Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

The rate of eCommerce growth as steadily outpaced total retail growth by a multiple of three to four times, Amazon.com’s growth has outpaced eCommerce by one to two times, giving it a dominant lead in many of the world’s most mature eCommerce markets. According to Forrester, Amazon drove 60% of total US online sales growth in 2015, capturing $23 billion more in U.S. eCommerce sales in 2015 than the previous year (up from $77 billion in 2014 to $100 billion). 

Alex McCord of Compass Marketing, an agency which works with some of the world’s largest CPG brands: “We’re now seeing the advent of what I’ll call e-commerce native companies: companies that come onto Amazon and other e-retailers and who are able to gain traction through getting a ton of recent reviews. They know how to work the Amazon algorithm and then launch products that, from the perspective of a brand in the brick-and-mortar world, have as low as zero market share. But in the world of unbranded search on Amazon and other retailers, they’re enormous players.”

So who is winning on Amazon?

Profitero analyzed our Amazon FastMovers reports between January-May 2016 to rank the best-selling products at Amazon in several key categories. We then identified the number of products that featured in the top 100 best sellers by brand to determine best-selling brands by category....

The e-retailer, which has had trouble getting some apparel manufacturers to sell to it wholesale, is now selling apparel for women, men and kids under its own brands. Here’s a close look at these Amazon brands and their prospects.

Amazon.com Inc. over the last eight months rolled out a series of Amazon-owned private-label apparel brands. The lines follow through on plans previously hinted at by Amazon executives, and represent a way for Amazon to become a bigger force in apparel, a segment where it’s been limited by the reluctance of some higher-end fashion brands to sell to Amazon.

KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Edward Yruma identified the brands in a research note released earlier this week based on his research. Amazon has not commented or confirmed the brands directly, but Internet Retailer located trademark applications filed by Amazon Technologies Inc. for six of the seven brands dating to March 2015. Amazon did not respond to inquiries....

Subscription services have become popular among online shoppers, but those same shoppers are also abandoning these services.

Through these subscriptions, customers make recurring payments and receive order shipments at regular intervals, and they have become popular because they let consumers refill products they need to replenish often, such as health and beauty products.

These services typically personalize orders based on a shopper's interests and style, which the companies often learn through connected social media accounts and quizzes. This experience mirrors the personalized service customers would get inside brick-and-mortar stores from sales associates.

So interest in these services has remained high, as 10% of U.S. shoppers have enrolled in one, and another 33% would consider doing so, according to the latest UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper report.

But satisfaction in these services is dropping, as 61% of those who have signed up have since canceled. And there are four main reasons why....