GNC Holdings Inc. grew its online sales, in part thanks to Amazon.com Inc., the retailer reported this week. Amazon, No. 1 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000, continues to grow both revenue and profits. EBay Inc.—No. 4 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Online Marketplaces—hit 12% growth in revenue from its global marketplace sellers.
- GNC Holdings Inc. (No. 210 in Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000) started selling its products on Amazon, which helped it increase its online sales, the retailer reported. The nutritional supplements retail chain doesn’t break out exact numbers for its e-commerce revenue, but said online sales grew 27% compared with Q1 2017. Chief financial officer Tricia Tolivar said on the earnings call that “the majority of the increase was related to Amazon,” according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. The company started offering products as an Amazon marketplace seller in January 2017, but didn’t smooth out those operations until later in the year, Tolivar said. While online sales were up, the company also announced plans to close about 200 stores this year as same-store sales slumped 1.9%. The company closed the quarter with 8,905 stores, including company-owned and franchise locations in the U.S. and internationally.
-
Amazon grew profits 125% to $1.63 billion on a 42.9% increase in revenue to $51.04 billion. Marketplace sales made up a bigger portion of products shipped to customers, accounting for 52% of units sold compared with 50% in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon is No. 3 in the Amazon also announced it will raise the price of it’s Amazon Prime membership program in the U.S. to $119 per year from $99 per year.
- EBay’s U.S. sales were up 7.2% in the first quarter to $9.48 billion. Net revenue for eBay’s global marketplaces, which comes from the fees paid by eBay’s sellers, increased 12.0% to $2.58 billion from $2.30 billion a year ago. EBay has been focused on adding brands to its marketplace, CEO Devin Wenig said on a call with investors discussing the quarter’s results. “We’re extremely pleased with the rate of brand acquisition,” he said, according to a SeekingAlpha transcript.
- Boohoo.com (No. 401) announced that sales nearly doubled last year. The U.K. online fashion retailer announced 2018 fiscal year sales hit 579.8 million pounds ($799.1 million), growing 97% over last year’s revenue. In 2017, the company acquired PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal. Comparative revenue for PrettyLittleThing was up 228% to 181.3 million pounds ($249.9 million), while Boohoo.com revenue was up 32% to 374.1 million pounds ($515.6 million). Nasty Gal, which relaunched under Boohoo in March 2017 after the site declared bankruptcy and shut down in February that year, had revenues of 24.4 million pounds ($33.6 million).
- Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. also reported this week. Facebook’s earnings continue to rise and revenue from advertising grew 50.1% in the first quarter. Twitter reported a growing user base and sales up 21% in Q1. PayPal beat forecasts with $3.69 billion in revenue in Q1.