eCommerce Strategy Consultant - Rick Watson - RMW Commerce Consulting

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Amazon Advertising Graduates from "Other" and 3P Seller Units Set Record

Amazon Advertising Graduates from "Other" and 3P Seller Units Set Record

#Amazon just reported Q4 earnings and here are a few callouts from my side (I don't track AWS closely):

* Amazon 3P seller units up to 56% of Q4 unit sales, highest 4Q ever.

* Amazon Advertising is now broken out in earnings reports! not hidden in other. Take a bow!

* Advertising growth decelerated from 55% y/y growth in Q3 to 33% y/y growth in Q4. likely due to supply chain / inventory issues.

$31B business today. A little less than a third of FB revenue is what I calculate. Someone check me :)

* Advertising priorities. 1 - Improve tool usability for sellers/brands (hope they also mean agencies and technology platforms too - i.e. better APIs) 2 - Video advertising for sponsored ads across live sports, IMDB, Twitch, Prime Video, etc.

* Doubled operations and staff in last 2 years. Up to 1.6M employees.

* Hired OK but could have done better. caused chaos costs in their network and higher third-party transportation costs than expected. meaning if we had more staff at beginning of quarter, we could have taken even more share of parcels.

* new fulfillment center spend is moderating going forward, and will match business growth. still represents 30% of all capex, which is increasing next year.

btw I always like how Amazon always say "this is how much we are spending." but never really talks about "this is how much more profit we are making." that has been consistent forever :)

#ecommerce