Amazon UK reveals 2017 trends

Amazon UK has released its 2017 trend report, revealing what its customers are most likely to order, what they are reading, listening to and watching, as well as highlighting its growth in the UK, the success of its private fashion label, and that its Fire Stick and Echo Dot continue to be bestsellers.

Black Friday was a huge milestone for the retailer, as it has been confirmed as the busiest day of the year so far for Amazon UK. This was helped by Amazon hosting its first pop-up in central London, which showcased a curated selection of its deals to customers, alongside workshops hosted by Amazon Handmade artisans.

The increase in trade has also led to Amazon creating an additional 5,000 full-time jobs this year, taking its UK workforce to over 24,000, and they have also announced that they would open two more fulfilment centres in Bristol and Bolton in 2018.

This year the retailer also opened a development centre in Cambridge with space for 400 people, and this summer opened the doors to its new UK head office at Principal Place in Shoreditch, which doubled the capacity of its London development centre from 450 to 900 high-tech staff, as well as housing other corporate roles from across the company.

Amazon’s Find boosts fashion offering

2017, has also been a big year for Amazon when it comes to their fashion offering, they’ve launched their own label, Find, they took part in its first-ever London Fashion Week showcase with the Nicopanda capsule collection, which was available as ‘see now buy now’, and they debut Tommy Hilfiger’s ‘Tommy Now’ collection during fashion week.

Find, Amazon Fashion’s private label, launched with a debut collection of statement outfit building pieces such as wide leg cropped jeans and hot pink sock boots, as well as timeless staples including a plaid trend coat, slogan tees and denim styles.

To boost its appeal Amazon launched its first ever advertising campaign across Europe, showcasing eight statement looks for the new season, this has led to the check double-breasted jacket featured in the campaign being the most popular selling item, closely followed by the Heroiques logo T-Shirt and the red floral wrap dress.

Amazon also tied in its fashion into its Prime offering with ‘See Now, Prime Now’ for its exclusive Nicopanda capsule collection, which made its debut at the label’s first-ever London Fashion Week catwalk show. Following the event, Amazon Prime customers were able to buy the collection with 1-2 hour delivery in London, and one-day delivery across Europe offered.

According to the report, Prime Now is now also available to more than 30 percent of the UK population in selected postcodes and customers can choose delivery within one hour of ordering, or delivery within a choice of two hour, same-day delivery slots from morning till night.

AmazonSmile launches to raise money for UK charities

Another key launch was in November, when Amazon introduced AmazonSmile, which enables customers to raise money for UK charities every time they shop at smile.amazon.co.uk. Customers shopping through AmazonSmile enjoy the same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience they know through Amazon, but with the added bonus that the e-commerce giant will donate 0.5 percent of the net purchase price of eligible products to ten UK charities.

Half of all sales on Amazon’s global sites are by third-party businesses

This year has also seen the growth of the marketplace, as half of all sales on Amazon’s global sites are by third-party small and medium-sized enterprises selling on Amazon Marketplace. Key sellers on the marketplace in the UK includes clothing business, Character.com and footwear brand Redfoot Shoes, a family-run business that has created 35 local jobs selling via the marketplace.

To assist these SMEs, Amazon has created a suite of support tools to help them export their products overseas, including managing currency exchange, local translations, and global delivery and distribution. Of the tens of thousands of British businesses selling on Amazon Marketplace, over 60 percent of them export around the world.

Images: courtesy of Amazon