Amazon Reports It Shipped More Than 1 Billion Items with Prime Service Over the Holidays
If you ordered gifts using Amazon Prime, you weren’t alone, the online retailer says it shipped more than 1 billion items for free in the United States with its Prime service during this holiday season.
Amazon Record Sales
This holiday Amazon says it had record sales and a record number of people sign up for its Prime membership service, but didn't give many details.
Amazon says it, once again, had a record-breaking 2018 holiday season.
On Wednesday last week, the ecommerce giant said in a press release that customers ordered more items worldwide “than ever before.”
The press release also listed some of the most popular items, with a heavy emphasis on Amazon products such as the Echo Dot, Alexa Voice Remote and Fire TV Stick 4K.
As reported by FreightWaves, it will be interesting to get a look at Amazon.com. Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) holiday shipping tab when the e-tailer releases its fourth-quarter results on Thursday, February 7, 2019.
According to Business Insider, sales grew 5.1% to more than $850 billion a year, according to data from Mastercard Spendingpulse.
That's the best holiday season growth in six years, Mastercard said and beats last year's number of 4.9% growth.
“From shopping aisles to online carts, consumer confidence translated into holiday cheer for retail,” Steve Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard said in a statement.
“By combining the right inventory with the right mix of online versus in-store, many retailers were able to give consumers what they wanted via the right shopping channels.”
Walmart Big Winner in Online Holiday Sales Too!
Anne Stych for The Business Journals reports that Walmart’s online sales increased significantly year-over-year in the shopping period prior to Christmas while other retailers saw much weaker growth or losses, an analysis by e-commerce intelligence company Edison Trends found (see chart below).
While major brands are seeing strong growth, the study found that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) still conducted 81 percent of online sales during the holiday timeframe.
Online sales at Jet.com, which Walmart (NYSE:WMT) acquired in 2016 for $3 billion, were down by more than half, 53 percent.
As fast as Walmart’s ecommerce business is growing, it still pales in comparison to Amazon.
This year, the online giant will take in more than $252.10 billion domestically, up just over 29% from 2017.
That's a whopping 48.0% share of US ecommerce.
Online Sales Revenue YOY Change, Run-up to Christmas
December 1, 2018 - December 19, 2018 vs December 2, 2017 - December 20, 2017
Source: Edison Trends
Top 5 Ecommerce Retailers of the 2018 Holiday Season
Michael Grothaus reporting for Fast Company asks the question “Who will be the biggest beneficiaries of all the money that shoppers will spend online during this holiday season?”
Research firm eMarketer thinks they know, having released their latest retail forecast for the 2018 holiday season.
And while the names on the top five list are the same as last year, one retailer made huge gains at the expense of another.
eMarketer says Walmart will overtake Apple to become the third largest retailer in terms of ecommerce sales this year in the U.S.
Here’s how eMarketer rankings break down for 2018:
- Amazon: will get a 48.0% share of all online retail sales
- eBay: 7.2%
- Walmart: 4.0%
- Apple: 3.9%
- Home Depot: 1.6%
As you can see, Amazon looks like it will grow its share the most. It’s expected to be up almost 5% this year. On the other hand, eBay is expected to actually lose share.
And while Apple is expected to increase its share by a small 0.1%, Walmart is expected to gain an extra 0.7% share of online holiday sales this year, meaning it will leapfrog Apple this year.
eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman stated;
“Amazon remains the king of ecommerce and is in no danger of losing its crown anytime soon. But online competition from brick-and-mortar retailers is heating up and Amazon has felt more of a need to respond to maintain its leadership.”
News: Amazon announces plans to build regional air hub at Fort Worth Alliance Airport
Related Article: Developing a Less-than-Truckload & Ecommerce Focused Shipping Strategy
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