1) Amazon Prime streaming NFL games, so it can get more sub-Prime customers.
Amazon wins the streaming rights for 10 NFL games this year, making the games available to Prime members online.
- Amazon is paying around $50 million for 10 Thursday night games.
- The broadcasts will be handled by CBS and NBC (5 each) and Amazon will stream their coverage including the commercials, but will have the right to sell some ad slots for each game.
- Amazon may end up using ad time to promote its own video offerings.
- Twitter won the rights last year, but was a dud as viewers averaged less than 300,000 views per minute, while CBS and NBC averaged 15.8 million viewers.
I still contend that the KEY reason AMZN is putting so much value in the Prime box is bc Prime member growth is slowing, and incremental Prime members are lower FICO score (see chart below). In other words, AMZN is paying up via services and add-on offerings to acquire a customer who will naturally spend less. That’s AMZN bearish – but no one will care until they have to.
2) This Amazon/Ethan Allen deal is a huge step for both retailers – and a big statement for many Brands that think they’re “too good for AMZN”.
- Ethan Allen has announced a new collaboration with Amazon to sell product on the Amazon site.
- Ethan Allen going the with the route we think we will see much more often in the future, which is a branded page just for ETH.
- If you can’t envision it – simply bc AMZN has not done it to a great extent – think Alibaba T-Mall.
- The company describes it saying: "An Ethan Allen Design Studio will be established on Amazon.com that will allow Ethan Allen to offer its high-quality furniture and decorative home accessories to Amazon shoppers. The products will be sold by Ethan Allen and shipped by its 'white-glove' Premier In-Home Delivery operations."
- The content owners recognize that they need access to the Amazon Prime customer, so why not partner with Amazon if you can control the direct contact, the product, and maintain some branding.
- Meanwhile, Amazon accelerates growth in an underpenetrated category while taking on zero inventory risk.
(and Yes, Wayfair has a page on Amazon)
