📦 The Order : Weekly Roundup - Amazon Q4, Rufus & We the Brands
Issue #148
Happy Sunday,
Here’s a quick roundup of last week’s news :
Chart of the Week 📈
Amazon crushed in in Q4 2023:
Third party seller activity $43.5B (+19% YoY) - growing it’s share faster than 1P
Ads $14.6B (+ 26% YoY)
Free Cash Flow hits $36.8B TTM
Full Q4 results here. Further analysis by Bloomberg: Amazon Gains After Robust Sales, Strong Profit Outlook.
Snapshot of the Week 🤖
Amazon next GenAI release for shoppers - its conversational shopping agent Rufus - has sellers thinking where search & listing optimization is heading next:
Movers & Shakers 🙌
The next consolidation: We The Brands acquires Mantaro Brands [We the Brands]
Amazon aggregator Forum Brands acquires organic period care brand Lola [Modern Retail]
SellersFi Announces Financing Solution With Amazon Lending To Provide E-Commerce Sellers Credit Lines Up to $10M [Business Wire]
Strategy 🦈
Should Amazon Be Responsible for Everything It Sells and Ships? A U.S. Agency Will Soon Decide [Wall Street Journal]
Amazon delivered to Prime members at the fastest speeds ever in 2023—and is working to get even faster in 2024 [Amazon]
The Amazon Aggreggator is dead [Marketplace Pulse]
Everyone's talking about canceling Amazon Prime. New data suggests it's growing again in the US. [Business Insider]
Walmart brings back incentives for new third-party sellers [Chain Storage]
Activist investors are coming for Etsy [Techcrunch]
TikTok usage is starting to slow — is TikTok Shop to blame? [Techcrunch]
Turning everyone intom an ‘influencer’: “TikTok Tests Feature That Could Make All Videos Shoppable” [Bloomberg]
China’s Temu in US online ads blitz in challenge to Amazon [Financial Times]
UPS to cut 12,000 jobs as revenue outlook falls short on weak parcel demand [Financial Times]
TikTok and GoTo Combine eCommerce Businesses in Indonesia [PYMNTS]
Not a growth story everywhere — German eCommerce spending dropped 11.8% YoY in 2023 coming in at 80B EUR: “‘Low point in German ecommerce’” [eCommerce News]
China’s start-ups take on big global beauty brands [Financial Times]
MercadoLibre spotlight: “The founder who launched the ‘Amazon of Latin America’ from a parking garage has transformed retail in the region—and earned himself $7 billion” [Yahoo Finance]
Events 🎤
Prosper Show, Mar 4-6, Las Vegas, US
ShopTalk, Mar 14-16, Las Vegas, US — Exhibitor opportunities
Make this week count 🙌
Christian