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Amazon is only 4% of the US retail sector though. I wouldn't call that dominant.

by huffmsa 6y ago

duncanawoods 6y ago
Do cars and houses count in that measure?
- huffmsa 6y ago
  Honestly not sure. Walmart is still 2x the size of Amazon in terms of revenue, and like Bezos said in his congressional briefing, it's easier and cheaper to build and online platform than it is to build out Walmart's existing physical retail presence.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Really, then why are there plausible competitors for Wal-Mart (Target, Costco, etc) but no other Amazons for general purpose online shopping?
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      What is Shopify, Instacart, Walmart and the thousand other businesses you can buy from directly.
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        If you want to find a thing to purchase online, you know almost certainly that Amazon will have it. This is not the case with any other e-commerce site. No one has the breadth of products that Amazon has. No one comes close. Yes, I can buy things on walmart.com that are commonly carried in Walmart, but they only have a tiny fraction of the overall selection of Amazon. It's not even a contest.
    - huffmsa 6y ago
      I can order online from all of those stores, and get it faster than if I ordered from Amazon because they all have better last mile infrastructure. Walmart supports 3rd parties as well I think.
- briandear 6y ago
  Houses aren’t part of the retail sector. Cars are, and they represent 23% of the US retail sector in terms of dollar amount.
anthuswilliams 6y ago
It's true that if you define Amazon's market segment to be "all of human commerce" then it doesn't look particularly dominant. But if you applied that sort of standard to monopolies, there would be no antitrust enforcement anywhere.
- briandear 6y ago
  But we aren’t saying “all of human commerce,” but “the retail sector.” We can always narrow things into absurdity to imply a monopoly. But as a matter of fact, Amazon isn’t a monopoly in retail, or even online retail. To give an anecdote of my online buying in the past few months: I bought furniture from Crate and Barrel and Design Within Reach, in-line skates and street hockey gear from Pure Hockey, pilot supplies from Sporty’s, a silly tshirt from some random Facebook ad/vendor, some paracord and survival water from Amazon, an aircraft emergency raft from some raft company in Florida, some Surefire flashlight batteries from Amazon, a piece of furniture from Wayfair, sunscreen from the Sun Bum website. I know not many would care what I bought over the past few months, but without even consciously trying, Amazon was just a part of my normal shopping mix, not even a majority of purposes were from there and the dollar amounts were even smaller of my total shopping spend. Of course there are people that use Amazon more frequently and regularly, but that doesn’t make it a monopoly. You can easily buy from other places. Amazon retail is really nothing more than a highly efficient version of Sears. Ubiquitous, but hardly a monopoly.

Amazon is only 4% of the US retail sector though. I wouldn't call that dominant.

duncanawoods 6y ago

Do cars and houses count in that measure?

huffmsa 6y ago
Honestly not sure. Walmart is still 2x the size of Amazon in terms of revenue, and like Bezos said in his congressional briefing, it's easier and cheaper to build and online platform than it is to build out Walmart's existing physical retail presence.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Really, then why are there plausible competitors for Wal-Mart (Target, Costco, etc) but no other Amazons for general purpose online shopping?
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    What is Shopify, Instacart, Walmart and the thousand other businesses you can buy from directly.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      If you want to find a thing to purchase online, you know almost certainly that Amazon will have it. This is not the case with any other e-commerce site. No one has the breadth of products that Amazon has. No one comes close. Yes, I can buy things on walmart.com that are commonly carried in Walmart, but they only have a tiny fraction of the overall selection of Amazon. It's not even a contest.
  - huffmsa 6y ago
    I can order online from all of those stores, and get it faster than if I ordered from Amazon because they all have better last mile infrastructure. Walmart supports 3rd parties as well I think.
briandear 6y ago
Houses aren’t part of the retail sector. Cars are, and they represent 23% of the US retail sector in terms of dollar amount.

anthuswilliams 6y ago

It's true that if you define Amazon's market segment to be "all of human commerce" then it doesn't look particularly dominant. But if you applied that sort of standard to monopolies, there would be no antitrust enforcement anywhere.

briandear 6y ago
But we aren’t saying “all of human commerce,” but “the retail sector.” We can always narrow things into absurdity to imply a monopoly. But as a matter of fact, Amazon isn’t a monopoly in retail, or even online retail. To give an anecdote of my online buying in the past few months: I bought furniture from Crate and Barrel and Design Within Reach, in-line skates and street hockey gear from Pure Hockey, pilot supplies from Sporty’s, a silly tshirt from some random Facebook ad/vendor, some paracord and survival water from Amazon, an aircraft emergency raft from some raft company in Florida, some Surefire flashlight batteries from Amazon, a piece of furniture from Wayfair, sunscreen from the Sun Bum website. I know not many would care what I bought over the past few months, but without even consciously trying, Amazon was just a part of my normal shopping mix, not even a majority of purposes were from there and the dollar amounts were even smaller of my total shopping spend. Of course there are people that use Amazon more frequently and regularly, but that doesn’t make it a monopoly. You can easily buy from other places. Amazon retail is really nothing more than a highly efficient version of Sears. Ubiquitous, but hardly a monopoly.