September 2023 - Marketplace News

Amazon to roll out ads on Prime Video in 2024

Sept 22 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O) Prime Video will next year join streaming rivals in rolling out ads and introducing a higher-priced ad-free tier, as the industry grapples with a slowdown in subscriber growth since the pandemic.

The U.S. tech giant said on Friday ads will be introduced in the U.S., the UK, Germany and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in the year.

REUTERS, September 22, 2023

Ecommmerce continues to grow, but different than expected

Most European internet users shop online. Ecommerce is still growing, but slower than before. Last year, Europe’s online B2C total sales volume increased by 6 percent to 899 billion euros. The growth is slower than in 2021.

According to a report from Ecommerce and EuroCommerce, ecommerce in Europe grew 12 percent in 2021 compared to a year earlier. The measured growth in 2022 is a lot slower. Western Europe provided 67 percent of the total online sales volume. Eastern Europe only contributed 2 percent to this. The growth that is measured mainly occured in Eastern Europe.

Ecommerce news, September 25, 2023

Amazon plays catch-up with Alexa generative AI, shows off new, refreshed hardware

Sept 20 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Wednesday unveiled a slate of new and refreshed devices and updated its Alexa voice assistant with generative artificial intelligence to attract users to the unprofitable product as competition grows from chatbots like Google's Bard.

Alexa will converse more naturally, losing its robotic tone of nearly a decade, and answer questions like the start time for football games and recipe ideas. It will also be able to compose and recite poems, Amazon showed at the company's annual product launch in Arlington, Virginia.

REUTERS, September 20, 2023

Amazon makes first investment in direct air capture climate technology

Sept 12 (Reuters) - E-commerce giant Amazon.com (AMZN.O) is making its first investment in direct air capture technology, which removes emissions from the atmosphere, by committing to purchase 250,000 tons of removal credits over 10 years, it said on Tuesday.

Amazon will purchase the credits from the 1PointFive direct air capture (DAC) plant in Texas, which is being developed by oil company Occidental’s Oxy Low Carbon Ventures subsidiary and will use them to help meet its climate target of net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

REUTERS, September 12, 2023

Amazon continues to support Ukrainian small businesses to boost exports

The commitment is a 12 month extension of our original initiative offering a 0% referral fee across our European stores, which was launched last year in response to the conflict in Ukraine.

With the war in Ukraine ongoing, sellers in-country are continuing to face the challenges brought about by a wartime economy.

Amazon, September 11, 2023

Amazon is set to supercharge Alexa with generative AI

Amazon’s Alexa is about to come out of its shell, and what emerges could be very interesting. At its fall hardware event Wednesday, the company revealed an all-new Alexa voice assistant powered by its new Alexa large language model. According to Dave Limp, Amazon’s current SVP of devices and services, this new Alexa can understand conversational phrases and respond appropriately, interpret context more effectively, and complete multiple requests from one command.?

The Verge, September 21, 2023

Amazon influences offline retail in Germany

Amazon has a massive impact on retail spending in Germany, both online and offline. More than one-third of all purchases in physical stores are preceded by a search for information on Amazon.

This is reported by ECC K?LN, a subsidiary of the renowned IFH K?LN (Institut für Handelsforschung), in its periodic Trend Check Handel.

Ecommerce news, September 14, 2023

Amazon's Supply Chain as a Service

Amazon can’t make the whole world shop on Amazon. But, it will try to be the retail infrastructure even when shopping happens elsewhere.

Yesterday, it introduced Supply Chain by Amazon, a collection of existing physical and online services and some new changes. It’s an end-to-end solution that handles the product’s journey from when it leaves the manufacturer to when the shopper receives it. The most significant change is opening it up to power non-Amazon sales channels. Previously, its logistics and fulfillment services predominantly served Amazon sellers to sell on Amazon.

Marketplace pulse, September 13, 2023