Amazon continues to make share gains in US eCommerce according to new PYMNTS article
Amazon continues to make share gains in US ecommerce according to new PYMNTS article
Here are a few things I picked up:
- Nearly 60% of eCommerce sales in the US were done on Amazon last year.
- Amazon has doubled its share of eCommerce since 2014.
Now ask yourself what has changed on Amazon since 2014? The simple answer is a major expansion of Amazon logistics (same day) and Prime benefits (Amazon Video, etc).
In short, Amazon has thrown the kitchen sink at Prime, and it's working.
- The biggest advantage for Amazon? Electronics and Appliances -- where Amazon has ~25% of the market and Walmart has only 5%.
A few thoughts the state of the Amazon world:
- I still talk to so many investors and brands that are having a binary conversation about Amazon. "If I have a D2C site, I can't be on Amazon."
Ask yourself this, why are there 9 million sellers on Amazon.
Can all of them be unprofitable?
Can it be destroying the businesses of all these brands?
Likely the problem is not the marketplace, it's your approach.
- Because of the complexity of doing business online, I still see so many brands that have no clue what their SKU-level net margins are. They almost always know their category-level gross margins. Often they know their product-level gross margins (also straightforward).
What they most certainly do not know is their SKU-level net margins. In particular, how do you assign both supply chain and advertising costs to products without the "peanut butter spread" method.
Finally....
If Amazon and Walmart and Target are all growing, what does that mean for the rest of eCommerce and retail?
The simple fact is that the middle of the market has completely fallen out and are either treading water or losing share. SMB is the growth segment. The challenge is, restructuring the middle of the market (activist investors) will generate some short-term unlocks, but long-term it's unclear there is any sustained value creation happening.
