Amazon to outgrow market in four categories

Amazon’s digital sales will grow significantly faster than the overall market in four categories this year:

• Health, personal care, and beauty (Amazon’s growth: 24.4% versus total ecommerce: 15.1%). Amazon already commands close to one-third of this market and is in an excellent position to grow, as its massive user base of Prime members relies on Amazon for quick delivery of everyday essentials and beauty products.
• Furniture and home furnishings (Amazon’s growth: 15.7% versus total ecommerce: 10.3%). After big pandemic gains, growth in this vertical will slow in 2022. Yet, while supply chain issues and growing logistics costs have hurt competitors like Wayfair, Amazon’s gains are outperforming the market in this category. Given the size of Amazon’s marketplace and the sheer number of SKUs it offers, it is less susceptible to inventory shortages in verticals that are heavily affected by supply chain issues.
• Toys and hobby (Amazon’s growth: 16.0% versus total ecommerce: 12.0%). Amazon is already the dominant player in this category and will increase its US ecommerce market share further in 2022, to 45.5%. This year is expected to bring strong retail sales growth for sporting goods and arts and crafts products, according to Customer Growth Partners’ 2022 Annual Forecast cited by Chain Store Age.
• Other (Amazon’s growth: 7.6% versus total ecommerce: -4.5%). The “other” category includes home improvement and building materials. Total ecommerce sales for the category will contract this year after pandemic-driven home-improvement projects taper off and supply chain issues persist. However, Amazon doesn’t deal in wholesale products like lumber and large building materials, so its “other” category is largely insulated from this retraction.

Read the full report.