If you follow our blog, then you will already be aware that 2016 has been a busy year for online retail giant, Amazon, who has been rolling out a series of innovative services and technology solutions. With the end of 2016 in sight, we thought it was about time to take a look at the most recent Amazon innovations.
In July this year, Amazon launched a new marketplace dedicated to kickstarter projects. This was made available on the company’s Amazon Launchpad digital storefront for hardware start-ups and crowd-funded projects.
The ultimate goal of Amazon’s Kickstarter marketplace, is to help those who have had successful Kickstarter campaigns keep the sales funnel alive by offering their products directly to Amazon customers. At launch, the Kickstarter Collection included more than 300 successfully crowd-funded products, with that number constantly on the rise.
Amazon have been strategically increasing their physical presence over the past two years, and now the online giant may be looking to open a series of convenience stores, in addition to possible drive-through grocery pick-up sites.
The stores would sell a small number of perishable goods such as milk, meat and vegetables, with shoppers also being able to order non-perishable items for same-day delivery, rather than immediate pick-up in store.
Amazon’s long-rumored on-demand music streaming service is now officially available! The company is launching its new service under the name of Amazon Music Unlimited, and it already offers a catalogue of tens of millions of songs, a recommendations engine to surface new music, algorithmic and hand-made playlists, and apps for Android, iOS, Sonos, and desktop.
Amazon has done a number of things to differentiate Music Unlimited from its competitors, but the most notable one is its price; the service will be available to Amazon Prime members for $7.99 per month or $79 per year, which is cheaper than the premium options offered by Spotify or Apple Music.
After launching in Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and the UK, Amazon Prime has now officially landed in China, giving the company another shot at taking on local online leaders, Alibaba and JD.com.
For about $57, Prime members in China can sign up for a year’s worth of unlimited deliveries from a selection of US-shipped and domestic items. While the price is lower than a Prime membership in the US, Chinese customers won’t have access to video and music streaming services.
Black Friday is just a little more than two weeks away, but Amazon have not been late to re-launch their Black Friday Deals Store, which will be offering new deals as often as every five minutes through to 22nd December.
For the first time this year, Alexa voice shopping will be available for Prime members using devices such as the Echo Dot. This time around, Amazon has also created curated holiday gift guides – one for home and another for electronics, and Watch-a-Deal alerts to keep track of discounts.
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