Amazon dominates US ecommerce, though its market share varies by category

Amazon’s US ecommerce sales will grow by 15.3% this year to $367.19 billion after a meteoric 44.1% rise in sales during 2020.

Ecommerce sales at many of Amazon’s competitors—including Walmart and Target—are growing faster, but Amazon’s sales are still growing faster than the overall market. Its share of US ecommerce sales will increase from 39.8% in 2020 to 40.4% in 2021, and at a gain of 0.6 percentage points, this growth will be larger than that of any other company this year.

What’s changed:

• Amazon sales blew past our pre-pandemic expectations for 2020. Before the pandemic, we estimated that Amazon’s US sales would grow 17.2% to reach $260.86 billion in 2020. Instead, they grew 44.1%, reaching $318.41 billion.
• It will beat total sales expectations again in 2021. Our pre-pandemic estimates had Amazon growing 15.9% to $302.36 billion this year. We now expect it’ll grow 15.3%, reaching $367.19 billion, an upward revision of more than $64 billion.

There are two verticals where Amazon receives the majority of US ecommerce sales: books/music/video (83.2% of all US ecommerce sales in 2021) and computer/consumer electronics (50.2%).

The ecommerce giant will receive more than 45% of US ecommerce sales dollars this year in three additional categories: “other” (48.2%), toys/hobby (46.0%), and office equipment/supplies (45.6%).

Another way of looking at it: Amazon will receive more than one-quarter of US ecommerce sales dollars for every category other than auto/parts.

Amazon generates its largest portion of sales from computer/consumer electronics, which will make up more than one-quarter (26.6%) of its total US sales this year. Apparel/accessories is Amazon’s second-largest sales generator in the US, making up 16% of its total US ecommerce sales in 2021.

This year, Amazon’s fastest-growing segment will be food/beverage (24.7%) as digital grocery continues to propel growth in a relatively low-base category. (Food/beverage will make up just 3.7% of Amazon’s US ecommerce sales in 2021.) Apparel/accessories, already Amazon’s second-largest sales category, will also be its second-fastest-growing category, at 21.4% in 2021.

What’s changed:

• In line with overall ecommerce trends, Amazon’s US sales growth was higher than expected in 2020 across every category. The largest upward revisions were to food/beverage, which grew 78.5% in 2020, compared with our pre-pandemic estimate of 22.7%. “Other”—driven by increased demand for home improvement products—grew 58.0%, compared with our pre-pandemic estimate of 18.7%.

(Note: We did not forecast Amazon’s sales by category for 2021 before the pandemic.)