Surrounded by wolves! Amazon's online market share is being divided

Since the beginning of the epidemic in 2020 , global e-commerce has entered a stage of rapid development. Statistics show that global online sales increased by 50.5% in the first year of the epidemic , and increased by another 14.2% in 2021 .

The online shopping boom caused by the epidemic has spread across the world. Many e-commerce companies have developed rapidly with this wave of momentum, and many entrepreneurs want to get a piece of the pie in this market. According to research by Instant Office , more than 24,000 e-commerce companies were established in the UK in 2021 , an increase of 21% compared to 2020 .

There is always no shortage of competitors in a favorable market, and various retail platforms are rushing in. Although it is difficult to shake Amazon's position as the e-commerce leader, it is inevitable that the market will be divided up.

According to a Coresight Research report , the percentage of consumers buying groceries on Amazon is on a downward trend. In 2022, 56.9 % of Prime members surveyed said they had turned to other retail platforms to buy groceries online in the past year .

Among them, nearly 30% or more of the respondents said that Walmart, Target and Costco have replaced Amazon as their retail platforms for online grocery shopping , and more than 50% of the respondents said that they now "almost never or rarely" buy groceries on Amazon.

The report also noted that in terms of the decline in the number of people buying groceries online between 2020 and 2022 , Amazon ranked first with an 11% decline , while Walmart only fell 1.8 % during the same period . Meanwhile, other retailers such as Albertsons, Target, and Costco increased by 2.7%, 2.6%, and 0.5%, respectively.

It is not just the online grocery market, Amazon's other categories of online markets are also being divided up. Take the fashion category as an example, SHEIN is also coming on strong. Not long ago, the number of downloads of SHEIN applications surpassed Amazon, making it the world's most watched e-commerce platform.

In order to regain and consolidate its online market share, Amazon is also trying more possibilities. It is understood that in order to expand its grocery e-commerce business, Amazon has launched a series of delivery services, including: Amazon Fresh ( for groceries ), Prime Pantry ( for daily necessities ), Prime Now ( for two-hour fresh groceries ), Subscribe&Save ( providing discounts to buyers ) . However, due to little success , many of these services launched by Amazon have been closed or reduced.

Not only groceries, Amazon recently announced the opening of its first physical clothing store, Amazon Style, in California, providing an online and offline shopping experience where consumers can try on the products they selected on Amazon in the store, or choose and try on the products in the store before making an online purchase. Amazon hopes to promote omni-channel sales through the expansion of physical stores and other means, thereby attracting more online buyers.

According to a report by market research firm Edge by Ascential , Amazon will occupy 14.9% of the US retail market by 2026, ranking first . The main driving force behind its sales growth is third-party sales on its online platform. Edge by Ascential predicts that the proportion of third-party sales on Amazon's online platform will increase from 60% to 67% of total sales in the next five years .

Although market competition is fierce and profits are being eroded, Amazon is still actively penetrating the market, consolidating its market position, and harvesting more sellers and buyers.

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