Updates from Amazon.com, Shipt and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Amazon, Target and Dick’s on the move

TRACKING NEWS FROM ACROSS OUR INTERCONNECTED WORLD OF COMMERCE

The hardware and building supply dealers compete for share of wallet with retailers across sectors. That’s why HBSDealer features its Eye on Retail reports each week, to keep tabs on ideas, trends and tactics that are impacting, or may eventually impact, our space.

Here’s some of the latest reports for this industry to keep an eye on.

Layoffs at Amazon

Amazon reported that it will continue efforts to reduce its headcount. The e-tail giant confirmed it will consolidate some positions in its devices and services organization (responsible for product lines such as Amazon Echo and Kindle devices) and has also offered voluntary reductions for some employees in its people, experience, and technology (PXT) organization, will lay off more employees in early 2023.

In a corporate blog post, Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, said there will be more role reductions as its annual planning process continues into early 2023.

Jassy also said the company will notify affected employees and departments ahead of any public layoff announcements. Amazon will try to place laid-off workers in other roles within the company, and provide packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support for employees that cannot be internally placed.

Although Amazon has not made a final selection of the exact number of jobs it will eliminate, a reduction of 10,000 workers would represent the largest layoff in company history, totaling less than 1% of the e-tail giant’s total worldwide workforce and about 3% of its corporate staff.

Shipt offers new features

In time for the holidays, Shipt is upgrading its experience both for customers placing and delivery personnel fulfilling online orders.

The same-day delivery and last-mile company, which was acquired by Target in 2017, is introducing several new tools for its shoppers (Shipt’s term for the contactors who pick and deliver items for customer orders), including:

Drop orders anytime: If a shopper has something come up before they start shipping an order, they no longer need to have a conversation with Shipt. With the click of a button, shoppers can now drop most orders, and Shipt personnel will ensure orders are claimed by another available shopper.

Incorporating chat into apps: Conversations between shoppers and customers will now take place in the Shipt shopper app instead of via SMS text, creating a central hub that keeps order information in one place.

Automatic ratings forgiveness: Soon, Shipt will roll out a new feature that tracks customer rating patterns and helps evaluate when a customer’s poor rating of a shopper should be forgiven.

Shipt has also redesigned its customer experience:

Universal search: A new browsing feature allows customers to first search for the product they’re looking for, and then serves up results across all the retailers that carry that product.

Dick’s builds on resale approach

The nation’s largest sporting goods retailer is making a strategic investment into SidelineSwap, a platform for buying and selling new and used sporting goods. The unspecified investment builds upon a partnership the two companies initially launched in August 2022.

SidelineSwap offers the SidelineSwap Trade-in Platform, which includes pop-up events, in-store and online trade-in options, and a suite of tools for resellers to manage their own trade-in experiences. The Trade-in Platform runs on SidelineSwap’s proprietary marketplace technology and resale data.

The platform’s hybrid model, which includes peerto-peer and first party sales, gives sellers the option to choose direct resale or instant trade-in value. Customers can also find listings on some platform partners’ branded marketplaces.

As part of their previously existing partnership, Dick’s and SidelineSwap are offering a series of 50 new tradein events in seven states through the end of 2022. The companies have previously held 10 trade-in events at four Dick’s locations, with plans to expand their partnership to additional markets in 2023.

Customers who attend trade-in events at Dick’s locations can bring their used gear and have it evaluated by SidelineSwap buying experts, using SidelineSwap’s proprietary trade-in software and value guide.