Amazon Closes the Book on Book Depository, Underscoring eCommerce’s Evolution
BY PYMNTS | APRIL 7, 2023
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Every so often, we get a reminder of how far we’ve come —– and where we’ve come from.
It’s hard to recall, at least for some of us, that eCommerce has its roots, in some respects, in the stacks, so to speak — where selling books eventually, over decades, led to always-on, global interactions between buyers and sellers.
In the year 2023, eCommerce holds sway, and devices in our collective hands ensure that we can satisfy every impulse to shop, compare prices, and get items delivered to the doorstep, sometimes within an hour.
This week’s news that Amazon is shuttering the U.K.-based Book Depository underscores how the online juggernaut has recalibrated, and still is revamping, its business model.
As reported, the online bookseller, an early Amazon competitor snapped up in 2011, is taking orders through April 26, and will provide support for those orders through the third week of June. In terms of scale and reach, Book Depository has shipped books from the U.K. to customers across 100 countries.
Eyeing Cost Cuts with Books in Focus
Amazon had telegraphed the move, at least in part, noting in recent posts from CEO Andy Jassy that layoffs would be coming across several divisions, including the books business. In doing so, we’d note that Amazon is trimming costs, yes, but bringing different “brands” (added to the company through acquisitions) more fully in-house.
The company has also been closing physical locations here and across the pond (physical bookstores have been a casualty). As Amazon is scaling back its cashierless Go stores, there’s more emphasis on seamless omnichannel commerce. Getting that fluid cross-channel momentum in place is a work in progress. As Amazon told PYMNTS per a company spokesperson in reference to the closing of several Amazon Go locations, “like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way.”
Amazon traces its genesis back to the early 1990s and Jeff Bezos’s garage. And its first forays were in online bookselling, taking on everyone from Barnes & Noble to Borders to B. Dalton.
And now, as PYMNTS data has shown, the company has a commanding lead in eCommerce, taking roughly half of all digital retail spending. And more recently, the company has been targeting its efforts to bring outside merchants onto the platform — and into the ecosystem — with logistics and fulfillment thrown into the mix and Buy With Prime getting a boost, too. Streaming media and music, and original content would have been scarcely imaginable decades ago when selling and shipping books seemed a disruptive business model.
A chapter ends – at least in the book business – and for Amazon, the story of constant re-invention continues.
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Kasheesh Adds Mobile Wallet Feature to Payment-Splitting Platform
BY ASHLEY REAMSMISTRETTA | APRIL 7, 2023
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mobile wallet
Kasheesh has launched a feature that lets consumers use its payment-splitting platform in physical stores.
The new Mobile Wallet Dashboard allows users to generate a one-time-use Visa card at retailers that accept mobile payments, and to split purchases between debit, credit and prepaid cards, Kasheesh said in a Thursday (April 6) press release.
“We couldn’t be more excited to get our groundbreaking technology in the actual hands of users when they need it most, shopping on the go, dealing with unexpected situations on the fly, and sharing their card number in physical locations,” Kasheesh Co-founder and CEO Sam Miller said in the release.
PYMNTS research has found that mobile wallets are an increasingly viable alternative payment method at the point of sale (POS) and online and that consumers are increasingly interested in using them to manage their finances.
Two in five consumers believe mobile wallets can replace all the items traditionally stored in physical wallets, according to “The Mobile Wallet Challenge: Replacing Physical With Digital,” a PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration.
That’s especially true among younger consumers. The report found that 51% of Generation Z consumers said that their mobile wallet can replace most of the features of their physical wallet.
Payment innovation is also seen as increasingly critical to retail stores.
Having multiple digital payment options was seen by 89% of retail executives as necessary to customer retention and growth, according to “Navigating Big Retail’s Digital Shift,” another PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration.
Kasheesh’s new mobile wallet feature joins the company’s platform that can already be used to split payment for online purchases, according to the press release.
Whether used for in-store or online purchases, payment splitting allows shoppers to maximize rewards across cards, sustainably build credit scores and reduce the cost burden on each card, the release said.
“With Kasheesh’s first in market mobile one-time use card, users can have the convenience of carrying their whole wallet of credit, debit and gift cards on the go, with the security of not bringing a single card with them,” Kasheesh Head of Product Pat Flahive said in the release. “This adds to the unparalleled flexibility that Kasheesh already offers with its proprietary payment-splitting technology.”
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