By Gene Marks, Forbes
Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1— Amazon is expanding their fast shipping guarantee to other online businesses.
Amazon is expanding its Buy With Prime service to now allow select Amazon merchants to sell their listed merchandise directly from their own websites. With this new feature, those customers can make Amazon’s payments and fulfillment services available at checkout. Shoppers will get the option of using their Amazon Prime membership for quick, no-charge delivery and other benefits. The move is being made to take on its biggest competitor, Shopify. For now, the tool will be invitation only and will have an undisclosed fee attached. Participating merchants will display the Prime logo and expected delivery date on eligible products in their own online store, offer a simple, convenient checkout experience using Amazon Pay, and leverage Amazon’s fulfillment network to deliver orders. Amazon will also manage free returns for eligible orders. (Source: Bloomberg)
Why this is important for your business:
For an ecommerce company, this is Amazon giving you the chance to have your cake and eat it too. If accepted into the program you can sell your products right from your own site instead of Amazon’s which means that customers may not be enticed by competitors’ offerings or ads.
2— DIY repairs for iPhones are here.
Apple has released their self-service repair kit in the United States for iPhones 12,13 and third generation iPhone SE. Apple warns that the self-service repair is for somewhat experienced technicians rather than any iPhone user experiencing troubles. However, when comparing the DIY costs to the professional repair, the value isn’t much different. There are also some concerns from those for and against DIY repairs on the true value of this initiative. (Source: The Verge)
Why this is important for your business:
Despite the concerns, this gives you and your employees more options for repairs. I expect to see a number of phone repair shops take Apple up on these offerings and compete on price so that you’re not forced to only deal with one company. So the next time you need service done for your iPhone, you won’t automatically need to go to the Apple Store.
Click here to read the full article on Forbes.
