipments items to 99 per order. Amazon opened its logistics network to third-party merchants in the U.S. earlier this year with a service called Buy with Prime. Analysts say that Amazon can pose a greater challenge to rivals like Shopify with the move because it has built a nearly “impregnable moat in logistics.” “Today Amazon’s logistics is massive and fully integrated from the fulfillment center to the doorstep, even though it only serves Amazon; the obvious next step is opening it up to non-Amazon retailers, and that is exactly what is happening,” Stratechery’s Ben Thompson wrote earlier this year.

Amazon is now replacing customers’ discontinued Cloud Cams with new Blink Mini devices • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in Amazon, Gadgets, smart homeNo Comments

Amazon is now offering to replace customers’ discontinued Cloud Cam smart cameras with a new Blink Mini following its decision earlier this year to shut down its Cloud Cam line of products and end support for the device’s associated mobile apps. At the time of the retailer’s May 2022 announcement, Amazon said it would email customers with information on how to order their replacement products, which would also include a one-year Blink Subscription Plus Plan. However, those emails did not immediately arrive, worrying customers that Amazon had either misled them or perhaps they had missed the important email when it came. As it turns out, those emails have only now begun to go out. Over the past few days, Amazon Cloud Cam owners report they’ve received instructions on how to proceed to order their replacement Blink product. The email thanks customers for their support and informs them that, for every active Cloud Cam device they own, Amazon will offer users a complimentary Blink Mini and a one-year Blink Subscription Plus Plan which covers all the devices under a Blink account. The email then details which Cloud Cam products Amazon identified as active on the user’s account and explains how to make the purchase using a promo code. The company says customers have until January 26, 2023, to redeem their code. Each order only allows for one promo code, so customers with larger Cloud Cam setups will have to check out separately for each device they intend to replace. The replacement product, Blink Mini, offers an indoor security camera with 1080p HD video, 2.4 GHz Wifi connectivity, night vision, motion detection, and two-way audio. It also works with Alexa. Those specs are similar to Cloud Cam, which had also offered 1080p HD video, night vision and two-way audio. Amazon customers can also recycle their old cameras by requesting a free UPS shipping label through the Amazon Recycling Progam, the email notes. After purchasing the product, customers will then need to log into their Amazon account associated with their email and place the order for their Blink Subscription, which will show free at checkout. (A Blink account is required to activate your subscription plan — so wait until that’s set up first or you’ll be charged full-price). This subscription differs from those historically offered to Cloud Cam users, who had been able to choose from three priced tiers of $6.99, $9.99 or $19.99 per month, based on how many cameras they have (three, five or 10) and how long they want to store video clips — either a week, two weeks or a month, respectively. The Blink Subscription Plus Plan is a $10 per month (or $100/year) paid plan that offers a 60-day unlimited video history for an unlimited number of Blink devices, instead of just one. Of course, those former Cloud Cam customers who are replacing just one camera could downgrade to the $3 per month (or $30/year) Blink Subscription Basic Plan after their free year is up. The company is also giving its customers time to export their data from the Cloud Cam platform before it’s gone for good. Starting on December 2, 2022, customers will no longer be about to Cloud Cam or its associated apps. Up until then, customers can download their available video recordings if they choose. But after that date, all video history will be deleted, Amazon warns. To export their content, customers will need to click on each video from the “Recorded Clips” section in the app and then click the Download icon to save the recording. Amazon said its decision to kill the Cloud Cam, first launched in 2017, came about because the company’s smart home lineup of Alexa-connected devices had grown over the years and it’s decided to focus its efforts on other products. “With your help over the last five years, Cloud Cam has served as a reliable indoor security camera and a hub for Amazon Key-compatible smart locks that work with Alexa,” the initial email to Cloud Cam customers had explained. “As the number of Alexa smart home devices continues to grow, we are focusing efforts on Ring, Blink, and other technologies that make your home smarter and simplify your everyday routines.” To find the email about replacements, search your inbox for a message from “store-news@amazon.com” with the subject line “An important reminder about your Cloud Cam.”

