The Jason & Scot Show - E-Commerce And Retail News

EP321 - Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Recap

In today’s episode of the Jason & Scot Show, Jason and Scot dive into the latest developments shaping retail, tech, and consumer trends heading into the 2024 holiday season. Here’s a breakdown of the topics covered in this jam-packed discussion:

• Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Release
• Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

🎉 Holiday Season Sentiment & Retailer Anxiety

• With the holiday season shorter than usual due to a late Thanksgiving, retailers face the challenge of fewer shopping days. Consumer behavior trends indicate a shift toward essential purchases over non-essentials, creating mixed expectations for holiday spending.

• The impact of the election is expected to influence consumer sentiment, media spending, and holiday promotions, with Amazon and Walmart predicted to perform above market averages.

📈 Amazon Q3 Earnings Highlights

• Retail & GMV: Amazon’s retail revenue surged by 7.2%, with U.S. gross merchandise volume (GMV) rising 9.9%—nearly three times the industry average.

• Efficiency Improvements: Amazon’s focus on fulfillment efficiency under CEO Andy Jassy is paying off. The company’s same-day delivery options and regionalized inventory system have led to a 25% improvement in fulfillment cost efficiency.

• Growth in Essentials: With increased demand for everyday essentials, Amazon is capturing market share from traditional pharmacies, offering same-day delivery for prescriptions in select cities.

🏢 Amazon’s New Store Concepts

• Whole Foods & Amazon Grocery: A new Amazon grocery concept opened in Chicago, catering to convenience items like packaged snacks and sugary drinks, which contrasts with Whole Foods’ health-conscious inventory.

💸 Amazon’s Profit Engines: AWS & Advertising

• AWS: With a 19% increase in AWS revenue, Amazon is now operating at a 38% margin. Demand for AI-powered compute continues to push AWS growth, even as it faces GPU supply constraints.

• Advertising: Amazon’s advertising revenue reached $14.3 billion, growing 19% year-over-year. With a nearly 70% estimated gross margin, advertising may soon outpace AWS in profitability.

🛒 Rise of AI-Powered Search & Perplexity’s Native Checkout

• Perplexity’s Surge: Scot shares his switch from Google to Perplexity as his primary search engine, noting the emerging competition from OpenAI’s ChatGPT search. Perplexity now includes shopping links, allowing users to check out directly through Amazon, hinting at a new era of AI-driven shopping.

• Impact on Retailers: Retailers need to rethink SEO strategies as search shifts toward AI-powered “answer engines” that may fundamentally change how products are discovered and purchased online.

📡 What’s Next for Alexa?

• Amazon’s next-gen Alexa, powered by large language models (LLMs), faces delays into 2025. Scalability and usability challenges highlight Amazon’s shifting internal dynamics and potential headcount reductions in its Alexa division.

🔍 Is Google Search Under Threat?

• Perplexity’s and OpenAI’s expansion into search could spell trouble for Google. With monetization still in the early stages for these answer engines, the retail industry is watching closely to see how they’ll shape online shopping behavior.

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Episode 321 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, November 4th, 2024.

http://jasonandscot.com

Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scott Show. This is episode 321 being recorded on Monday, November 4th, 2024. I'm your host, Jason Retail Geek Goldberg. And as usual, I'm here with your co-host, Scott Wingo.

Scot: [0:38] Hey, Jason, and welcome back, Jason and Scott Show listeners. Well, Jason, you've been out there traveling more than I have. What are retailers saying about the holiday? Are they lots of excitement? Are they more worried about the election and they'll worry about the holiday? what's going on out in the retail end.

Jason: [0:54] Yeah i feel like the the like webster word of the year is going to be anxiety obvi...

Episode 127 is an interview with Katya Ermak, Director of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing at Sabon NYC. We caught up with Katya Ermak at the ShopTalk 2018. Katya is the director of E-commerce at Sabon NYC. We talked with her about how Vertically integrated brands think of Amazon. How they leverage their omni-channel tactics and the future of malls. How Sabon is approaching e-commerce including their Magento platform, and some of their current tools such as Dynamic Yield.

Episode 127 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, March 19, 2018.

New beta feature, Google Transcription:

Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episode is being recorded on Monday March 19th 2018 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your Wingo.

Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason welcome back Jason Scott show listeners we are podcasting live from the shock talk show here in sunny Las Vegas and we're excited to have on the show today Katja or Mac. Katya is director of e-commerce and digital marketing at sabon NYC she has also spent time with Brands such as rainbow Century 21 and isobar welcome to the show.

Jason: [1:02] Thanks for joining us it's a little known fact but Scott exclusive.

Scot: [1:06] Did we use it as your.

Jason: [1:07] FedEx in his own bath so.

Katya: [1:09] That's great to hear.

Scot: [1:11] Yeah I'm going to have the bath bombs.

Jason: [1:13] So he's very excited about having you here when the things we always like to do on the show is talk to her guest.

Scot: [1:20] About their backgrounds and how they came to the control so could you.

Jason: [1:20] And how they came to their current role so could you tell us a little bit about as you got into the industry and and what your current role is.

Katya: [1:28] Wright's Okerlund director of e-commerce and just the market at sabon started there about. Two and a half years ago before that I decided I was with isobars. Worked on their engagement seem he ran out of states and before that I did a Content management for Rainbow shops.

[1:51] E-commerce was definitely something that, I was interested in when I was in college I have a fashion business degree and I was just thinking of where can I go with that degrade dad would make the most value out of my account. And I got a couple and their shapes e-commerce internship especially one with Century 21 which really to cough. And I love my job love what I do eCommerce is fantastic and it's such a growing animal and there's so many different things that you can do with us.

Scot: [2:26] Did you go to the fitt isn't that the big fashion School in New York.

Katya: [2:30] Right now I went to Berkeley College which is Elsa in New York.

Scot: [2:33] Okay cool awesome yeah I mean a lot of young ladies that are studying fashion and there's a lot of different ways it go to nursing you chose e-commerce you feel like it's still scratches your fashion itch or.

Katya: [2:44] Absolutely that was like a business degree with a fashion flavor to it and as a side like. I was interested to see I came to the Barclay because I wanted to be a buyer but while I'm studying there was. Digital start taking off at that time and people start talking more and more about it and how did brick-and-mortar it will be going away and at some point it was very scary for fashion students because there was not a lot of job available and them. I was looking for something that's going to be very up and come in and which I think I did a very right turn.

Scot: [3:24] Do they have chai have classes on how to do some digital marketing in that kind of thing or did you have to come pick it up on your own.

Katya: [3:30] Pick it up on my own I think we had maybe social media class or something like that.

Jason: [3:38] And can you tell us a little bit about like what the scope of your role is now so are you you responsible for operating the website and digital marketing.

Scot: [3:44] Responsible for operating the website and digital marketing and.

Katya: [3:49] The right I usually have I go about this the question like that as Dad to company currently has three ways of doing business so we have brick-and-mortar stores and in New York and we have wholesale Channel and we help outside so. Each channel is has its own Department. So my department and I'm head of the eCommerce department is responsible of running the website all the maintenance all the development all the digital marketing aspects. Currently we doing things with be social with Google with your panel ads what do Google shopping ads email marketing. Mercha...

EP111- End of year news.

Holiday Recap

• E-Commerce up approx 18%, total retail up 4.8%
• UPS Woes

Amazon News

• Amazon Holiday Recap
• Amazon wins 50% of holiday sales !?!?
• WPP, Publcis, Omnicom spend $800M on Amazon ads

Other News

• Home Depot may buy XPO (large item logistics firm)
• Stitchfix first quarter post-IPO
• Michelle Gass takes over helm at Kolhs. (Episode 77 of the podcast featured outgoing CEO Kevin Mansell)

Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.

Episode 111 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday, December 29th 2017. Last show of 2017, happy new year everyone! Tune in next week for our much anticipated annual predictions episode.

http://jasonandscot.com

Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing

EP313 - Holiday 2023 Preview with Rob Garf of Salesforce

Episode 313 is preview of Holiday 2023 with Rob Garf, Vice President and General Manager, Retail at Salesforce. This is Robs' fifth time on the show, having previously been on episodes 110, 248, 282, and 299.

