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Prime Now Seen Helping Amazon Gain Vs. Retailers Wal-Mart, Target

With the Amazon.com ( AMZN ) one-hour delivery app Prime Now , it’s possible to order a big-screen television on New Year’s day from a mobile phone and still catch that day’s football bowl games. This capability is going to help Amazon destroy the advantage that Wal-Mart ( WMT ), Target ( TGT ) and others hope to gain by offering online orders, in-store pickup and stores as warehouses for online deliveries, according to a Wells Fargo analyst. Though ordering a TV from a smartphone and having it delivered immediately is not a typical use of Prime Now, Amazon’s app has caught on with consumers. The Seattle-based giant has brought the service to 26 markets in just over a year. It’s part of the company’s move to dominate “Need It Now” shopping, Wells Fargo analyst Matt Nemer wrote in a research note late Monday. Prime Now members must be members of the company’s Amazon Prime loyalty program, which costs $99 a year. Amazon Prime includes free two-day shipping, free video streaming and a host of other perks. Those perks include Prime Now, which offers free two-hour shipping of roughly 30,000 products in markets where it’s available, and one-hour shipping for $7.99 per delivery. Amazon’s push may eliminate a key advantage of physical retailers — the last-mile convenience of being able to get something immediately. As that advantage disappears, so do other advantages touted by brick-and-mortar stores, such as the ability to pick up an online order quickly at your local store. Prime Now is gaining even in food delivery, Nemer says. He says that Prime Now has a better app for Apple ( AAPL ) iOS users than Google Express, the Alphabet ( GOOGL ) food delivery service. Wal-Mart, Target and other retailers have struggled to compete with Amazon’s growth rate and innovation — especially around customer loyalty programs. Target recently launched its Red Card loyalty program. Amazon stock was up nearly 1%, near 567, in afternoon trading on the stock market today. In the research note, Nemer says that Prime Now, though not currently profitable, helps Amazon retain Prime member loyalty and will, with scale, become profitable. Prime also gives the company opportunities to experiment — for example, selling products in smaller pack sizes or offering high-turnaround fresh groceries that would be impossible to sell on Amazon.com. Nemer says that Amazon’s delivery of local food items “suggests” that it may compete with food-delivery platforms like GrubHub ( GRUB ) and privately held Uber’s UberEats. It’s also possible, Nemer says, that Amazon could begin to eat into convenience store market share. If Amazon can deliver small-pack sizes for lower prices with free delivery, convenience stores could have trouble competing, he says.

5 Weird Things That Have Been Listed On eBay

On eBay ( EBAY ), you can buy one year’s worth of work — to be completed in little more than four months. While that listing may be a joke — it appears not to be — over the years eBay has garnered fame and infamy for the sometimes weird items and services people have listed on the popular e-tail website. And last week was no different. On Feb. 25, a prankster listed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi on the site after the president reportedly said, “By God, if it were possible for me to be sold, I would sell myself,” in an address on state television . His condition was listed as “slightly used” and the seller would not accept returns. Bidding surpassed $100,000 before eBay pulled the listing. Unlike many of eBay’s e-commerce rivals such as Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Wal-Mart ( WMT ) and even PayPal ( PYPL ), the San Jose-based company’s platform is set up in such a way that bizarre items are almost inevitable (though it is worth noting that you can buy some pretty weird stuff on Amazon as well). In that spirit, here’s a look at some of my favorite odd listings that have appeared on eBay: 1. As noted above, this one is currently live on the site . Listed is “one year of work equivalent to 2,000 hours of specialized labor over 4.25 months.” For $150,000 a “loyal, dedicated and tireless contractor” will labor 16 hours a day, seven days a week with no break or lunch — for projects like painting, light construction work and “bamboo plant propagation.” EBay spokeswoman Penny Bruce told IBD the listing is indeed in compliance with the company’s policies. 2. Another odd auction — again, completely legit — was the World’s Largest BBQ Pit offered by a Texas man for the princely sum of $350,000. The 76-foot-long truck trailer has 24 barbecue pit doors, a walk-in cooler, beer taps and a “place for stereo equipment” and TV. The truck cab was an extra $50,000. It sold. 3. In 2004, a man tried to sell an F-18 warplane via eBay for $1 million. Ultimately, the fighter jet did not sell — it used to be a Blue Angel-owned aircraft — but it did attract the attention of the FBI, which told the seller that the plane had to remain in the U.S. 4. The last of our favorite weird items sold via eBay is a letter that Nobel Prize winning physicist Albert Einstein sent to philosopher Eric Gutkind shortly before Einstein’s death. The letter references philosophical  and theological themes, and expresses Einstein’s belief that God does not exist. It sold for … $3 million.