Amazon introduces a $7.3 annual Prime Video subscription tier in India • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in Amazon, Amazon Prime Video, Apps, india, Media & Entertainment, prime videoNo Comments

Amazon has introduced a new price tier for Prime Video in India, making the on-demand video streaming service even more affordable as it races to win more customers in the South Asian market where it competes with giants including Disney’s Hotstar and Netflix. The e-commerce group said it will offer the yearly subscription to Prime Video Mobile Edition, an affordable tier it introduced last year, at 599 Indian rupees, or $7.3. At this price, it’s the cheapest way to subscribe to Amazon’s on-demand video streaming service in the country. Prime Video Mobile Edition limits viewing to mobile devices and caps the video resolution at standard definition. “India is one of our fastest growing and most engaged locales worldwide. Our success in the country can be attributed to innovations that are focused on creating an exceptional entertainment experience for customers,” said Kelly Day, VP of International at Prime Video, in a statement. “In fact, India is turning into an innovation hub for Prime Video. An initiative like Prime Video Mobile Edition, that had its genesis in India, is now being rolled out across multiple countries in Latin America and South East Asia. We are confident that the new Prime Video Mobile Edition annual plan will further help accelerate the growth of our India business and give an even larger customer base access to the high-quality content on the service. With this launch we look forward to entertaining every Indian with our popular on-demand entertainment content and live sports.” (More to follow)

Amazon exec confirms corporate hiring freeze through end of year • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Amazon, Andy Jassy, Enterprise, hiringNo Comments

Given the on-going economic headwinds and the company’s expensive belt-tightening under CEO Andy Jassy, it ought not come as a surprise that Amazon has instituted a corporate hiring freeze. The retail giant’s Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, Beth Galetti, confirmed the move in a staff memo that has since been published on Amazon’s own blog. In the letter, Galetti notes that the company had already begun pausing or slowing hiring in various corporate departments in “recent weeks.” The move has since been applied to “new incremental hires” across its corporate business for “the next few months.” The “corporate” caveat here is likely meant to differentiate the roles from positions like those in Amazon fulfillment centers across the U.S., as the company ramps up for the holidays. There are other potential exceptions, as well, including replacements for employees who have vacated existing roles. The executive adds that the company plans to add “a meaningful number of people” next year. “We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” writes Galetti. “This is not the first time that we’ve faced uncertain and challenging economies in our past. While we have had several years where we’ve expanded our headcount broadly, there have also been several years where we’ve tightened our belt and were more streamlined in how many people we added. With fewer people to hire this moment, this should give each team an opportunity to further prioritize what matters most to customers and the business, and to be more productive.” Jassy, the AWS head who took over Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ CEO role in July 2021, has been looking for meaningful ways to cut costs across the company. He reportedly noted in a corporate all-hands earlier this month, “Good companies that last a long period of time, who are thinking about the long term, always have this push and pull. There are some years where they’re expanding really broadly. Some years where they’re checking in and working on profitability, tightening the belt a little bit. And sometimes when you have multiple businesses like we do at Amazon, some businesses are expanding at the same time that others are checking in.” Amazon is certainly not alone in such decisions, either. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans for cost cutting measures and a hiring freeze at the social media giant back in September.

Amazon details Matter rollout for Alexa devices • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Alexa, Amazon, Gadgets, Hardware, matter, SamsungNo Comments

We’re still in the very early stages, but thus far Matter has proven to be a fairly peaceful collaboration between the biggest competitors in consumer electronics. Apple, Samsung and Google are among those that have detailed their plans to embrace the universal smart home standard following its recent launch. Today Amazon is offering some insight into its own approach. The company noted in a post this morning that 30 Echo and Eero devices are set to embrace the standard, accounting for around 100 million devices (give or take) across the globe. The company is starting the roll out with 17 Amazon devices (including Echos, plugs switches and bulbs), starting with an Android-based setup. That’s set for next month, with iOS availability following after and support for its Eero devices arriving at some point in early 2023. The company is also using the opportunity to announce Works with Alexa (WWA) for Matter devices, as a continued effort to ensure compatibility across devices. Amazon notes: As part of WWA for Matter requirements, devices will need to be Matter certified by the CSA, which if not already obtained can be started in parallel with the WWA certification process and maintaining the high quality bar customers rely on. For existing Works With Alexa certified devices that will receive over-the-air updates to support Matter and pass Matter certification, we will not require these devices to undergo re-certification. The company is also teaming with Samsung to simplifying the customer’s device setup experience using Alexa or SmartThings. Here’s Amazon again: This collaboration is built upon upcoming Alexa APIs enabling bi-directional multi-admin simple setup and Thread credential sharing for Matter devices. These cloud-based APIs are designed to make complex technology fade into the background, allowing customers to effortlessly add Matter devices to their preferred services, realizing Matter’s promise of simplifying our customers’ smart home experience.

