Joe from Marketplace Pulse on 2017 holiday ecommerce

Compared to last year, the issue with scamming which we have discussed at length is no longer a major concern on Amazon. Last year we saw a massive spike in negative feedback/number of scammers as Christmas got closer. This year the number of scam sellers is 75% lower. Customers can feel safer when shopping, and hustling for the best price. We’ll have to wait how this changes over the next 2 weeks, but overall this situation has drastically improved.

In terms of growth in the market we are not seeing big changes compared to last year, outside of the overall growth in online shopping. Cyber Monday and Black Friday were two biggest days, and since then Christmas shopping has begun. December 22nd is the last two-day shipping day on Amazon, so there are just two weeks left.

November and December is when biggest sellers make 30-40% of their total sales for the year. Which means they are working 24/7 right now. It is getting too late to ship products to FBA storage (a few days left), so it is less about inventory management at this point, but more about managing pricing, deals, and promotions. The goal is to sell as much as possible, but also not run out of stock before December 22nd hits. An art of inventory supply and demand balancing to avoid overstocking, but also not selling out too quickly.

Rise of Prime memberships means those using FBA are going to benefit more than last year, and that's why more sellers are using FBA than before. Now the challenge is for UPS and other shipping companies which are struggling to cope with the ever-increasing volume.

This translates to other markets as well. Both eBay and Etsy are doing just as well.

For Etsy Q4 is the biggest quarter by a lot. This year Q4 is going to be the first $1billion quarter on Etsy if sales keep their pace, finishing the year with over $3 billion in sales for the first time ever too. While Amazon gets the most Christmas generic shopping, Etsy gets massive increase in special occasion shopping, with Christmas being the main one. The challenge for sellers there is production, which for handmade products is not as scalable as ordering from distributors for Amazon sellers.

Online sales are up, mobile sales are up even more, and the economy is still strong. I think this Christmas is going the best Christmas yet for many SMB online sellers. Many of them are thankful for the opportunities created by these leading platforms, enabling the smaller players to flourish. For example many small Etsy sellers would struggle without the infrastructure and discovery Etsy provides.

Just a braindump on what is happening at the moment :)