Amazon has announced the financial results for the first quarter of 2024. As usual, it has also shared an interesting report directed at shareholders and other stakeholders, detailing various interesting insights for sellers.
Let’s take a quick look at the results achieved by the American giant. We will then focus on the aspects that concern sellers more directly.
How did the first quarter of 2024 go?
Amazon’s quarterly report (downloadable here in pdf) reveals record numbers, which largely exceeded analysts’ expectations:
- revenue is up 13% to $143.3 billion. It was $127.4 billion in the first quarter of 2023;
- operating income also performed well, increasing to $15.3 billion. This figure contrasts with $4.8 billion the year before;
- net income also saw significant growth, rising to $10.4 billion ($0.98 per share). It was $3.2 billion ($0.31 per share) in the previous year;
- other economic and financial metrics also increased significantly. Operating cash flow, for example, rose to $99.1 billion (+82%). Free cash flow grew to $50.1 billion (compared to -$3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2023).
That said, let’s try to understand the main highlights contained in the company’s comprehensive report.
Improving customer experience: messages to sellers
Among the main elements highlighted in the quarterly report, Amazon has hit the mark on what it calls a true obsession: making the customer experience increasingly satisfying.
With this premise, the company founded by Jeff Bezos has listed dozens of achievements for the development of a better user experience and outlined several guidelines for future goals.
In this context, some insights also concern European sellers. Although the references this time are less profound than in the past, moments of reflection were certainly not lacking.
Fast deliveries
In this regard, there has been a clear focus on fast deliveries. The communication particularly emphasizes that in the world’s major metropolitan areas, 3 out of 4 purchases were delivered on the same day or the next.
The frequency with which Amazon emphasizes the need to ensure faster deliveries suggests that ensuring timeliness and accuracy will become something that sellers will hardly be able to ignore.
By the way, do you know how to properly manage warehouse and shipping on Amazon?
Launch of famous brands
Amazon also expresses its desire to promote an increasing number of famous brands with which it is collaborating. This mainly concerns the USA. However, it is worth remembering that there are also notable examples in Europe. For example, Amazon announced a collaboration with Hardly Ever Worn It to offer used luxury brand items.
The new Prime Day
Amazon has confirmed that customers have shown great appeal for special sales and promotions. Since its clientele is particularly price-conscious, it has thus confirmed Prime Day in July, the tenth event of its kind. For sellers, the need to prepare immediately is crucial: we have discussed this several times, even during the last Prime Day in 2023.
Pharma and Food will become progressively important
Among the sectors where Amazon wants to increase its positioning, the Pharma & Food combination seems to be a priority for the group’s strategies. In the USA, convenience has been extended to medical care, with more products available through Amazon Pharmacy home deliveries. In Food, a subscription for unlimited groceries delivery for orders over $35 has been launched, from Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh, and more. For now, the novelties concern the USA, but Europe also seems to be in the spotlight.
Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly prominent role
The group has detailed how customers and partners are using AWS generative artificial intelligence services. It is not surprising, of course, that the purpose is to ensure increasingly sophisticated user experiences. For example, Amazon has already announced the widest availability of Amazon Q. At the same time, it has integrated a series of innovations into Amazon Bedrock.
It is also interesting to note that Amazon has declared adding generative AI features for its sellers in the United States. The goal, not unique, is to facilitate the creation of product listings. For this reason, they have introduced a new tool that allows sellers to leverage listings on their websites simply by providing Amazon with a URL.
According to the report, Amazon’s AI generative features are able to automatically analyze information to create high-quality listings for the Amazon store. It’s hard to imagine that this could completely replace human intervention. However, the communication opens the door to the possibility that this function could further improve and simplify the process of creating product listings, saving time and effort for sellers.
In the light of these latest developments, we remind all our readers interested in improving performance on Amazon that our suite of tools for sellers is available for a free trial: take advantage of it here!
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