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Businesses United States The Almighty Buck The Internet

Amazon's Share of the US Ecommerce Market Is Now 49 Percent (techcrunch.com) 83

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.
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Amazon's Share of the US Ecommerce Market Is Now 49 Percent

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  • 49% is an amazing figure. Was wondering how come nobody was able to [really] compete with Amazon, so far. Just curious.
    • Its not like its hard to write/buy.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        I find AmazonTM the gretest thing since sliced bread and helps taking care of my health at retirement with the Amazon long tail revenue streams!

        All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. You can even make video of yourself going to pick up AmazonTM parcel at the convenience store and post it on your youtube channel for more redu

        • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

          I find AmazonTM the gretest thing since sliced bread

          The fact that Amazon couldn't sell you sliced bread is why it bought Wholefoods.

    • Re:And, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Saturday July 14, 2018 @03:51AM (#56946196)

      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: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        Amazon was propped up by Wall Street for years operating at a loss until they established market dominance.

        It's almost as if capital is valuable, not just labor.

        I remember laughing at Amazon 10-15 years ago because they were so overvalued.

        Meanwhile, I just pocketed quite a nice chunk of change from the AMZL I held for 4 years. Growth stocks are fine when the company continues growing. And at only 5% of retail, there's lots of room to keep growing, but Amazon is "AWS with a gift shop" these days, and few care about the retail business.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        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.

        Based on what was obviously a very successful business plan. Propped up is an interested choice of words. Most people would call it investing.

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        Oh, you can throw money at a problem and lose. For most people overfunding is a recipe for loss of focus: money replaces decision-making. Most of the time the best place to be is to have just enough money to do what you need to get done if you're smart about it.

        Amazon's actually pretty good at what it does. That's because it's more disciplined than other companies that have tried to throw money at the problem of growing large. That doesn't make it a good thing in the long term.

      • If you can throw enough money at any business model, you can't lose.

        There are a lot of billion-dollar failures that show that you can burn money on a losing business model as well.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      How was the movement of goods done before "online" and in 2018?
      The 1980's mall. The 1980's store with experts and the prices they could offer per sale.

      The huge brands in malls the 1980's could buy in at low prices, use TV/print to build up demand and get people to need a product.
      Delivery all over the USA of the same product was computer controlled. The shop and mall still had to accept the product, find a place to display it and sell it.
      The "online" trick was to connect that same exisiting order net
    • Re:And, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday July 14, 2018 @09:57AM (#56946986) Homepage Journal

      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.

      • Because Amazon is a growth stock, the business equivalent of a cancer cell.

        That's ridiculous. Dividends and price growth are both completely legitimate ways of providing an ROI to investors, and growth is the right choice as long as the business still has good growth prospects. When it's reached saturation and can't really benefit from major capital investment, then profits are paid out as dividends. Paying dividends while simultaneously trying to fund growth from new stock issuance, or bond issuance, or bank borrowing is almost always stupid; if the company has use for money an

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14, 2018 @02:20AM (#56946040)

    I'd love to use other sites (Walmart, Target)..etc., especially since sometimes they are cheaper... but they are bloated, way too slow (especially Walmart), display far too many irrelevant items / information when trying to find something...

    Basically poor IT execution of their online experience.. its crappy compared to Amazon..

    Fix that, and they'll get marketshare.

    • crappy compared to Amazon..

      And that is not easy to achieve. Amazon is so crappy, I prefer to go down to the high street at shop in a real store!

      Disclaimer: I live in the UK where we don't have Target or Walmart.

      • On the "Prime" side, comparing Amazon Videos to Netflix, is like comparing MS Paint and Photoshop.
        • by Anonymous Coward

          MSPaint is free, Photoshop costs money. I use MSPaint all the time for quick screenshot cropping.

