Episode 295 is a breakdown of Walmart and Target Q2 earnings, as well as the US Department of Commerce retail sales data for July. Episode 295 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday August 18, 2022. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show, this is episode 295 being recorded on Thursday August 18th 2022 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott showed listeners Jason how you doing how you been traveling a lot lately. Jason: [0:46] I have I have it's been interesting to spend so much time at the airport's they've been quite busy lately. Scot: [0:54] Yeah yep the there's cancellations it's total chaos at airports so hopefully now that we're in back-to-school season that'll slow down a little bit. Jason: [1:03] Knock on Woods October is a busy Commerce trade show month so I'll be on the road almost of October hopefully visiting some listeners but hopefully yeah travels a little smoother hopefully I can get some better seats on the airplane I'm a little bitter at the. Scot: [1:19] Yeah you have like 20 million miles and they're putting your life back in steerage. Jason: [1:24] That's a slightly milder version of that is true. Scot: [1:29] Cool and then I guess the big question is we've got two new series kicking off are you going to do Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or both. Jason: [1:39] I'm super excited about both I'm actually some people know I had knee surgery earlier in the year I'm actually contemplating getting the surgery on my other knee so I have an excuse just stay at home for a while a month and watch them both. Scot: [1:55] Yeah and then let's see the well ready to jump into some news. Jason: [2:02] I'm super excited to. Scot: [2:03] Cool well it wouldn't be a Jason Scott show without. Jason: [2:08] Amazon news new your margin is there opportunity. Scot: [2:21] Yes there is some Amazon news I wanted to just chat about with youth the 16th of August Amazon surprised both Wall Street and a bit and third-party sellers a lot with their first-ever peak season surge pricing for fulfillment by Amazon are commonly known as FBA so the way this is going to work is they've put out the dates October 15th through January 14th of 23 third-party sellers that you use fbar going to have a new fee and I hope you're sitting down it is 35 cents per item. [2:57] Now you may be saying to yourself Scott that's pretty small is that going to really move the needle and one of our friends of the show Colin Sebastian he actually did the math on this. So it turns out that last holiday if you look at the third party sell units sold during that period you had two point seven two two point eight billion you have a midpoint of 2.75 billion. He took that approximated in 34 so that went through yeah if ba you multiply that out and you get about 700 million dollars just drops right out of that 35 cents. So that is the power of an Amazon scale is a seemingly tiny little. Surcharge can be a big number so it's going to be interesting and you know that will be pure profit because the Amazon is not doing anything differently really. And then in the press release they basically said our expenses are reaching New Heights and it's making it harder for the company to absorb cost and they have to pass some of those on. But we still love our third-party sellers did you would you think about this video. Jason: [4:01] Yeah well I'm guessing third-party Sellers and investors didn't react exactly the same to that news. Scot: [4:07] Yes investors were happy third-party sellers it's kind of one of those things it's kind of tricky because you can't complain too much because it feels like 35 cents but you know if you're a seller selling couple of thousand items a day through F be a it's going to be material and I think, at the end of the day all this gets passed on to the consumers and that causes inflation which we'r