Amazon

Amazon Inspire - Ecommerce meets Social Media

The boundaries between social media and commerce platforms have been blurring for some time. While platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok are increasingly penetrating the commerce sector, Amazon will in future offer video and image content based on personal interests. Customers will discover products and trends tailored to them directly in the Amazon app. This is also where the final purchase is made.

Amazon's latest feature is designed to attract the attention of a young target group. Generations Z and Alpha move intuitively and naturally on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Purchase decisions are made there based on recommendations from influencers and content creators. However, the focus is not on the purchase itself, but on entertainment. Through Inspire, Amazon is trying to reach this target group and at the same time retain existing customers in the app and on Amazon.

The Inspire feed is accessed via a lightbulb icon within the Amazon Shopping app. Customers enter their interests within the 20 existing product categories. The look and feel is very reminiscent of Pinterest's interface. Everything else is tried and true: Users can like posts and, similar to TikTok, swipe up from the bottom of the vertical feed to see the next post.

Brands and authorized retailers can post their content and products on Inspire. They can access content from brand ambassadors or develop their own content, among other options.

The prerequisite for participating in the Inspire feature is an existing Amazon Brand Registry and an existing Brand Store. The clicks are ultimately directed to this store and the customers make the purchase.

Amazon has been testing the new shopping function for selected customers and influencers in the U.S. since mid-2022. From December 2022 or in the following months, the offer is to be extended to all customers in the USA.

Whether and when Amazon Inspire will also be available in the EU is not yet known. The first provisions are already visible in the Amazon back end. If the test phase is successful, a launch in Europe is likely.

With its image and video content and user experience, the new format is strongly reminiscent of the internationally known social media platforms such as Tiktok, Instagram and Pinterest. Amazon wants to tap into new and especially younger target groups and retain them in the long term. The aim is to make the shopping experience of its customers more entertaining and encourage them to buy. Whether the marketplace can compete with the leading social media champions remains to be seen at this stage.

Amazon Transparency - With Transparency Against Counterfeiting

The basic principle of how Amazon bundles this abundance of offered products on the platform is simple. In contrast to eBay, where each offer has its own eBay item number, Amazon assigns each product an individual identification number - the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN for short). Every merchant who wants to sell this product on the Amazon Marketplace must necessarily offer it under the same identification number. However, there are a large number of competitors on the Amazon Marketplace who sell the same products. Thus, a product is usually offered by several retailers and ultimately the price war decides on the sale. Since Amazon wants to counteract monopolization through this bundling, this approach is completely unproblematic in the first place.

It becomes problematic for both retailers and customers when product counterfeiters use the same ASIN to sell inferior knock-offs. In addition to negative customer reviews, this can even result in warning procedures. The company itself states that it does not tolerate counterfeit products. According to the terms of participation, their offer on the Amazon Marketplace is prohibited. However, it has not yet been possible to completely prevent counterfeits on the platform. According to Amazon, however, "it is the responsibility of the seller and supplier to obtain, sell and ship only authentic products." Amazon has already been criticized several times for the fact that the principle of personal responsibility applies on Amazon Marketplace and that brand owners must independently monitor the use of their own brand by third parties.

A prominent case occurred at the end of 2017: The traditional German manufacturer Birkenstock left the German Amazon Marketplace at the turn of 2018. The company had already withdrawn from the US marketplace in 2016 due to repeated product counterfeiting. The manufacturer justified its withdrawal with a disturbed relationship of trust with Amazon. The US company was said not to have done enough to prevent legal violations on the marketplace. Birkenstock had expected Amazon to eliminate and prevent legal violations independently and without being asked to do so. However, the online giant had "not prevented on its own initiative " counterfeit products from being sold through the marketplace. Finally, the management duo Bensberg and Reichert decided to discontinue all business relations with Amazon. Since then, the company no longer supplies the online store worldwide.

However, even though Amazon has so far only eliminated infringements as soon as a rights holder reports this, Amazon supports merchants with various tools for monitoring their own brand and prosecuting possible infringements. Amazon Trademark Registration has already offered owners of a word mark and/or word/figurative mark protection on several levels since May 2017. You can thus protect your "intellectual property on the online trading platform and create a correct and trustworthy experience for your customers on Amazon". Registration is definitely worthwhile, because in addition, brand owners receive exclusive writing rights in relation to all product descriptions and images sold under the brand. This way, the image of the brand can be protected as well.

Amazon is continuously working on new technology-driven solutions to increase transparency and protect brands and customers from counterfeiting. With Transparency, Amazon recently made available its new item-level authentication service: Using uniquely generated codes, Amazon, brand owners, customers as well as other supply chain stakeholders can authenticate each product unit. According to Amazon, uniquely authenticating each product unit is "the most effective way to combat and prevent counterfeiting across the supply chain."

It is crucial for the authentication process that the Amazon Transparency Code is unique per product: To ensure that the product is not a counterfeit, Amazon scans the codes as soon as products participating in the Transparency Program are delivered to a fulfillment center. If a duplicate code is discovered, Amazon immediately withdraws the counterfeit goods from circulation and destroys them. Transparency also allows customers to verify authenticity. Regardless of whether the product was purchased from Amazon, another online store or a brick-and-mortar retailer. Customers can use the free Transparency app to check the code on the product. The app checks the product for authenticity and, in the event of positive authentication, also displays the stored information at item level.

The program has already been tested promisingly in the USA. With over 4,000 brands participating and over 300 million codes generated, Amazon was able to proactively remove 250,000 counterfeits from circulation. Now Transparency has been extended to Amazon marketplaces in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK, India and Canada. To register with Transparency, brand owners must have a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN for short), such as an EAN or UPC barcode, affixed to their products. Amazon then generates the unique Transparency codes for each item, which must be affixed to the respective product unit in addition to the GTIN. For each item, the 26-character encrypted identification number is unique. In addition to the date and place of manufacture, it contains additional product information such as the materials and ingredients used.

Selling on Amazon - Worldwide

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and led the then online bookstore out of the garage to become one of the world's currently most successful online mail order companies. On the German Amazon Marketplace alone, more than 300 million different products were offered in 2018. In view of this abundance, it is therefore not surprising that for more and more people the Amazon Marketplace has become the first port of call for product and information searches and that roughly every second order in the e-commerce sector is processed via Amazon. In Germany, for example, over 44 million customers click on "Buy now" several times a year. According to statistics from the IFH Cologne, a rising trend is emerging: while in 2004 a German Amazon customer ordered around eight times from Amazon, in 2017 they already clicked on "Buy now" an average of 41 times. Thus, Amazon's German trading platform generated a trading volume of more than 20 billion euros in the 2018 financial year. The more than 300,000 third-party retailers on the German market generated around 45% of this trading revenue.

A look at Amazon's global sales shows that it is not only the German market that offers enormous potential for retailers. Amazon generated around 232.89 billion US dollars on its 16 online marketplaces worldwide in 2018. While the marketplaces in China (amazon.cn) as well as in India (amazon.in) are currently only accessible to sellers based within these countries, Amazon offers merchants the opportunity to sell worldwide on the 14 other marketplaces regardless of their place of business. Selling globally on Amazon can expand sales activities and reach millions of new customers through the international Marketplaces. The following table provides an overview of the Amazon Marketplaces in Asia (6), Europe (5), Oceania (1), and North and South America (4) and when the platforms launched.

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Amazon Inspire - Ecommerce meets Social Media

Amazon Transparency - With Transparency Against Counterfeiting

Selling on Amazon - Worldwide

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