Instant Gratification A Hit For Amazon.com With Prime Now

With the lofty goal of delivering vast swaths of his mighty e-commerce firm’s sprawling inventory within one hour, Amazon.com ( AMZN ) CEO Jeff Bezos has struck cybergold — shoppers have flocked to the latest iteration of his Amazon Prime loyalty program, Prime Now. Amazon executives have described rapid delivery as both difficult and expensive — and have acknowledged that customers love it. And Amazon loves its customers, so much that Bezos repeatedly has said the company will forego profits to please them. Cowen & Co. Tuesday released results of its survey of 1,200 Amazon Prime customers that it says shows one in four already have adopted Prime Now. It’s basically free. With order via a mobile app, Prime Now will deliver a large number of Amazon-bought goods within two hours in areas of the nation where the service is available. Customers can use the app for one-hour delivery as well, but there’s a $7.99 charge for that. Prime Now is one Amazon salvo in a multiyear campaign to snatch more of the household budget. Amazon.com stock was up more than 3.5%, near 573, in afternoon trading on the stock market today . The company carries an IBD Composite Rating of 78, where 99 is the highest. Cowen analyst John Blackledge, in the research report, says that Bezos’ approach with Prime Now complements Amazon’s same-day and two-day services, and adds more value to its grocery operations Pantry and Fresh. Wal-Mart Vs. Amazon Heating Up Wal-Mart ( WMT ) — by far the largest brick-and-mortar retailer — makes bank on its grocery business, which accounts for about half of its top line, according to ChannelAdvisor ( ECOM ) Executive Chairman Scot Wingo. But Amazon is encroaching on Wal-Mart’s business. “We view Prime Now as one of the pathways Amazon is using to gain share in the $1 trillion grocery market,” Blackledge wrote. “Our early survey work suggests the strategy is working.” The survey indicated that 70% of those responding bought goods via Prime Now multiple times a month — and about a third of shoppers bought groceries from a local store that elected to list its items on Prime Now. The service is available in 24 markets that account for nearly half of the U.S. gross domestic product, says Blackledge. Food delivery is available in seven markets. Prime Now’s success is also a blow to eBay ( EBAY ), which continues to struggle to maintain relevancy for shoppers. Plagued by problems such as a significant data breach and SEO challenges following a change in Alphabet ( GOOGL ) subsidiary Google’s search engine algorithm, eBay has been unable to match Amazon’s double-digital growth rate. Disagreeing with recent investor sentiment — eBay stock has had a choppy beginning to 2016 — Wells Fargo analyst Matt Nemer says that eBay has potential, albeit as a hedge against a potentially slowing global economy. And for its part, eBay has been making significant bets on restructuring the way it lists items. But as Amazon continues to innovate its way to riches, some say that its position as the dominant e-tailer is impenetrable . That hasn’t stopped rivals, however. Privately held Jet.com is making a stab, also offering two-day shipping, and Alibaba ( BABA )-backed ShopRunner is also taking aim at Amazon. ShopRunner executives have told IBD that the company plans to take on Amazon in categories where the Seattle-based company doesn’t have a strong foothold, such as fashion.