It's happened again. Your Halloween decorations have come down (or at least your pumpkin is not in good shape), you survived Amazon Prime Big Deal Days, and now you're getting ready to ditch your in-laws and enjoy one of the most exciting retail weeks of the year. Yes, it's time for Holiday 2023!

This year, we've decided to do things a bit different by previewing the holiday in advance of Turkey 5. Rob Garf has kindly joined to walk us through Salesforce's e-commerce forecast for November and December, and we compare it to all the other forecasts out there (NRF, Deloitte, Bain, US Dept of Commerce). In addition to the top line forecasts, we touch on retail versus e-commerce, changing shape of the holiday, discounting climate, inventory and supply chain impacts, top performing categories, the economy, and the impact of rapidly growing Chinese brands (Temu, Shein, TikTok).

Throughout this episode make liberal use of real-time data from Salesforce Shopping Insights HQ, which tracks how 1.5+ billion consumers are shaping shopping trends. You can see a real-time holiday dashboard, powered by Tableau so you can interact with the data yourself on the Salesforce Holiday Insights page.

Episode 313 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday November 8th, 2023.

http://jasonandscot.com

Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 313 being recorded on Wednesday November 8th 2023 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scot show listeners Jason is 3:13 the lucky number I had the 13 is kind of on there so I think we'll count it. Jason: [0:48] It's a lot of threes. Scot: [0:50] Yeah yeah I think it's a primal have to get one of our research analyst to work on the okay so we are recording this in early November as Jason said so at that critical part of the retail calendar all the plans are laid the discounts are on the table Cyber Monday. Thanksgiving Black Friday everything's teed up and everyone's waiting in anticipation of what holiday is going to bring us this year. And we know longtime listeners will know that our holiday turkey five coverage with a lot of sprinkling of data is second to none in the industry and this year we're going to take it up a notch in past years we've had our friend of the show Rob Garf VP and GM for retail at Salesforce on after the turkey 5 give us a real-time view of what they saw and for those of you that have been with us very long time this is her Jason's mom primarily those were episodes 110 249 282 and 299 man that's quite a track record this year we are going to take it up and have a delicious rub Garf before and after holiday sandwich it's kind of like that turkey sandwich but we're going to kind of sample it here before we even even have Thanksgiving. Rob before I before I go on welcome back for the fifth and I think record time on the show. Rob: [2:11] Wow I love it this is I will have to call the Guinness book up and make sure we get this knocked in memory on this is fantastic it's always good to be here and even better Scott and Jason and first of all thank you for having me on doing a little bit of a preview because as you mention were normally crawling through the data talking about the holiday weekend and seeing where everything lands after the critical time period and it's fun to take a little bit of a sneak preview and look at what we're anticipating and what we're seeing going into as you mentioned one of the most critical times of the year. Jason: [2:45] I think you're exactly right Rob I don't know why we didn...

EP235 - Amazon Grocery, Walmart+, Holiday Preview

This episode covers the latest Amazon Grocery news, the launch of Walmart+, and our first look at holiday 2020.

1. CommerceLive – Jason September 15, Noon ET. Panel: Retailer Search Strategies — What’s Working and What’s Worth It?
2. Publicis Livestream – Jason & Scot – Thursday, September 17 11:00AM ET Covid, Holiday 2020, and 2021
3. Digital Day North America Jason & Scot Keynote September 23 8:40-9:25am CT
4. Channel Advisor Connect – Jason & Scot October 7th
5. Texas A&M Retail Summit Jason October 9th 9:50am CT
6. ShopTalk Meetup – Jason October 20-22 Measuring Ecommerce Success Against Fast-Changing Benchmarks.

1. Amazon Grocery

• Amazon Fresh – 40K “Non-Whole Foods” grocery concept. Dash Carts (Scan & Go). Microfullfilment? Woodland Hills open, two more free-standing coming to LA, one freestanding coming to Chicago, and a shop in shop with Kohls in LA.
• Amazon Go Grocery – 10K store with just-walk-out technology. A second location opens in Redmond. One coming to Washington DC.
• Wholefoods Digital Only – Darkstore opens in Brooklyn.

1. JCP acquired from bankruptcy by Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) and Brookfield Property Partners.
2. Walmart+ launch (and drone test)
3. Holiday Preview

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Episode 235 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, September 10th, 2020.

http://jasonandscot.com

Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.