        • But are you sure you laid out things in the right order? In your comparison it's Amazon Video that's Photoshop. Netflix content is simply crap. I ended up browsing titles for half an hour in order to find anything worth watching. I also don't care about Netflix Originals/Exclusives. There are a few decent ones but most of them are rip-offs.
          • I agree that Netflix content is crap - more and more so, sadly. Was talking about the interface, the site, design, subtitles etc... Way better than Amazon Prime.
            • by lgw ( 121541 )

              I agree that Netflix content is crap - more and more so, sadly. Was talking about the interface, the site, design, subtitles etc... Way better than Amazon Prime.

              Really? I find the opposite to be true, if we're talking about the movie playback interface. Of course, I use the web interface and don't know about the apps. You can't really even pause Netflix to admire an attractive frame without them throwing crap all over the screen, then dimming it.

      • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        Asda is part of Walmart.
    • Ok so you say incompetence is the problem.
    • There's nothing remarkable about Amazon to me. The reviews aren't reliable, you do searches you still see the wrong items come back. I've been duped into buying the wrong thing a few times because Amazon searches returned items they thought were close enough.

      My problem with brick-and-mortar search engines is they don't make it easy enough to simply find the closest store with the item I want. If I'm going to Walmart or Target websites, that usually means I want it *now*.

      • My problem with brick-and-mortar search engines is they don't make it easy enough to simply find the closest store with the item I want. If I'm going to Walmart or Target websites, that usually means I want it *now*.

        Right? It's the same with Best Buy. If I see something that it is in stock at a local store, I should be able to buy it and have them deliver it that day, for a small fee. Something that should be so simple loses to Amazon every single time. Target now has a similar service to Prime Now and so does Walmart, at least through Sam's Club. If these other places, like Best Buy, want to stay relevant, they need to add some value/services. It used to be taxes or time, but nowthey all tax, so you have to be as fast

    • by bjwest ( 14070 )

      I'd love to use other sites (Walmart, Target)..etc., especially since sometimes they are cheaper... but they are bloated, way too slow (especially Walmart), display far too many irrelevant items / information when trying to find something...

      Basically poor IT execution of their online experience.. its crappy compared to Amazon..

      Fix that, and they'll get marketshare.

      If Walmart were smart, they'd make a deal with the USPS for free next day delivery of items in stock locally. Hell free delivery period would be worth it. They have the shipping infrastructure to move things from their warehouses to the stores within a few days. They should also offer free pickup in-store on any item sold on their site housed in their warehouses. I regularly order 40lb bags of cat litter, but they don't offer in-store pickup at all on it. They insist on using UPS, and it's free if I or

    • Walmart is improving. Heck, Sam's Club is worth it for some items, even with the ten percent non member penalty.
    • Their online experience is crappy compared to Amazon? Are you serious?????

      Amazon is kicking ass but it's absolutely not due to their "clean" online experience. They have probably the single worst mass of information spewing out from the page with almost no organization, all competing for your attention like the neon lights in Time's square.

      They are successful in spite of their online experience, not "due" to it.
  • Please try to write accurate headlines, BeauHD. Amazon's share of the US ecommerce market is not *now* 49%. It is on target to become 49% by the end of the year. Your headline is wrong.

    At least you didn't inexplicably put the Digital Equipment Corporation logo on this posting, like you do for every post with the word "digital" in its title.

    • At least you didn't inexplicably put the Digital Equipment Corporation logo on this posting, like you do for every post with the word "digital" in its title.

      In the future, the DEC logo will soon be replaced with the Compaq logo since DEC was bought by Compaq.

      In the far, far future, the Compaq logo will be replaced by the HP logo, since Compaq was bought by HP.

      But hey, but cut the editors some slack . . . Slashdot is a free service, and well worth every penny I pay for it.

      Maybe the editors intentionally make mistakes . . . so the complainers will have something trivial to complain about . . . ?

      Instead of complaining about more serious issues . . .

  • Amazon after experiencing much pain and expense developed their own IT services which is their cash cow and competitive advantage. IT can make or break a business.

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

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