[Study] Amazon has gigabytes' worth of data on you

Problems and Solutions

I requested a copy of the data Amazon has on me and got 1.28GB worth of information.

After looking into the files, we found some very interesting things that gave us an idea what metrics Amazon prioritizes and how important external links are.

What information does Amazon collect?

Will Amazon Accept Bitcoin?

After adding a buy now pay later option through Affirm, Amazon is now partnering with PayPal to accept Venmo payments starting next year.

This feature will be limited to US consumers since Venmo is not international. However, the app has a crypto wallet, which makes us wonder whether Amazon will soon be accepting cryptocurrency.

Crowded Ports, Empty Shelves

Cargo ships have been stuck for weeks in US ports as the country’s infrastructure struggles to keep up with increasing import volumes.

Like a procrastinating college student, the government is trying to deal with backlogs, with President Biden ready to throw $17 billion to improve ports through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.

Supply chain issues aren’t new, but the pandemic took them to another level. Since the spread of COVID-19, containers coming into the United States have increased by 30 percent. Unfortunately, a lot of these containers contain perishables.

Even Amazon has reduced restock limits because of the crisis, and Walmart and Target have started taking advantage of the round-the-clock port operations to keep up with the holiday demand.

As if these problems are not enough, China has experienced a new COVID outbreak, and the government is looking into further lockdowns to contain the virus. We’re expecting it can worsen the situation further, especially for ecommerce business owners who import from China.

Consumers are already feeling the effects of the supply chain crisis. In October, around 2 billion out-of-stock messages were received by US customers while they were shopping online.

Amazon vs. Fake Grill Covers

Twelve third-party sellers are facing a lawsuit filed jointly by Amazon and Weber after they sold counterfeit products originally produced by the latter.

The case, filed before the District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleged that the sellers advertised and sold inauthentic grill covers that contained the Weber trademark. 

Unsurprisingly, most of these sellers have registered business addresses in China, including Guangdong, Huangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Jiangxi. One of the sellers registered their address as Pompano Beach, Florida, but both Amazon and Weber believe this is false information given to mislead them.

Weber is enrolled in Brand Registry and Project Zero, which helped them discover the violation along with conducting test purchases.

The sellers’ accounts have already been closed and Amazon has refunded the customers who have fallen victim to the counterfeiting.

More Ways to Make Money on Facebook

As Marky Zucky pushes forward with his Metaverse, his team is launching features that will attract more content creators to Facebook.

How?

Money, of course.

Facebook is giving Groups a makeover, and admins will soon have access to features that can help them start fundraisers, create shops within the group, and collect membership fees for paid subgroups.

In addition to these new money-making tools, Groups will become more customizable and will even allow greeting messages to welcome new members.

These changes are part of Facebook’s plan to be the place for content creators, rivaling other sites like TikTok, Youtube, and Snapchat.

Whether Facebook will successfully distract people away from dancing to Nicki Minaj’s I Get Crazy, we’ll still have to see.

However, Facebook Groups are already a great way to build a community with like-minded people. We should know. Our private group on the platform is where our EcomCrew Premium members interact with one another.

Quit Relying on PPC

This isn’t the first time we’ll mention the importance of driving external traffic on Amazon, and it won’t be the last. PPC costs continue to climb, and influencer marketing is getting stronger.

There are advantages in driving external traffic to Amazon:

• You don’t pay per click, and you’ll potentially reach more people for a lower cost.
• You’ll have more high-quality leads because your potential customers are viewing your listing upon the recommendation of someone they trust.
• A lot of techniques that drive external traffic into Amazon work long-term.

We still use PPC ads, but simply relying on Amazon to get your products to the right audience just isn’t cost-effective.

If you want to know how we set up systems to continually get more leads off Amazon, join us on November 24 at 10 AM (PST) for a public webinar.

The holidays are coming, and for a lot of us, Q4 sales are historically the biggest. So don’t miss out.

Sign up for the webinar