What you need to know

Over the course of 25 years, Amazon has grown from a tiny upstart online bookstore to the world’s largest ecommerce company – and transformed retail and how consumers shop in the process. Worth nearly a trillion dollars, Amazon has hundreds of millions of customers globally, with an estimated 100 million loyal Prime customers in the US alone. These economies of scale provide Amazon with huge pricing advantages, along with the ability to create a state of the art fulfillment chain in the US that is tough to beat.

However, being on top also puts Amazon at risk of being disrupted by the Amazons of tomorrow – by companies that are more nimble, more innovative and more focused than an industry behemoth can ever be. The need to continue to grow also requires Amazon to push into new regions and sectors where it may have fewer advantages. While it increasingly may seem that virtually every company competes with Amazon, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that Amazon, as successful as it has been, will always win.

Definition

In this Report, Mintel looks at what lies beyond Amazon, analyzing Amazon’s strengths and weaknesses, consumer perspectives and emerging players to identify the best opportunities for success. The analysis presented in this Report builds on How Amazon Continues to Raise the Bar – US, August 2019; The Amazon Effect – US, December 2018 and Competing with Amazon – US, June 2018.

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