OVERVIEW CORONAVIRUS IMPACT Health/Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62
Housewares/Home Furnishings . . . . . . . . 63
Top 500 retailers adapt to a new era of Combating the COVID-19 crisis . . . . . . . . 35
ecommerce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Jewelry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Fashioning a plan of attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Top 500 North American online Mass Merchant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Giving back goes viral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
retailers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Office Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Grocery gains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Specialty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Brands born on the web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 BENCHMARKS Sporting Goods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Amazon increases its dominance . . . . . . 17 Conversion rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Toys/Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Average order value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
AMAZON Free shipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
CONCLUSION
Does Amazon’s dominance Mobile sales and apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
An industry transformed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
contain seeds of its downfall? . . . . . . . . . . 20 Paid search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Amazon doesn’t have to Customer service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
make money in retail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Loyalty programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 ABOUT
Success through failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Website features & functions . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Amazon kept rivals on their toes Digital Commerce 360 Research . . . . . . 106
in 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Threats to Amazon’s supremacy . . . . . . . . 26 CATEGORY DATA SNAPSHOTS
Workers and consumers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Apparel/Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Automotive Parts/Accessories . . . . . . . . . 57
OMNICHANNEL Consumer Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Pleasing the channel surfing shopper . . 29 Flowers/Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Mobile matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Food/Beverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Curb appeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Hardware/Home Improvement . . . . . . . . . 61
KEY DATA OF THE TOP 500
Fastest-growing retailers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Retailers with the highest long-term
growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Who’s down? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Merchant type leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Fastest-growing online retailers by
merchant type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Category leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Fastest-growing retailers
by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
2020 Top 500 Rankings . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CHARTS AND DATA
Newcomers to the Top 500 by merchant type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
U.S. ecommerce penetration, 2010-2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Ecommerce’s outsized impact on total retail growth . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Total retail vs. ecommerce sales growth, 2010-2019 . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Top 500 2019 web sales growth by merchant type . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Top 500 2019 web sales growth by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Amazon’s sales and disproportionate share of Top 500 . . . . . . . . . 18
Amazon’s share of Top 500 sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Amazon’s operating income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Omnichannel programs for retail chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
95
Median conversion rate by merchant type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Median conversion rate by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Median average ticket by merchant type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Median average ticket by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Free shipping by merchant type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Free shipping by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Percentage of retailers with mobile apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Median share of online sales from mobile by merchant type . . 47
Median share of online sales from mobile by category . . . . . . . . . 48
Median monthly paid search spend by merchant type . . . . . . . . . 49
The Top 10 online retailers in average monthly paid search
spend in 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Median monthly paid search spend by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Top 500 retailers’ customer service offerings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Top 500 retailers with loyalty programs by merchant type . . . . . 52
Top 500 retailers with loyalty programs by category . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Website features and functions offered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54