The 80/20 of Ecommerce – July 9, 2021

Bye Bye Uncle Jeff! Bezos steps down as Amazon CEO 

Last Wednesday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has officially stepped down as the company’s chief executive, handing that role over to Andy Jassy, in order to focus on “new products and early initiatives”. Bezos personally chose the date because it’s sentimental to him, it’s the exact day Amazon was incorporated in 1994, 27 years ago.

Bezos will transition to the role of executive chair in Q3, which started on July 1st, the company said. 

Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon Web Services, will take over as CEO of Amazon. 

This is a big change and though Jassy is known to be in line with Bezos’ strategy, this is the first time that Amazon will run without Bezos at the helm.

It will be an interesting Q3 and Q4 as ecommerce continues to boom amid the number of challenges the world is facing.  

The Ever Given is finally leaving the Suez Canal

The Ever Given container ship which got stuck in the Suez Canal carrying 18,300 containers finally was given the clearance to leave this week. 

If you think you are having shipping headaches getting your products shipped from overseas, some unfortunate businesses such as Pearson 1860 which is a bicycle maker based in the UK, had over $100,000 of inventory stuck on the ship for over 3 months according to CNN.

They have “narrowly missed its busiest sales period” as a result. 

Moreover, 7 Figure Seller Summit Speaker Alum Bernie Thompson who runs an 8-Figure electronics private label brand called Plugable “estimates that about $60,000 worth of Plugable’s goods remain stuck on the Ever Given” according to a CNBC report.  

This caused his business to miss out on Prime Day for many of their top products.

This year is definitely a wild one in shipping and logistics!

Amazon competitor Shopify cuts app store fees for developers on first $1 million in revenue

Shopify announced that it’s lowering the share of revenue it collects from developers that publish apps on its app store. developers will keep 100% of their revenue from the first $1 million they make on Shopify’s app store, starting Aug. 1.

Shopify is following in the footsteps of tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon, which have recently reduced fees for some app developers.

According to CNBC, “During a presentation, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said the company is also cutting its commission rates for developers who make more than $1 million annually to 15% from 20%. That’s “half of what other popular app stores cost,” Finkelstein said.”

Could this mean that more developers will flock to Shopify and improve the selling experience?  We will see how this translates in terms of seller volume as well as consumer behavior.  

Here are some things you may have missed from last week:

• China’s manufacturing softens in June amid export weakness
• India Sourcing Network launches on July 2nd, 2021

Exciting news! 7 Figure Seller Summit waitlist is now open, you can reserve you can sign up to be the first to know once we open our doors. This is the pre-event survey:  7FSS5 Pre-event Survey

Have a great day!

Gary