EP260 - March Retail Sales Data, Amazon Shareholder Letter  March Retail Sales March retail sales data from the US Department of Commerce is out. March retail sales were $556,935B, up 26.9% from March of 2020. Year to date retail sales are $1,589,538B up 16.4% from Jan-Mar of 2020. Non-store sales were $93,111B, up 16.7% from March of 2020. Bezos Shareholder Letter Jeff Bezos published his final annual shareholder letter as CEO of Amazon. As always it’s a must read. Don’t forget to re-read the original 1997 one as well. 200 million Prime members globally 1.9 million 3P sellers 100M smart devices connected to Alexa Episode 260 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday April 15, 2021. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 260 being recorded on Thursday April 15th 2021 used to be tax day I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:42] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners Jason I was having a good day until you mentioned the tax man. Jason: [0:50] Yeah but I don’t think it I don’t think it was going to be taxed day anyway today and then it got extended so you’ve got all kinds of time. Scot: [0:57] Yeah there’s some complications there but all I’ll save that for another shift. Jason: [1:02] All right I look forward to hearing that podcast. Scot: [1:04] So there are some new Echo earbuds are you going to try this. Jason: [1:12] I don’t know I was actually on the fence I was not a I was excited about the first ones and then I was not that impressed and so I’m debating. I’m assuming apples going to announce some new ones next week or at least there’s some some potential that they will and I kind of live in those Apple earpods so I don’t know if I’m gonna bother giving the new Echoes that try it kind of depends on if you get them. If you try and for me I don’t need to try it. Scot: [1:37] Yeah I’m in the sink I tried the first generation it was like putting a pineapple in your ear so I’m not I’m not going to take that risk again I’m a I’m very happy with my earpod so I’m not going to risk it. Jason: [1:51] Yeah I guess we have the same opinion we’ll wait for someone else to fall in love with them first. Scot: [1:56] Yeah read some reviews see how they go cool today is a big day for you Jason because earlier this morning the Department of Commerce came out with their big data drop and I know that’s always a big day for you so you’ve probably been tabulating collating API in data sciencing AI in machine learning and doing all that retailgeek stuff so tonight we’re going to keep it pretty short because we really want to focus in on that data and then it was a pretty active Newsweek so we’re just a couple highlights we want to hit there so why don’t you kick us into the data conversation Jason. Jason: [2:35] Yeah yeah and to be clear I don’t care about the data at all I’m just super excited for an excuse to use my python script and the play in tableau. Yeah. Exactly so super quick refresher US Department of Commerce publish retail data every month they have two data sets the retail data set which is, kind of two months in the arrear so today they published their official retail data from February and then the advanced retail data which is only 1 month old so they published, the March Advanced retail data in the difference is. The advanced retail data is based on about 5,000 surveys that different retailers filled out in the full month is based on, something like 10 to 15,000 surveys and there’s a lot more math and are correction in it so it’s it’s slightly more reliable. [3:33] To be honest for the most part we use the advanced retail da