Is It Day Two at Amazon? Experts Navigate the Retail Giant’s Next Phase of eCommerce Growth

Article by: Lauren Stair

January 17, 2023

• Strategy and Thought Leadership

In this video, we bring exclusive insights from industry experts who will take you on a journey through Amazon’s current state and the next phase of its eCommerce growth.

From the latest trends in online shopping to new technologies driving growth, our experts dive into the strategies Amazon uses to stay ahead of the curve and continue to dominate the eCommerce industry.

👉 The Current State of Amazon

00:00:00 Heather Geurkink 

There is the big question that, is Amazon going anywhere?

00:00:03 Heather Geurkink 

Are they becoming a thing of the past?

00:00:05 John Ghiorso 

Yeah, there’s this narrative right now of, like, is it Day Two? Is it finally Day Two?

00:00:09 Heather Geurkink 

And I don’t think it is, because I think that there are still those types of innovations that people aren’t looking several layers deeper to figure out what’s the strategy here. 

00:00:20 Heather Geurkink 

And that convenience piece; if they continue to innovate around that, they have long-term value for decades to come. 

00:00:25 John Ghiorso 

So, here’s a question for you. 

00:00:29 John Ghiorso 

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about. 

00:00:31 John Ghiorso 

I read it for the company; it’s not Day Two. 

00:00:33 John Ghiorso 

I think the stuff that they’re doing in services and retail is just getting started. Streaming, a lot of stuff that we’ve talked about.

👉 Core eCommerce Business

00:00:40 John Ghiorso 

For the core eCommerce business, is it Day Two? Like do we expect a significant amount of change in innovation there? 

00:00:49 John Ghiorso 

You know, in the core business itself, or is that just sort of like, it is what it is. 

00:00:53 John Ghiorso 

We’re trying to make it a little bit profitable, and stable. We’ll hit our 15 percent year-over-year growth rate.

00:01:01 Heather Geurkink 

It’s difficult to say because I think that some of what you’re saying resonates and you know I can’t speak to it too directly, but there are some things that I saw that are indicators of, you know, let’s squeeze blood from the stone, and let’s continue to focus on profitability and how, you know.

00:01:21 Heather Geurkink 

There was a lot of remarks from former Amazonians who said, you know, there is no innovation anymore, it’s optimizing for BPS. 

00:01:29 Heather Geurkink 

And we’re optimizing for BPS. We’re doing these things in order to kind of continue to drive what we can from the existing business as opposed to growing and innovating. 

00:01:38 Heather Geurkink 

But you know, going back to our conversation, things like the in-streaming shopping is going to change it, and they’re thinking about these things. 

00:01:46 Heather Geurkink 

They’re ahead of it and one of the, you know, sort of modalities of Amazon is that they think about: 

Let’s invest in 20 different things.  And five of them will land and in the next five years, become a viable revenue driver number.

00:02:00 John Ghiorso 

Yeah, it’s basically the venture capital model. 

00:02:05 Heather Geurkink 

Absolutely. And they do such an amazing job at it. 

00:02:07 Heather Geurkink 

I think there’s a lot of chatter about Amazon continuing to cut jobs and I think, it’s all people who don’t understand the long game. 

00:02:16 John Ghiorso 

Yeah no, that’s interesting. 

00:02:17 John Ghiorso 

I think, the sort of the paradigm that I’m starting to kind of land on here is that the core eCommerce may be becoming a business that doesn’t look that much different three years from now than it does today, but all of the other things surrounding it, which by the way, if you’re approaching this from a brand perspective; that’s the stuff you really like, you need to optimize core. 

00:02:43 John Ghiorso 

Which is, you need to be operationally proficient. 

00:02:45 John Ghiorso 

You know all the kind of fast-track stuff. All the basics, but then where you want to innovate are the places where Amazon is focusing on innovation as well. 

00:02:53 John Ghiorso 

You know, advertising, streaming, physical retail. These things that kind of surround this core business that at some point, may just run into, you know, the lawl of big numbers and it just gets to a size where they do just start optimizing for BPS.

00:03:11 John Ghiorso 

But then to gain leverage from the brand side, you focus where they’re focusing and kind of the fast-moving innovative part

👉 Growing with Amazon Drone Deliveries

00:03:20 Heather Geurkink 

Here’s my guidance to you is if you ever wonder, is eCommerce over? Have we tapped out? Which we know the answer to. 

00:03:30 Heather Geurkink 

But you just have to ask yourself, as a customer, where is there room for growth? And think about things like drone delivery. 

00:03:39 John Ghiorso 

Yeah, sure. 

00:03:40 John Ghiorso 

Well I think like online grocery. 

00:03:40 Heather Geurkink 

We haven’t had it, like it’s been teased.

00:03:41 Heather Geurkink 

There is still so much, if we just think about our expectations and putting on, you know, the most finicky customer hat possible: There is so much room for growth and innovation; it’s not over. 

00:03:52 John Ghiorso 

Yeah I agree, and I do look at some of the categories that were sort of later to the game in eCommerce, like grocery and fashion. And I look at that and go, there’s a lot of room for improvement here.

00:04:03 John Ghiorso 

And I’m like the ultimate eCommerce, you know, fan. I really, genuinely don’t like shopping in stores. 

00:04:12 John Ghiorso 

I try to buy everything online, and you know groceries is like oftentimes an experience that leaves a lot to be desired. 

00:04:20 Heather Geurkink 

There’s so much more we can do. 

00:04:23 Heather Geurkink 

I’ve thought about a lot of big ideas around smart products and integrating sort of like, this digital experience of, here’s my fridge. 

👉 The Power of Visualization

00:04:33 Heather Geurkink 

I can log on to Amazon, see exactly what’s in there, integrate to my smart fridge, and know when to automatically reorder things through visualization. 

00:04:42 John Ghiorso 

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s the sort of, you know, using avatars and scans and stuff in the fashion realm; I feel like that is something that is going to happen in the next couple of years.