Watch out, brick-and-mortar retailers. Those items once considered ‘eCommerce immune’ are starting to see sales shift online (especially from Amazon).
This according to recent insight from eCommerce data measurement and sales analytics company One Click Retail. New data that has rolled out over the past few weeks indicates that, across categories such as home improvement and tools and outdoor, home appliances and sporting goods, U.S. consumers are increasingly moving to Amazon to make purchases.
“Though often seen as an Amazon-proof industry, the old-fashioned American hardware store is not untouchable,” said Nathan Rigby, VP, One Click Retail. “Amazon has all the same advantages in the tools & home improvement sector that it has in grocery, beauty products and health care — and we’ve seen plenty of evidence of those industries feeling the Amazon Effect.”
One Click Retail noted that this trend is likely to continue as millennials increasingly become homeowners. As the young, connected generation looks for supplies to maintain and manage homes, Amazon’s share of the home goods and tools category will continue to grow at a disruptive rate.
Similarly, Amazon saw 20 percent year-on-year sales growth in the outdoor and sporting goods category, reportedly four times the rate of the overall market, valued at $120 billion.
“Amazon understands that it’s the consumer driving the company’s success,” Rigby said. “The ways they are innovating new services and offerings, they are doing so with one thing in mind: is this what the consumer wants? Amazon isn’t just selling you the bike, they’re selling you the service to professionally assemble it and deliver it to your door. It’s no surprise that Amazon bike sales increase 50 percent.”
And while the household appliance category — refrigerators, cooking appliances and laundry units, etc. — raked in just $16.5 million in 2016 for the online retail giant, One Click Retail anticipates that this category could soon see Amazon sales growth similar to the 30 percent seen in housewares across 2016.