This week’s roundup features major seller updates, including Amazon’s game-changing partnership with QuickBooks that will transform seller accounting in 2025. We also dive into Amazon’s new car dealership venture with Hyundai, fresh holiday shopping data showing TikTok Shop’s explosive growth, and essential COSMO search optimization strategies that could boost your visibility.
QuickBooks Integration Coming to Amazon Seller Central in 2025
Amazon’s millions of third-party sellers will be able to bring their sales and inventory data into Intuit QuickBooks through a new integration. The companies are targeting mid-2025 to bring the product to market, starting with sellers in the U.S. Amazon’s marketplace accounts for more than half of all goods sold by the retailer.
Amazon’s Online Car ‘Dealership’ with Hyundai is Now Live
Amazon has officially entered the automotive retail space through a partnership with Hyundai, allowing customers in 48 US cities to browse, order, and finance vehicles directly through Amazon’s platform, while working around dealership laws by keeping dealers involved in the final sale process and offering a $2,300 gift card incentive for early adopters through January 10th, 2025.
Holiday Spending is Flat So Far in 2024, TikTok Shop Pulls Ahead
Overall holiday spending shows minimal growth (0.1% YoY) through early December, but TikTok Shop has emerged as a dominant force with 225.9% YoY growth, while Amazon experienced a slight decline (-0.5% YoY) post-Cyber Week, signaling a significant shift in the e-commerce landscape that brands should monitor.
Small Businesses Handling Shorter Holiday Shopping Season With Earlier Promotions
With only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2024 (versus 32 days last year), small businesses are adapting by launching promotions earlier and creating unique shopping experiences, while retail sales are still expected to grow 2.5-3.5% compared to last year, with online shopping projected to increase by 8.4%.
Amazon Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2024 Recap and Key Takeaways
Envision Horizons’ Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2024 report reveals key shifts in Amazon shopping behavior, from evolving peak sales hours to changing advertising costs, with unique insights from our client portfolio demonstrating 45.8% YoY growth during the “Turkey 12” promotional period.
Amazon and E-Commerce News From LinkedIn Experts:
Post From Joe Shelerud:
How does a $1 bid become $200?
AMC for Sponsored Ads provides a lot of opportunities, but there’s a lot of room for mistakes, too. One of the biggest? Not considering compounding bid multipliers. Sponsored Products now offers three levers for bid modifications:
1. Bidding Strategy
- Dynamic up & down: Up to 100% increase
- Fixed: No impact
- Dynamic down only: Reduces bids
2. Placement
- Top of Search: Up to 900%
- Product Page: Up to 900%
- Rest of Search: Up to 900%
3. AMC Audience Bid Boosting: Up to 900%
These modifications compound and if you aren’t taking them all into account when making changes, things could go awry quickly.
Here’s an example of an extreme bid increase. Say you have a $1 bid… With Dynamic Up and Down as your bidding strategy, that bid could become $2. Plus, a 900% TOS setting will 10x that $2 bid to $20. Add a max 900% bid boost to the AMC audience and that original $1 bid becomes… $200.
So a word to the wise: Check your bid modifiers and check them again!
Post From Matthew Kelly:
Digital Shelf drives Footfall: Just ask Target “Digital doesn’t drive store visits” – Target proved everyone wrong.
Success Story: How Target turned digital shelf excellence into physical footfall
The Challenge: Target needed to connect online research with offline shopping behaviour during the post-pandemic shift.
Connected Commerce Approach:
- Enhanced digital shelf with local inventory visibility
- Integrated store-specific product pages
- Launched “Drive Up” digital ordering
- Implemented unified digital shelf across web & app
Real Results: 95% of online orders fulfilled by stores
80% of digital orders ready in under 2 hours
Same-day services grew 111%
Drive Up sales increased 97%
Store traffic up 6.4% YoY through digital touchpoints
The Breakthrough: Target found 75% of customers checking digital shelf inventory before visiting stores, driving $27B in store-influenced sales.
Key Learning: Your digital shelf isn’t just an eCommerce platform – it’s your store’s new front door.
Post From Spencer Millerberg:
On the 2nd Day of COSMO SEARCH, Amazon gave to me… purchase-graphics (and killed off demographics). Purchase-graphics are customers purchase behaviors and usage situations. They help COSMO customize search results based on their past purchases.
For example: -> Bought electrical tools & Carhart coat… likely works outdoors -> Bought a kayak… a sporty outdoors person -> Bought arthritis pain reliever… interested in ergonomic items Let’s apply using OXO as an example. OXO was created by Sam Farber for his wife Betsy who struggled with arthritis. Their peeler features a wide, oval-shaped handle designed for comfort. While OXO’s Peelers are on the ‘nice list’ for reducing arthritis pain… their PDP is getting coal. Our research shows OXO’s Peeler is only correctly optimized for 2 generic keywords, and fails on all keywords related to purchase-graphics.
Key COSMO Search Questions to Consider:
Q2: What event is your product used for?
- Cooking events: Mashed potatoes, soups, lunches, apples
Q4: Which audience – (job to be done)?
- People with arthritis/limited grip strength
- General kitchen users needing easy peeling
Q14: Who is your audience – (life stage)?
- Older people, seniors, home cooks
- Those prioritizing ease over cost
Amazon’s search is becoming more user-specific. To maximize search volume, you must instruct COSMO AI on both keywords and audience fit through your content. Need help? Detail Page’s patented technology can help optimize your catalog.
Post From Scott Needham:
Top 10 Grocery Amazon Sellers
1. Anthony’s Goods
2. Terrasoul Superfoods
3. Thoughtfully Gifts
4. Chomps Snack Sticks
5. Poppi
6. Maud’s Coffee & Tea
7. IQBAR
8. 138 Brands (It’s Just)
9. Death Wish Coffee Co
10. Alani Nu
Takeaways:
- All Based in the USA. A fantastic category to be differentiated from Chinese Sellers. True challenger brands that can break into Brick and Mortar are born here.
- Coffee and Drinks make up 6 out of the 10. Winner: Caffeine Loser: Sleep
- High Repeat Purchase Rate. This category lives by repeat customers. If they didn’t capture a significant amount of repeat purchases, they wouldn’t make it to the top 10.
Data Generated from SmartScout
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