Amazon: Coming soon to your eyeballs

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Alexa, Amazon, Gadgets, Hardware, mojo visionNo Comments

New computing paradigms are never not going to be weird, but such uncomfortability dramatically intensifies when the human body enters into the picture. There’s a sense in which the smart contact lens feels like something of an inevitability (whether it’s produced by Mojo Vision or someone is another question altogether), but that doesn’t mean each new application won’t feel a little strange. Today Mojo announced “the first major third-party consumer application on a smart contact lens,” with the introduction of Alexa Shopping List integration. This is still very much a test — a proof of concept, really — designed to demonstrate what something like a shopping list might look like on a contact lens-based computing interface. The implementation utilizes Alexa voice computing to add or remove items to the list, which pop up in the HUD interface while shopping. The user can futher navitate through the list with their eyes — and check items off when they’re in the cart. If a family member adds an item to the list remotely, it will pop up in the Mojo interface. If nothing else, the test feature demonstrates how additional interfaces like voice computing can be used to augment the limitations of this eyeball-based computing. Attempting to enter new items using the eye sounds like a bit of a nightmare, but that interface certainly makes sense for simpler tasks, like scrolling. Amazon’s team helped Mojo implement Alexa Shpping for the test feature. “At Amazon, we believe experiences can be made better with technology that is always there when you need it, yet you never have to think about it,” Alexa Shopping List GM Ramya Reguramalingam said in a release. “We’re excited that Mojo Vision’s Invisible Computing for Mojo Lens, paired with the demonstration of Alexa Shopping List as a use case, is showing the art of what’s possible for hands-free, discreet smart shopping experiences.” Mojo Vision is still reasonably cautious around whether or not such functionality is actually arriving. The company notes in the release, “The test integration shows how Mojo Vision could integrate the Alexa voice AI with Mojo Lens’ unique and powerful eye-based interface.” A demo of the technology debuted onstage today at a Wall Street Journal event in Southern California. Amazon: Coming soon to your eyeballs by Brian Heater originally published on ZebethMedia

Snap and Amazon partner on AR shopping in the Snapchat app, initially for eyewear • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 2, 2022Posted in Amazon, Apps, Commerce, SnapNo Comments

Snap has landed a notable new partner for its augmented reality-powered Virtual Try-On shopping experience with today’s news that Amazon will now offer Snapchat users the ability to digitally try on eyewear styles from a range of popular brands. The new partnership between Amazon Fashion and the social app maker will see brands including Maui Jim, Persol, Oakley, Ray-Ban, Costa Del Mar and others made available for virtual try-on to Snapchat’s 363 million daily active users, the retailer says. The launch will see dozens of new Shopping Lenses made available across categories like sunglasses, reading glasses and seasonal glasses. The partnership is one of several that have followed Snap’s investments in AR shopping, where it has this year rolled out a number of upgrades to better appeal to retailers and brands, including the ability to update product information and pricing in real time, access better analytics and more easily create AR Shopping Lenses, among other things. Other brands that have leveraged Snapchat’s AR Shopping Lenses have included MAC Cosmetics, Ulta Beauty, American Eagle, Puma, Chanel, Walmart, LVMH, eyewear brands Goodr and Zenni Optical, and recently, for Halloween, costume company Disguise. Over the last year, Snap says 250 million Snapchat users have engaged with its AR Shopping Lenses more than 5 billion times. Image Credits: Snap/Amazon To create the AR shopping experience for Amazon, Amazon used Snap’s self-service creation system in Lens Web Builder, which allowed for scalable AR asset creation by using Amazon’s existing 3D models. If the Amazon products’ prices change or an item goes out of stock, the Lenses will be automatically updated in real time, notes Snap. Shopping Lens creation is an area where Snap has been working to improve its technology. Earlier this year it updated its Lens Web Builder that allowed bands to create shopping Lenses in a matter of minutes. This April, Snap announced it would begin offering retailers access to a new AR image-processing technology in its 3D asset manager that makes it easier and faster to build AR shopping experiences. The process uses AI and the brand’s own photography to turn standard photos into AR assets, Snap explained at the time. To access the new Amazon AR shopping feature, Snapchat users can find the new Lenses on the @amazonfashion public profile on the Snapchat app, through Snap’s Lens Explorer, through the new “Dress-Up” tab featuring AR shopping experiences and through the Snap Camera Lens Carousel. When users discover a pair of glasses they like, they can tap on a link at the bottom of the screen to make a purchase. This directs them to the Amazon app on their phone to check out. Snap does not receive a commission on these sales, we understand. Image Credits: Snap/Amazon Amazon also notes that Snapchat users will now be able to browse thousands of eyewear products in the Amazon Fashion “store” tab on its profile, though these will not be AR-enabled. Image Credits: Snap/Amazon While the AR shopping experience is starting with eyewear, it will be the first of more Amazon AR shopping experiences on Snapchat still to come. We understand the broader plan is to kick off the partnership with eyewear but expand into other categories in the months ahead. Snap also suggests this is the case in its public statement: “With the combined innovation and technology between Snap and Amazon, we are unlocking exciting and fun new try-on experiences for hundreds of millions of Snapchatters,” said Ben Schwerin, SVP of Partnerships at Snap, in an announcement. “AR eyewear is just the first step in our partnership, and we can’t wait to continue our innovation together,” he added. Amazon also noted it has already invested in AR shopping experiences itself and sees Snap as an extension of those efforts. “Millions of customers regularly use Amazon’s AR shopping technology across categories in our stores, with Virtual Try-On for Eyewear being a long-time customer favorite,” stated Muge Erdirik Dogan, president of Amazon Fashion. “We are delighted to partner with Snapchat and further expand AR shopping for both fashion brands and today’s new generation of digital shoppers.” Neither company would comment on the expected duration of their newly established partnership. This is not Amazon’s first foray into AR shopping. Recently, Amazon announced its own expansion in AR shopping with the June 2022 launch of a new virtual try-on experience for shoes, available to consumers in the U.S. and Canada in the Amazon iOS app. Using the feature, app users could shop for shoes from brands like New Balance, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Saucony, Lacoste, Asics and Superga. Prior to this, Amazon had only dabbled in AR shopping, having experimented in areas like AR for furniture shopping and sillier things, like AR Stickers or AR features on its seasonal shipping boxes. It’s not clear if AR is leading to a sizable increase in conversions through Amazon’s own efforts, however, as we’d likely see more AR features if it had. That could be, in part, why Amazon is now looking to an outside partner for AR shopping — and one that appeals to a younger crowd more comfortable with using the technology and keen to browse and shop from a social media app.

