Amazon, together with singer Lady Gaga, launched a beauty line Haus Laboratories. The first major beauty brand sold exclusively on Amazon. Pushed by the Amazon marketing efforts on Prime Day, the brand became the number one best-seller in the Makeup category by the end of the event. By launching a brand with Lady Gaga, Amazon is showing what it can do for other brands too.
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Amazon is testing a new "Our Brand" badge for its private label products. Sponsored products ads for Amazon-owned brands now have a label "Our Brand" instead of "Sponsored." Amazon has also increased the number of sponsored products ads at the start of search results from two to three across all searches.
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Last year Amazon launched two high-profile AmazonBasics products - a $59.99 Alexa-enabled microwave and a foam mattress starting at $129.99. However, while the microwave became the best-seller from day one, the mattress failed to do the same. Amazon's private label efforts is not a best-seller-generating magic box. Understanding why some products don't become best-sellers tells a more revealing story than those who do.
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Shenzhen hosts a third of third-party Chinese sellers on Amazon and is estimated to be the city with the largest number of Amazon sellers anywhere in the world. It is a major city in Guangdong province, one of the leading commercial and manufacturing regions in China, with the economic hub Shenzhen as well as the capital Guangzhou.
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On August 31, 2009, Walmart announced the Walmart marketplace, expanding existing assortment by offering additional products from a select group of retailers. At the time it added nearly one million new items to the catalog from just a few sellers. Ten years later, the marketplace has grown to over 28,000 sellers, which all together bring 45 million items to the Walmart online catalog.
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In February, Target launched a marketplace called Target+, or Target Plus. The invite-only marketplace started with 30 merchants, and six months later has grown to just 55 merchants and 115,000 products. However, the last few quarters have shown how well it has been able to integrate stores into the online experience, rendering the marketplace no longer critical.
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In March, Amazon launched Belei, a skincare brand consisting of cleansing wipes, moisturizers, masks, and serums. Six months later, the brand has failed to impress consumers. Belei products are rated 3.8 out of 5 stars, and none had become best-sellers.
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Amazon is testing a new "Top Brand" badge for products from established brands. If and how this badge gets rolled out could have a substantial impact on how shoppers decide which products to buy as well as how established brands defend against price-aggressive private label products.
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This week Walmart has expanded the next-day delivery service to Massachusetts, Missouri, Virginia, and West Virginia, growing the number of states with next-day delivery to 33.
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In an interview with an antitrust expert Sally Hubbard, we discussed what makes Amazon a monopoly, how that affects consumers, businesses relying on Amazon, and competitors, as well as what actions and regulations antitrust investigations might bring in the future.
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