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Prime Now Seen Helping Amazon Gain Vs. Retailers Wal-Mart, Target

With the Amazon.com ( AMZN ) one-hour delivery app Prime Now , it’s possible to order a big-screen television on New Year’s day from a mobile phone and still catch that day’s football bowl games. This capability is going to help Amazon destroy the advantage that Wal-Mart ( WMT ), Target ( TGT ) and others hope to gain by offering online orders, in-store pickup and stores as warehouses for online deliveries, according to a Wells Fargo analyst. Though ordering a TV from a smartphone and having it delivered immediately is not a typical use of Prime Now, Amazon’s app has caught on with consumers. The Seattle-based giant has brought the service to 26 markets in just over a year. It’s part of the company’s move to dominate “Need It Now” shopping, Wells Fargo analyst Matt Nemer wrote in a research note late Monday. Prime Now members must be members of the company’s Amazon Prime loyalty program, which costs $99 a year. Amazon Prime includes free two-day shipping, free video streaming and a host of other perks. Those perks include Prime Now, which offers free two-hour shipping of roughly 30,000 products in markets where it’s available, and one-hour shipping for $7.99 per delivery. Amazon’s push may eliminate a key advantage of physical retailers — the last-mile convenience of being able to get something immediately. As that advantage disappears, so do other advantages touted by brick-and-mortar stores, such as the ability to pick up an online order quickly at your local store. Prime Now is gaining even in food delivery, Nemer says. He says that Prime Now has a better app for Apple ( AAPL ) iOS users than Google Express, the Alphabet ( GOOGL ) food delivery service. Wal-Mart, Target and other retailers have struggled to compete with Amazon’s growth rate and innovation — especially around customer loyalty programs. Target recently launched its Red Card loyalty program. Amazon stock was up nearly 1%, near 567, in afternoon trading on the stock market today. In the research note, Nemer says that Prime Now, though not currently profitable, helps Amazon retain Prime member loyalty and will, with scale, become profitable. Prime also gives the company opportunities to experiment — for example, selling products in smaller pack sizes or offering high-turnaround fresh groceries that would be impossible to sell on Amazon.com. Nemer says that Amazon’s delivery of local food items “suggests” that it may compete with food-delivery platforms like GrubHub ( GRUB ) and privately held Uber’s UberEats. It’s also possible, Nemer says, that Amazon could begin to eat into convenience store market share. If Amazon can deliver small-pack sizes for lower prices with free delivery, convenience stores could have trouble competing, he says.

Apple Making The Perfect Smartphone For Donald Trump

For people with big hands — or who claim to have them, like Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — Apple ( AAPL ) is working on a 5.8-inch smartphone. It’s “yuge,” as Trump would say. The Motley Fool and other news websites, citing a prepublication note from Taiwan-based tech publication DigiTimes, said that Apple plans to launch the 5.8-inch iPhone as early as next year, but more likely 2018. Apple currently sells iPhones in screen sizes of 4, 4.7 and 5.5 inches. The largest model is designated as Plus, with the iPhone 6S Plus being the latest handset in that class. The jumbo-screen iPhone would use an AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display, which allows for thinner, more power-efficient displays than current LCD screens. AMOLED screens also boast more vivid colors, deeper blacks, better contrast and higher color saturation. Possible suppliers of the AMOLED screen include Samsung Display, LG Display ( LPL ) and Japan Display, DigiTimes said. If Apple launches the AMOLED screen smartphone in 2018, it would likely be called the iPhone 8, given the company’s naming pattern. Apple’s use of AMOLED displays would benefit Coherent ( COHR ), a maker of laser systems used in the manufacturing of technology including flat-panel displays, says Stifel Nicolaus analyst Patrick Newton. On Tuesday, Newton reiterated his buy rating on Coherent and raised his price target to 100 from 82 on the expected rise in demand for organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, displays in smartphones and other devices, Barron’s reported . Another likely beneficiary of Apple’s use of AMOLED displays would be Universal Display ( OLED ), which develops OLED technology. No word on what the 5.8-inch iPhone would be called. But to interest Trump — who defended the size of his hands on the campaign trail after taking a jab on that, of all topics, from rival candidate Marco Rubio — the new monster iPhone might have to come in gold. RELATED: Apple iPhone Demand ‘Soft’; Stock Gets Price Target Cut Apple Working On Dual-Camera iPhone 7 Plus Smartphone: Analyst .  

Amazon.com Gets Physical, Plans To Open A Bookstore In San Diego

E-commerce leader  Amazon.com ( AMZN ) is taking another step on the road to establishing a brick-and-mortar presence in books. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Saturday that the company plans to open a second physical bookstore — the first is in its home city of Seattle — at the Westfield UTC shopping mall, adjacent to  Tesla ( TSLA ) and Apple ( AAPL ) stores. It will be called Amazon Books. The Amazon store will likely be similar to the Seattle location and feature books that got the best reviews on the company’s website. It also will sell products from the company’s expanding hardware business, including Kindle e-book readers, Fire TV set-tops, Fire tablets and Amazon’s virtual personal assistant play, Echo. “We are excited to be bringing Amazon Books to the University Town Center Mall in San Diego, and we are currently hiring store managers and associates,” Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman told the Union-Tribune . “Stay tuned for additional details down the road.” Amazon is widely cited for hastening the slow demise of the bookstore business, with the online sales king originally billing itself as the world’s biggest bookstore thanks to its endless online inventory. It has been said to use cutthroat tactics on publishers to get favorable pricing. In afternoon trading on the stock market today , Amazon stock was down 3%, near 557. Shares are up 18% since touching a six-month low of 474 in early February. The company has an IBD Composite Rating of 80, where 99 is the highest. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Apple’s appeal over allegations of e-book price-fixing. The court’s decision will mean that Apple will have to fork over $450 million to e-book purchasers. Apple was attempting to disrupt the near-monopoly held by Amazon.