It wouldn’t exactly be the wrong question to ask: who is Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) trying to sell itself to at this point? Most people are turning to the online shopping platform for a lot of their typical shopping, and that’s particularly true as we go into holiday shopping. But Amazon is sweetening the pot still further, and it’s up over 2% in Tuesday afternoon’s trading as a result.
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Amazon Prime has been the beneficiary of several new features, ranging from a new kind of healthcare plan to grocery delivery. Now, it’s stepping up Prime still further, as Prime members who use Buy With Prime will get extra benefits. Buy With Prime allows shoppers access to other retailers’ stores online and get the same terms they’d get buying from Amazon, particularly free one to two-day shipping as well as simplified returns. Tracking systems and 24/7 customer support are also included.
Amazon Will Need the Help
The National Retail Federation released some predictions about the holiday shopping season this year back in October, and the news wasn’t exactly great. Consumers would be spreading their shopping throughout the whole season, allowing them to better cover their costs by incurring them over a wider time frame instead of one big bill all at once. Consumers will also be deliberately looking for “deals,” and that prediction has already come to pass based on studies of search volumes for “Black Friday Deals” and similar terms. Amazon’s move to make Prime more attractive will likely help, but between high inflation and concerned shoppers, it may not help that much.
Is Amazon Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN stock based on 40 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 47.41% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AMZN price target of $175.51 per share implies 20.44% upside potential.
