U.S. e-commerce grew 32% in 2020 to reach $790 billion, up from $598 billion the year before. According to the Department of Commerce, e-commerce represented 14% of total retail spending, a significant increase from 11.3% in 2019.
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Shopify is now the size of 40% of Amazon Marketplace after nearly doubling in 2020. It was just 25% two years ago. The important thing is not whether Amazon and Shopify are comparable - they are not - but the readiness of brands to sell directly to consumers.
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Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker became the first product on Amazon to amass over a million reviews. Popular products on Amazon have exploded in the number of reviews, thus changing their perceived value after the company introduced one-tap ratings in late 2019.
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In 2020, sellers on the Amazon marketplace sold $300 billion worth of goods, adding a staggering $100 billion net growth since 2019. The total gross merchandise volume (GMV), including sales by Amazon itself and by the marketplace, was almost $490 billion, according to Marketplace Pulse estimates based on Amazon disclosures.
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Most brands aspire to be Apple or Nike, but on Amazon, they are closer to AmazonBasics. That is, shoppers buy their products when searching using unbranded search terms. Rather than explicitly looking for the brand, like they do for Apple and Nike.
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Amazon conceived the marketplace to bring brands it couldn't convince to sell onto the site. Thus, for years most of the sellers were large resellers with tens of thousands of products. However, increased competition and brands going direct has eroded this opportunity.
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Amazon's last retail innovation came in 2005 when it introduced the Prime membership. Since then, it has announced hundreds of new offerings and experiments, but the core commerce experience remains virtually unchanged. It learned it doesn't need to do more.
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China-based sellers represented 75% of new sellers on Amazon in January. A significant increase from 47% in the previous year. While this hasn't yet impacted the GMV market share - domestic sellers are responsible for most of the total sales - it is a trend that has been accelerating for years.
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Amazon has always operated as if no other sales channel matters. And as if none will matter. But 2020 was maybe the last year it grew its market share of e-commerce. Shopify came to represent that change.
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The importance and thus also the risk of managing customer expectations for Amazon were the highest ever during the 2020 holiday shopping season. It did ok - unlike in previous years, there was no noticeable increase in negative shopper sentiment.
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