Amazon to delist top seller Appario on India marketplace amid regulatory heat • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Amazon, Amazon India, Commerce, Flipkart, WalmartNo Comments

Amazon plans to delist large seller Appario Retail, in which it maintains a stake, from the marketplace, the two said Monday, a year after ending ties for another large seller Cloudtail following allegations from retailers that some sellers received preferential treatment. Amazon and Patni Group-owned Zodiac said in a statement that they have agreed to renew their joint venture, called Frontizo Business Services, but have decided that Appario Retail will “cease to be a seller” on Amazon India within the next 12 months. “The partners will continue to explore new business opportunities, including helping businesses across India to scale up their online presence,” an Amazon spokesperson in India told ZebethMedia in a statement. Amazon did not say why it was delisting Appario, but the move follows a growing scrutiny on its owned sellers. India’s antitrust body launched raids on Appario and Cloudtail earlier this year following accusations of competition law violations, Reuters reported in April. A Reuters investigation last year showed that Amazon had given preferential treatment for years to a small group of sellers on its platform and used them to bypass Indian laws. The outlet’s investigation also showed that Amazon had for years helped these sellers with discounted fees. The investigation found that about 35 of Amazon’s more than 400,000 sellers in India in 2019 accounted for around two-thirds of sales on its India website. Of that figure, two sellers, Cloudtail and Appario, contributed 35% of the platform’s sales. India’s Supreme Court last year ruled that Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart must face antitrust investigations ordered against them in the country. The Indian watchdog — the Competition Commission of India — ordered an investigation into the firms in 2020 for allegedly promoting select sellers (those in which they own a stake) on their e-commerce platforms and using business practices that stifle competition. Long-standing laws in India restrict Amazon and other e-commerce firms from holding inventory or selling items directly to consumers. To bypass this, firms have operated through a maze of joint ventures with local companies that operate as inventory-holding firms. India got around to fixing this loophole in late 2018 in a move that was widely seen as the biggest blowback to the American firm in the country at the time. Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart scrambled to delist hundreds of thousands of items from their stores and made their investments in affiliated firms way more indirect. In a scathing report in August, Indian newspaper The Economic Times found that a group of new sellers run by former executives of Cloudtail and Appario have mushroomed in the country and are listed on the Amazon marketplace. India is a key overseas market for Amazon, which has invested over $6.5 billion in the South Asian market. But it continues to lag its chief rival Flipkart in the country on several metrics and is struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein.

