MGR eCommerce Edge Weekly | February 4, 2020 | MGR Marketing & Lifestyle Blog

MGR eCommerce Edge Weekly | February 4, 2020
Top News This Week

Macro View: As We Enter the Next Decade, Where is Commerce Going?

Change in commerce is nothing new, eCommerce just happens to be the fastest growing shift right now. But, despite its rapid growth, it still remains a small fraction of the total commerce pie (about 15% in the US). So what new innovations will drive growth even further?

Our guess? Commerce will become more driven by media (both independent and mainstream) in combination with zero-friction payments. I.e. watching YouTube or Netflix, seeing something you want, tapping on it and have it show up at your door the next day.

Benedict Evans, long-time digital strategy thought leader and Partner at Andreesen Horowitz, gave an excellent presentation for Nasdaq about the future of media and commerce, it’s well worth your time.

“When technology works it kind of disappears into everything and becomes part of the world.” – Benedict Evans

See the full presentation here >

Amazon Reports Q4 Numbers: $87.4 Billion in Revenue, Over 150 Million Prime Subscribers

I’ve discussed in the past about Amazon’s dwindling advantage. Their tech-stack is no longer unique as there are plentiful options for building an eComm store, and even FBA will become commoditized as more and more 3PLs expand their fulfillment abilities.

But what they still do have, and what isn’t going anywhere anytime soon is 150+ million paying, loyal subscribers who list Amazon as their first choice when buying online.

This is the ultimate challenge that those who want to beat Amazon will face. Building enough demand for your products and brand that customers are willing to go out of their way and leave the Amazon ecosystem to buy from you.

In addition to Prime membership growth, their ad platform revenue was up 41% YoY to $4.78 billion in Q4. Amazon continues to gain market-share from Google in the product search category as expected, but the big question is whether or not they can create more media based advertising to go after Facebook’s ads dominance on the “demand generation” side of digital marketing.