Amazon’s move to one-day delivery, an extra perk announced for Prime members in April (see 1904260026), will drive higher conversion rates, leading to faster unit growth in second-half 2019 and into next year, Cowen & Co. analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Monday. Higher purchase conversions could result in $1.1 billion-$2 billion incremental U.S. revenue this year, said Cowen, based on survey data saying 32 percent of U.S. Prime households abandon their shopping carts because products won’t be delivered in a timely fashion: “With the move to Prime 1-Day and AMZN’s general push for faster delivery speeds, it could eliminate this friction point and raise conversion rates.” Cowen’s latest forecast implies Amazon has a 31 percent share of U.S. e-commerce this year, expected to rise to 35 percent in 2024, accounting for 3.6 percent of U.S. retail sales in 2019, rising to 6 percent by 2024. Cowen expects the U.S. Postal Service's share of Amazon’s last-mile delivery to drop from an estimated 54 percent in 2018 to 35 percent in 2024 as Amazon ramps faster delivery programs. Blackledge believes a combination of third-party logistics companies, Amazon Flex, Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner program and DHL will “pick up the changing last mile delivery mix,” getting 23 percent of last-mile delivery this year, rising to 43 percent by 2024. Amazon “wants to control more of its shipping” and drive faster delivery options for Prime subscribers, he said, while independent third-party logistics companies can handle faster delivery options than USPS, though costlier, and FedEx "doesn’t intend to scale" with Amazon’s expected volume growth (see 1906070053).

Amazon began July by launching its Happy School Year online store, pitching several company-branded deals and announcing Prime-themed entertainment in the two-week runup to Prime Day, July 15-16. It called the school year store a “one stop shop” for parents, students and teachers. Monday’s Amazon.com featured deal, meanwhile, was the Fire TV Recast, which plays and records over-the-air TV programs when paired with a Fire TV or Echo Show; the $229 recorder was knocked down to $129 for Prime members. Beginning July 8, Amazon will slice $80 off the Ring Video Doorbell Pro (regularly $249) and Echo Dot ($49) combo, selling the duo for $169, it said. It dangled a four-month 99 cent trial of Amazon Music Limited in front of Prime members who haven’t tried the premium on-demand streaming music service and advertised 50 percent off popular movie rentals on Prime Video. Prime members can save 66 percent on the first three months of an Audible subscription, bringing it to $4.95 a month, or they can save $30 when signing up for an annual Audible subscription ($149.50 annually) with a Dot for 99 cents. The e-commerce giant also discounted Amazon clothing brands up to half, sliced 20 percent from AmazonBasics items, offered free two-hour delivery on Prime Now on orders of $35 or more and teased a new customer discount of $15 for Prime Now customers spending over $35. In a Whole Foods-Prime Day mashup, customers who spend $10 at Whole Foods stores Wednesday-July 16, get a $10 credit to use on Amazon for Prime Day, it said. Prime members who are new to the Amazon App can get up to $25 in Amazon credits when they sign in and use it the first time. Beginning July 8, customers can tap the Prime Day banner within the Amazon App to see select products that will be Prime Day deals, and they can set an alert to be notified when the deal goes live. Beginning Saturday, members who shop at Amazon Books or Amazon 4-star locations can get a $10 Amazon.com gift card on a purchase of $50 or more throughout the stores, which will have exclusive Prime Day giveaways and deals on products from top categories online, including devices, electronics, toys, books and home and kitchen products. Adding live entertainment to the Prime week mix, Taylor Swift will headline a Prime Day Concert on July 10, streaming live on Prime Video at 9 p.m. EDT, exclusively for Prime members, Amazon said. Additional artists scheduled to perform are Dua Lipa, SZA and Becky G. The concert will be available to Prime members to stream after the live show for a limited time on Prime Video, it said.

France's digital services tax proposal disproportionately targets U.S. companies for additional taxation, Computer & Communications Industry Association Chief Operating Officer Matt Schruers said Thursday. He commended Reps. Suzan DelBene, D-Calif., and Darin LaHood, R-Ill., for urging “prompt and targeted action” against France’s tax. The tax “appears to violate current trade commitments and would serve as a tariff on internet exporters,” Schruers said.

Facebook and Spotify announced participation in the Libra Association Tuesday, enabling users to pay for services using cryptocurrency. Libra was founded to create a “simple, global currency and financial infrastructure,” and it will enable Spotify users to directly access audio they want anytime, anywhere and “at the right price,” blogged the streaming music company. Libra offers “massive opportunity for simple, convenient, and safe payment over the internet," particularly for the 1.7 billion adults worldwide without access to mobile money, a bank account or a payment card, Spotify said, citing developing markets. A challenge for Spotify and its global users has been the lack of easily accessible payment systems, creating a barrier between creators and fans, especially in financially underserved markets, said Alex Norstrom, chief premium business officer. It's an opportunity to “better reach Spotify’s total addressable market, eliminate friction and enable payments in mass scale,” said Norstrom. Facebook, meanwhile, plans to launch a digital wallet, scheduled for 2020, that will be available in Messenger, WhatsApp and as a stand-alone app. "If you have an internet connection today, you can access all kinds of useful services for little to no cost -- whether you’re trying to keep in touch with family and friends, learn new things or even start a business,” blogged the company. For many people, even basic financial services are “out of reach,” Facebook said, saying nearly half of adults in the world don’t have an active bank account, mostly women and people in developing countries. Some 70 percent of small businesses in developing countries lack access to credit, Facebook said, and $25 billion is lost annually by migrants due to remittance fees.

