1. Amazon Coventry announces strike date of 25 January 2023… will it affect you?
The first ever formal strike action by Amazon workers has been announced by the Coventry warehouse for 25 January 2023.
In action organised by the GMB Union, 98% of voting workers moved in favour of a strike after the online giant fell short of their pay requests with a 50p per hour offer.
Amazon’s spokesperson told the BBC that pay rates, depending on location, start at a minimum of between £10.50 and £11.45 per hour, representing a 29% increase in the minimum hourly wage paid to Amazon employees since 2018.
Employees are also offered comprehensive benefits that are worth thousands more – including private medical insurance, life assurance, subsidised meals and an employee discount, to name a few.
Amazon Spokesperson
But the GMB say that workers want a rise in the region of 50%, taking pay to around £15 per hour.
Amazon workers in Coventry have made history – they will be the first ever in the UK to take part in a formal strike. They should be applauded for their grit and determination – fighting for what’s right in the face of an appallingly hostile environment. The fact that they are being forced to go on strike to win a decent rate of pay from one of the world’s most valuable companies should be a badge of shame for Amazon. Amazon can afford to do better. It’s not too late to avoid strike action; get round the table with GMB to improve the pay and conditions of workers.
Amanda Gearing, Senior Organiser, GMB
Will the strike affect you?
Amazon have said it will have “zero impact” on customers, and normal operations will continue.
This is based on the fact that the Coventry site isn’t a fulfilment centre that directly services customer orders, but instead provides stock to its UK centres.
Concerned about this or potential future strike action? Chat contingency planning with our fulfilment team today
2. Amazon Inspire brings a TikTok touch to the marketplace
Rolling out first in the US, 2023 sees Amazon embracing the TikTok world with its Amazon Inspire feature.
Through instantly shoppable short videos and images, Inspire will create a new shopping experience for customers within Amazon Apps (Inspire won’t be available on desktop).
Users first select their interests, and then a shoppable feed is created, personalised with photo and video content initially based on those first selections.
As users engage with content within Amazon Inspire, the algorithm will continually add to the Inspire feed with new interests.
Users will be able to shop as they scroll, learning more about products tagged in in photos and videos, accessing reviews, and adding items to their shopping carts.
An upgraded version of Amazon Live?
It seems Amazon are hoping that Inspire will prove a more successful version of Amazon Live.
Live wasn’t easy to monetise and so Amazon struggled to get creators and influencers engaged.
We imagine Amazon have some fresh ideas in the pipeline around how Inspire can be used to generate reliable income.
But will it be able to compete with the established shopping environments of TikTok and Instagram? Only time will tell…
How will brand content be chosen for Amazon Inspire?
If your Seller account is enrolled in Brand Registry with an active Brand Store, qualifying photos you post to Brand Posts are eligible to appear in Inspire, and would be served to customers who tagged interests relating to your product.
This makes it even more important to look at building your Brand Posts – and there’s no pressing need to create new content just for the marketplace, you could simply cross-post images or videos you’re using elsewhere on your social media channels.
Need a hand to start building your Brand Post presence ready for further rollout of Inspire? Speak to our experts today.
3. Amazon’s EU Commissions Settlement brings good news for non-FBA Retailers
Amazon have announced their settlement in relation to the EU Commissions competition and data concerns that could have resulted in them being levied a huge fine of up to 10% of global revenues – and it’s good news for Retailers…
… especially those who don’t use FBA or feel their offers are always hidden behind a Prime offer from an FBA product.
The EU Commission’s issues included Amazon’s use of non-public marketplace seller data, plus Amazon’s potential bias in granting Sellers access to its Buy Box and its Prime programme.
To address these concerns, the final settlement bars Amazon from using marketplace seller data, and ensures equal access to Buy Box and Prime for all Sellers, whether they use FBA or not.
In full, those Buy Box commitments are:
- To treat all sellers equally when ranking offers for the purposes of selecting the Buy Box winner
- Where a second offer from a different seller is sufficiently different to the first on price and/or delivery, Amazon are to display it as a competing offer to the Buy Box winner. Both offers will display the same descriptive information and provide the same purchasing experience
- To make the second competing Buy Box offer more prominent, and to provide a review mechanism if the presentation is not attracting enough attention from consumers.
Want to ensure your account is fully optimised to take advantage of the Settlement’s outcome? Speak to our team today
4. Struggle to keep your interactions with Buyers organised? Read on…
If you struggle to keep on top of interactions with customers, one recent Amazon update you might have missed could turn out to be your new best friend.
Instead of ongoing threads that get lost in your inbox, UK Sellers can now group Buyer-Seller Messages into Cases.
A feature which could prove to be a huge help in offering a great customer experience, this tool allows you to:
- Create cases to group your messages with the buyer
- Mark cases as resolved once the problem is solved
- Sort messages by order and topic, making it easier to deal with concerns
How to use this tool?
You can opt in simply by clicking the Messages Inbox banner.
Found this useful? Make sure you’re always up-to-date on the latest Amazon news by signing up to our monthly email round-up here!
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