Amazon Grocery Marketplace and Associates?
Amazon launched their groceries beta last week, Amazon Grocery. The funny thing is I was talking to somebody just before they launched about how web grocery shopping was never done properly, and was still available as a business model for somebody. The trick, I thought, would be to focus on high value high margin foods, like instant coffee and crackers, and leave the meat and potatoes to the supermarkets.
After they launched the beta grocery site, I got to thinking about the implication for Amazon earnings and for business opportunities for Associates. Although largely ignored by financial analysts, Amazon's partners have played a major role in their success in capturing market share, and even profits. For market share, Amazon's hundreds of thousands (must be that many by now) of Associates drive huge amounts of traffic to the Amazon site to shop for and purchase specific products. My own website sends Amazon a solid five figures worth of sales every year, largely books we've published and related titles. For profits, Amazon can't beat their Marketplace program, which currently accounts for more than 1 in 4 items "shipped" by Amazon. I put shipped in quotes because Amazon never touches the items shipped by Marketplace vendors and Z-Shops, they just process money and profit.
I got thinking about how Marketplace and Associates can play into the new grocery initiative, and it may turn into the biggest thing since books, and here's why. Amazon is in essence a shopping platform, a virtual store with a front-end that actually works and a top notch reputation. If they open groceries to marketplace vendors (with a lawyerly disclaimer about caveat emptor on food products) they will become the top grocery destination on the Internet, and they'll be able to leave making it work to the genius of their marketplace vendors. A regional interface would be nice, but not necessary.
The very existence of a new marketplace for products would also spur new entrepreneurs to get into the food production business, just like Associates and Advantage launched many a new publisher. I'm not about to start canning tomatoes in my apartment, but there are people who will, and there will be people who buy them. We aren't all neurotically obsessed with food safety, and the Amazon rating and rank systems may help separate the wheat from the chaff. Food items are getting sales ranks, I just checked. Maybe I'll be buying that farm this winter after all:-) In the mean time, I'm pasting in their banner from my Associates Account:
After they launched the beta grocery site, I got to thinking about the implication for Amazon earnings and for business opportunities for Associates. Although largely ignored by financial analysts, Amazon's partners have played a major role in their success in capturing market share, and even profits. For market share, Amazon's hundreds of thousands (must be that many by now) of Associates drive huge amounts of traffic to the Amazon site to shop for and purchase specific products. My own website sends Amazon a solid five figures worth of sales every year, largely books we've published and related titles. For profits, Amazon can't beat their Marketplace program, which currently accounts for more than 1 in 4 items "shipped" by Amazon. I put shipped in quotes because Amazon never touches the items shipped by Marketplace vendors and Z-Shops, they just process money and profit.
I got thinking about how Marketplace and Associates can play into the new grocery initiative, and it may turn into the biggest thing since books, and here's why. Amazon is in essence a shopping platform, a virtual store with a front-end that actually works and a top notch reputation. If they open groceries to marketplace vendors (with a lawyerly disclaimer about caveat emptor on food products) they will become the top grocery destination on the Internet, and they'll be able to leave making it work to the genius of their marketplace vendors. A regional interface would be nice, but not necessary.
The very existence of a new marketplace for products would also spur new entrepreneurs to get into the food production business, just like Associates and Advantage launched many a new publisher. I'm not about to start canning tomatoes in my apartment, but there are people who will, and there will be people who buy them. We aren't all neurotically obsessed with food safety, and the Amazon rating and rank systems may help separate the wheat from the chaff. Food items are getting sales ranks, I just checked. Maybe I'll be buying that farm this winter after all:-) In the mean time, I'm pasting in their banner from my Associates Account:
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home