As overall cloud infrastructure market growth dips to 24%, AWS reports slowdown • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in Amazon, cloud infrastructure market share, Enterprise, Google, Microsoft, Synergy ResearchNo Comments

With the big three — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — reporting earnings this week, we learned that the cloud infrastructure market topped $57 billion for the quarter, up $11 billion over the same period last year. That adds up to 24% growth, according to data from Synergy Research. It might not be the growth we are used to seeing from this market, but at a time of economic instability, it continues to perform remarkably well. Still, it is a step back from the days when we saw growth steadily in the 30s. It’s even down from last quarter when the market grew 29%. So it’s fair to say that growth is slowing in an area that’s seen explosive expansion over the last several years. Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale attributed this slowdown to several factors. First of all, there’s the law of large numbers, which states that as a market size increases, growth decreases. When you combine that with a strong dollar affecting earnings outside the U.S. and a shrinking market in China, it is having an impact. “It is a strong testament to the benefits of cloud computing that despite two major obstacles to growth, the worldwide market still expanded by 24% from last year. Had exchange rates remained stable and had the Chinese market remained on a more normal path, then the growth rate percentage would have been well into the thirties,” Dinsdale said in a statement. The other news here is that of the big three, Google Cloud was the only one to gain share, up a tick to 11%, as the work that CEO Thomas Kurian is doing to build the business continues to pay dividends. Meanwhile, Amazon held steady as the market leader at 34%, good for around $19 billion for the quarter, with Microsoft in second at 21% with revenue of almost $12 billion. Google’s 11% came in at around $6 billion. But that doesn’t tell the whole story as Amazon’s cloud growth slowed to 27.5% in the quarter, down from 33% growth the prior quarter. As the chart below showing third-quarter data back to 2017 illustrates, the market has grown in leaps and bounds over the five-year period, from just over $10 billion to almost $60 billion. Image Credits: Synergy Research It’s also worth noting that only Google beat analysts’ expectations for cloud revenue, while both AWS and Microsoft came up short of their predictions. The usual caveats apply here around numbers matching publicly reported amounts. Synergy counts public platform, infrastructure and hosted private cloud services in its numbers. Total revenue reported by individual companies may also include other elements, which Synergy doesn’t count. The fact is that in spite of economic headwinds, the market remains surprisingly strong, and while companies may be looking for places to cut, as we wrote back in June, it’s not that easy to reduce cloud spending because it’s fundamental to most businesses these days. Most companies born in the cloud aren’t going to suddenly build a data center, and those in the midst of shifting to the cloud need to keep moving workloads because of all the benefits the cloud brings around business agility. Companies looking to cut spending can and should be looking for waste, but regardless, the cloud market will likely continue to produce decent numbers, even if the economics force down overall revenue and slow growth in the short term. We usually include Canalys data as a means of comparison in these reports, but the data was not available yet at the time we published. As soon as Canalys publishes its data, we will update the article.

Amazon’s income dipped in Q3 2022 as the economy took its toll • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Amazon, Amazon Web Services, AWS, Commerce, earnings, Q3 2022No Comments

Amazon suffered steep losses in year-over-year income as post-pandemic shopping habits and inflation threw the retailer for a loop. In its third quarter 2022 earnings report today, Amazon revealed that operating income decreased to $2.5 billion in Q3 2022 compared to $4.9 billion the same quarter last year, while net income dipped to $2.9 billion versus $3.2 billion during Q3 2021. Operating income refers to earnings after expenses excepting the cost of debt, taxes, and certain one-off items. Net income shows the profit remaining after all costs are subtracted from revenue generated from sales. Amazon noted an operating loss of $0.4 billion in North America in Q3 2022, an unfavorable outcome compared to the nearly $1 billion in operating income the company reached in the quarter a year ago. Internationally, the tech giant fared worse, notching a $2.5 billion operating loss versus Q3 2021’s $900 million loss. As is usually the case, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud services division, was a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy quarter, with AWS’ income reaching $5.4 billion in Q3 2022 versus $4.9 billion in the same quarter last year. That is, however, down from the $5.72 billion in operating income that AWS raked in during Q2 2022. On news of Amazon’s Q3 losses, the company’s stock dropped ~20% in after-hours trading. “We’re … encouraged by the steady progress we’re making on lowering costs in our stores fulfillment network, and have a set of initiatives that we’re methodically working through that we believe will yield a stronger cost structure for the business moving forward,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a press release. “There is obviously a lot happening in the macroeconomic environment, and we’ll balance our investments to be more streamlined without compromising our key long-term, strategic bets.”