EBay backs the Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill, it said Friday. HR-1644/S-682, which the House passed in April, would reverse the FCC order rescinding 2015 net neutrality rules and restore reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 1904100062). Senate Republicans earlier this month blocked a bid by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington and two other Democrats to pass S-682 by unanimous consent (see 1906110038). EBay announced its backing of HR-1644/S-682 to mark the one-year anniversary of the FCC rescission order taking effect (see 1806110054). “An open Internet allows everyone to have access to the Internet without discrimination, ensuring equal access for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups,” eBay said. “The eBay Government Relations team is actively engaged with legislators and regulators to help ensure that the Internet remains a fair and robust place for small businesses to grow and succeed.”

Amazon’s Prime one-day delivery perk for Prime subscribers (see 1904260026) could lift conversions and reduce cart abandonment to help drive accelerating unit growth this year, wrote Cowen & Co.’s John Blackledge to investors Friday. He called one-day delivery a “significant move,” noting many competitors copied Amazon’s previous two-day shipping perk for members, and Amazon “wants to stay ahead of these peers." Other retailers are likely to try to mimic one-day shipping “but will lose money and time trying to achieve it," he said. The move to one day is the evolution of many years of fulfillment investments, including warehouse robotics upgrades that would be difficult for competitors to replicate short-term, he said. Cowen found nearly 30 percent of respondents who abandoned an online cart after adding a product did so because they were concerned it wouldn't arrive on time, second only to price, he said.

Amazon is enticing employees to participate in its Delivery Service Partner program by offering to pay them up to $10,000 each in startup costs, said tech giant Monday. Amazon hopes to enable “employees-turned-business-owners” to more easily “get their package delivery companies off the ground,” it said. In addition to the startup costs, it’s also offering up to three months of the former employee’s last gross salary. Dave Clark, senior vice president-worldwide operations, said the company heard from “tens of thousands” of people who applied to be part of the program, “including many employees,” but many struggled with the transition. “Now we have a path for those associates with an appetite for opportunities to own their own businesses,” he said. The Delivery Service Partner, launched in June, helped create more than 200 small businesses that have hired thousands of local drivers to deliver packages to Amazon customers, it said. It plans to add “hundreds more” new businesses this year, beginning with former employees. The offer has extended to Amazon employees in the U.K. and Spain.

Amazon is “constantly evaluating our fulfillment network to ensure best customer selection and convenience,” a spokesperson responded to a Yahoo Finance report that facilities in Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey and southern Illinois will close for remodeling, and workers have to vacate in two months. The facilities have robotic technology and are being renovated to “non-robotic facilities,” she told us, and associates will be moved to other nearby fulfillment centers in the same geographic zone. Someone working at a robotics facility in southern California will move to another fulfillment center that uses robotics performing the same role, she said. Some buildings will convert from a robotics fulfillment center to a different type of facility, which could include handling larger customer items powered by industrial trucks, not robotics, she said. “We’re constantly evaluating our network to ensure best customer delivery.” All employees have jobs waiting for them “as well as the option to explore career opportunities within Amazon across the country,” she said. Yahoo reported "thousands" of employees will be affected.

The World Customs Organization Permanent Technical Committee approved a draft of e-commerce technical specifications to be reviewed with the Policy Commission in June and the WCO Council soon after, said Ana Hinojosa, WCO director-compliance and facilitation. Hinojosa spoke via video at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's annual conference last week. Discussions on e-commerce also are planned with the World Trade Organization, she said. "They have invited us to participate in some of their workshops and we're very interested in us to engage in their process as well," she said. "We're hopeful that those conversations will be fruitful and something will come out of that." Customs and Border Protection believes "work needs to continue" on the e-commerce standards, said Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner-trade. "We believe that a lot of the work by countries that rely on collection of a value added tax has driven a lot of the requirements in the WCO's technical appendices and documents," said Smith. “We think that we ought to take a little bit more time" to ensure the implementation documents "allow for and support safety and security in the e-commerce environment." A May 2-3 WCO conference on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System will look at “how complicated it is, whether there's a way to update and revise it in a way that makes it more user-friendly and actually drives more uniform implementation of it," Hinojosa said. CBP will also be at the meeting, said Smith.

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., plans to reintroduce legislation preventing multiple taxation of digital goods by setting sourcing rules for digital goods and services purchases (see 1903130071). The Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act implements the Internet Tax Freedom Act’s ban on multiple taxes on e-commerce sales. The lack of a federal framework has “led to a patchwork of state tax laws that confuses consumers and stifles the digital economy,” Cohen wrote in a dear colleague letter.