EP172 - Amazon Shareholder Letter and Q1 Results
Amazon Annual Shareholder Letter
Jeff Bezos released the Amazon 2018 Annual Shareholder Letter, which this year was focused the the phenomenal success and growth of the Amazon Marketplace. In the process, Amazon disclosed the breakdown of it's 1P and 3P revenue from 1999 - 2018, as well as giving us the "physical gross merchandise volume (physical GMV)" for the first time. In 2018 1p = $117B, and 3P = $160B. For a total GMV of $277B (which means US GMV is approx $161B). Prior to this disclosure we've all had to guess as the the actual size of Amazon's retail business. This makes Amazon the second largest retailer in the US, behind Walmarts $318B (excluding Sam's Club), and ahead of Krogers $116B.
The letter also talks about the importance of companies being allowed to experiment (wondering as Jeff calls it), even if many of those experiments ultimately fail. No customer ever asked for AWS, but a few success like AWS can fun many failures. Even failures can be valuable, such as the Fire phone, which ultimately led to the Amazon Alexa. Jeff argues, that as the scale of a company grows, so much the scope of these failures.
The letter takes a victory lap for some of the improvements in employee pay and benefits that Amazon has put in place and a challenge to other retailers. A challenge that other retailers like Walmart did not particular appreciate.
As always, the letter closes with a reminder that the 1997 shareholder letter still accurately reflects the guiding principals of the company.
It's very likely that this years letter, is in response to an increasing call from thought leaders and politicians to regulate and even break up large tech companies like Amazon.
Q1 Results
Revenue came in at $59.7B, 19% y/y growth ex-F) which was in-line with Wall Street consensus. Overall operating margin was 7.4% compared to a 5.2% consensus, so that was a clear beat. There is some concern about unit sales decelerating (a risk as Amazon saturates the market, and Prime membership plateau).
Surprisingly, ad sales growth also plateaued but that was explained as mostly an accounting change.
The big news from the Q1 earnings was that Amazon would be investing over $800M to move from free 2-day shipping for Prime members, to free 1-day shipping for Prime members. With most retailers already struggling to match Amazon's 2-day delivery promise, this is a meaningful moving of the goalposts by Amazon.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 172 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, April 29th, 2019.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and 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.
EP171 - DTC brands physical experiences
EP170 - ThredUp President Anthony Marino
Anthony Marino (@amarino) is the President of thredUp (@thredup), the nation's leading online marketplace for women's and kids' like-new apparel. Over 25,000 brands, ranging from Gap to Gucci, are listed on thredUP.com at prices up to 90 percent off retail.
In this interview, we cover the basic thredUp value proposition, challenges and opportunities for the re-commerce business model, the dynamics of operating a two-sided marketplace, customer acquisition, reverse logistics, and the dynamics for brands in the re-commerce space.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 170 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday, February 22, 2019 from the eTail West tradeshow in Palm Desert, CA.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and 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.
EP169 - GGV Capital Principal Robin Li
Robin Li is a principal at GVV Capital, a global venture capital firm that focuses on seed-to-growth stage investments across Consumer/New Retail, Social/Digital & Internet, Enterprise/Cloud and Frontier Tech sectors. The firm was founded in 2000 and manages $6.2 billion in capital across 13 funds. Past and present portfolio companies include Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, Peloton, Poshmark, Slack, Square, Wish, and many others.
In this interview, we cover a wide range of topics around the hot trends in retail and consumer in North America, and we deep dive in what’s going on with retail, social and e-commerce in China well.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 169 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, February 20, 2019 from the eTail West tradeshow in Palm Desert, CA.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and 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.