Welcome to our weekly roundup of the top five Amazon news stories of the week.
Amazon imagines Alexa in hot tubs and toothbrushes in its Super Bowl ad: Dami Lee at The Verge reports that but Amazon’s Super Bowl ad is giving me flashbacks to rows of gadgets touting Alexa in places where it didn’t belong. Amazon’s ad acknowledges that the company itself has been putting Alexa in a lot of stuff, too, including a voice-activated microwave, and that some combinations haven’t always been so successful. Continue reading…
Image credit: Reddit
From books to bullets: inside Amazon’s push to ‘defend’ America: Levi Pulkkinen at The Guardian reports that Amazon’s latest expansion will take many shoppers by surprise. Meet Amazon, aspiring military behemoth. In the none-too-distant future, US soldiers may rely on Amazon-run systems to trade intelligence, relay orders and call for help. Drone footage might be scoured for wanted men and women by Amazon software. Defence department quartermasters would use Amazon technology to move ammunition and supplies. Continue reading…
Amazon to ‘revolutionise’ shopping with ‘virtual changing room’ app: Steve Bird at The Telegraph reports that Amazon is developing a fashion app that will “revolutionise” clothes shopping by allowing customers to try on outfits with a ‘virtual mannequin’ created from social media photographs. In a development experts fear will threaten the High Street, the American online giant has lodged a UK patent to scour “selfies” and online calendars to predict clothes a person may like or need. Continue reading…
Amazon is chasing growth and shifting resources to third-party sellers: Hilary Milnes at Digiday reports that Amazon makes more money letting other people sell to customers on its marketplace than it does selling to customers itself. The company has been opening up more ecommerce features and capabilities to third-party sellers that were once reserved for wholesale vendors and shifting resources to be more hands-on with third-party sellers. Continue reading…
Bonus: What FBA Sellers Need to Know About Amazon Sales Rank
Quote of the week:
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”
Amelia Earhart
Have a great weekend!
