Amazon's Share of the US Ecommerce Market Is Now 49 Percent (techcrunch.com)

New numbers from researchers at eMarketer reveal that Amazon is set to clear $258.22 billion in U.S. retail sales in 2018, "which will work out to 49.1 percent of all online retail spend in the country, and 5 percent of all retail sales," reports TechCrunch. From the report: It started as an online bookstore, but today Amazon is a behemoth in all areas of e-commerce, fueled by a strong Marketplace network of third-party sellers, an ever-expanding range of goods from groceries to fashion, and a very popular loyalty program in the form of Prime. Now, it is fast approaching a tipping point where more people will be spending money with Amazon, than with all other retailers -- combined. Amazon's next-closest competitor, eBay, a very, very distant second at 6.6 percent, and Apple in third at 3.9 percent. Walmart, the world's biggest retailer when counting physical stores, has yet to really hit the right note in e-commerce and comes in behind Apple with 3.7 percent of online sales in the U.S. The report goes on to mention that Amazon's pace has not slowed down. "Its sales are up 29.2 percent versus a year ago, when it commanded 43 percent of all e-commerce retail sales," reports TechCrunch. These new numbers may renew the prospect of antitrust action being brought against the online giant.

Comments

Re:And, why?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Amazon was propped up by Wall Street for years operating at a loss until they established market dominance. If you can throw enough money at any business model, you can't lose.

I remember laughing at Amazon 10-15 years ago because they were so overvalued. They were the poster child for P/E ratio scam stocks.

Re:And, why?

[hey!]

Because Amazon is a growth stock, the business equivalent of a cancer cell. If you bought $1000 of Amazon in 2004, you'd have almost $40,0000 today. This means investors don't expect dividends, they expect all the profits to be plowed into growing to pump the stock price ever higher.

Amazon has also had more effective leadership than most companies with similar ambitions. I think Bezos really ego-identifies with Amazon; that keeps him laser-focused on what makes Amazon a truly dominant player: it's cultivation of the customer. The hardest and most expensive thing in business is getting a new customer, so Amazon is obsessive on new ways to sell to its "Prime" customer base. Amazon puts its tendrils into prime customers' lives; gathering ever more information on them and providing instantaneous links between the buying impulse and consumption.

Look at the difference between Amazon's acquisitions and typical CEO-compensation driven acquisitions. Amazon's acquisitions aren't driven by empty buzzwords like "synergy"; they're about gaining a bigger footprint in its prime customers' lives, or obtaining something it needs to do that.

Amazon wins because it's better at selling shit to people than anyone has ever been. It uses its customer base more effectively than anyone else has ever done before. This is through a combination of new technology, leadership, and investor willingness to plot profits right back into growth.

In isolation this is a good thing. We are all taking a journey with Amazon in which the next step is a marginal improvement in our lives. We might not like where this takes us, however. Amazon is on track to becoming the single most powerful human institution ever.