Amazon’s piece of the retail pie is expected to end the year even bigger, with market research firm eMarketer boosting its estimates on dollars spent at the eCommerce giant.
According to news from Recode, eMarketer thinks Amazon will end the year controlling roughly 44 cents of every dollar spent on eCommerce, an increase from 38 cents a year ago. All told, Amazon will account for 43.5 percent of all eCommerce sales this year. What’s more, the research firm is forecasting Amazon's sales to be up 32 percent year-over-year, reaching $196.8 billion in 2017. Last year, its market share stood at 38 percent, with sales of $149 billion for all of 2016.
Apple, eBay and Walmart round out the top four, but are way behind Amazon in terms of sales, Recode noted. eMarketer predicts eCommerce sales will jump 15.8 percent to $452.8 billion for 2017. When considering all retail sales, eMarketer said Amazon accounts for close to 4 percent of all retail transactions in the United States.
These aren't the only good data points for Amazon so far this month. According to Fortune, the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimates that Amazon currently has 90 million U.S.-based Amazon Prime subscribers. In fact, 63 percent of the eCommerce retail giant’s customers are Prime members, and in the past 12 months, the total subscriber base has grown by 38 percent.
The study, which includes data from 500 Amazon customers, estimates that Amazon Prime subscribers spend almost double the $700 per year that the average non-member spends on the site. In addition, those with an Amazon Prime membership are happy with their subscriber perks, which include free two-day shipping, discounts on overnight delivery, access to Amazon’s streaming video library, free eBooks and more. The study found that 95 percent of current Prime subscribers say they’ll either “definitely” or “probably” renew, up from 94 percent during the same period last year.
