In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter we’re reporting on how business went on Amazon Prime Day, with extra insights from third-party analysis. The retailer says the day turned out to be its biggest global shopping day ever. Underlying this there’s a story about how the retailer’s heft and sheer presence in shoppers’ lives has enabled it to outsell the competition. It’s telling that the biggest selling items – the Amazon Echo and the Echo Dot – are devices that aim to make shopping from the retailer even easier. Just like Prime. Like Prime, both have lots of additional benefits thrown in: members of Prime can stream video, film and music as part of their membership as well as getting delivery thrown in, while Echo users can, among other things, set controls for their home, request music and ask questions of Alexa. The question now is in whether other retailers might benefit from event shopping in the way that Amazon and, in China, Alibaba, both do.
Today we also report on growing online and mobile sales at Asos and Burberry respectively – and on research that suggests technology is not enough: emotional intelligence will be the new tool for retailers to deploy.
We’re looking ahead to October’s InternetRetailing Conference (IRC 2017) and over coming weeks we’ll be bringing both previews of the event and interviews with key speakers.
Today’s guest comment comes from Paul Lewis of VoucherCodes.co.uk who considers what retailers need to do to keep pace with a nation of e-shoppers.
