Amazon was already powerful. The coronavirus pandemic cleared the way to dominance.

The pandemic will also likely accelerate the big-business takeover of the economy. In the early innings of this crisis, the most resilient companies include blue-chip retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Dollar General, Costco, and Home Depot, all of whose stock prices are at or near record highs.

Perhaps the simplest way to express what has happened during Covid is to note that Amazon has actually lost share in e-commerce during Covid. The largest e-commerce share gainers in most categories have been category leading physical retailers as well as the DTC businesses of most brands.

Covid-19 has created short-term winners and losers. But the more structural impact is that trends already under way have been accelerated. Everything was already moving online. Now this is happening even faster. Online marketplaces now have a combined value of $814 billion globally. 58% of consumer marketplaces could be well-positioned to navigate ... See more

The Four — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google — are an invasive species that, over the last decade, have compromised the immunities of the retail and media sectors. Spend has rushed toward digital, where apex predators take 1 of 3 e-commerce dollars (Amazon) and 2 of 3 digital marketing dollars (Google/Facebook). Covid-19 is just finishing the job... See more

These data highlight the resilience of independent retail in a world where Amazon has grown its market share over time. Among the reasons for this: Independent retailers are nimble and provide a differentiated value proposition from vertical to vertical. The retail businesses most negatively impacted by the acceleration of e-commerce are midsize an... See more

The bottom line is that by some estimates Amazon owns close to 40% of U.S. retail e-commerce — so much that House lawmakers are calling for it to be broken up. Walmart accounts for a mere 5%.

Current events and an accelerated consumer shift to ecommerce are fueling Amazon’s growth in a highly competitive market. As consumers turned to online stores (and Amazon in particular) for their everyday essentials during the COVID-19 pandemic, brands and retailers followed with a greater ecommerce presence and competition for shoppers’ dollars. A... See more