Amazon dominance challenged by smaller rivals

Amazon’s dominance of the UK’s e-commerce market could be vulnerable to the gradual growth of smaller online rivals such as Argos, according to a new report.

Data gathered by analytics and marketing firm Jumpshot on consumer interactions via mobile and desktop within 500 e-commerce sites, found that Amazon saw year-on-year growth of two per cent last year, compared to the wider e-commerce market as a whole, which saw transaction up 15 per cent over the same period.

The report revealed that despite Amazon leading the market with a 65 per cent share of all transactions across most retail categories, its online growth had plateaued.

Meanwhile, smaller online shopping rivals were closing in on market share across different categories, with Tesco winning out for household essentials, Marks & Spencer and Ikea in furniture and QVC in beauty.

The analysis on customer click through, interaction and purchase data also unearthed a positive trend for online sales at M&S, which was also leading the pack in year-on-year growth in the women’s clothing and baby purchases.

Among all retailers, 2018 digital transactions for women's and men's clothing increased 54 per cent and 46 per cent respectively, compared to 2017 totals.

Further emphasising the emerging gap between Amazon’s growth and the rest of the market in 2018, the report found that Amazon's women's and men's clothing transactions were weaker than competitors' growth averages, increasing by only 10 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively, in the same time period.

Across the 15 categories that Jumpshot analysed, Amazon's electronics transactions fell by 10 percent year-over-year during 2018, a larger drop than the seven per cent decrease for the electronics category at large, suggesting a slowdown in one of the Amazon’s key markets.

Meanwhile, Argos held a respectable second place to Amazon in a number of categories, especially appliances (20 per cent), furniture (28 per cent), and toys and video games (17 per cent).

At large, however, Amazon drove 10 times the number of online transactions that Argos posted: 229 million for Amazon compared to 22.6 million for Argos.

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