Amazon Business Opportunity: Key Statistics, Amazon Seller Numbers & Holiday Trends
There is no better time than right now to begin focusing on your Amazon business opportunity by utilizing Amazon’s capabilities and opportunities sellers can find in the Amazon e-commerce market.
The Amazon Business Opportunity
Let’s start with the basics when assessing your Amazon business opportunity. Some of you might be wondering “What is the Amazon Seller’s Market?” Simply put, this Amazon Marketplace is a way for third parties to post and sell their products on one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world. Right now Amazon owns about 5%, or $258.22 billion, of all retail sales.
Last year in the four day stretch between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon, along with third-party sellers, did $140 million dollars in sales. It should come as no surprise that Amazon has laid claim to the e-commerce market as the premier market for online retail sales.
With staggering numbers such as these, it’s important to look at why consumers are so attracted to the Amazon marketplace. Some might argue that those same products can be found at brick and mortar stores in your hometown or even on different retail sites. This is true, however, the system of credibility provided ratings, and reviews, for products that can be found on Amazon, is unprecedented and unrivaled. Consumers shop on Amazon knowing that the products they are buying have been reviewed by other shoppers just like them and can rest assured that they are purchasing exactly what they set out for. Amazon provides consumers with the comfort of credibility. That is to say that when shoppers click “Buy” on Amazon, they do so with the confidence that the product they purchased is backed up by 5-star ratings, excellent reviews, and satisfaction from other shoppers.
Some Amazon Market Place Statistics:
- Amazon marketplace sellers, product sales totaled $118.57 billion, up 25.2% from $94.67 billion in 2016.
- There are over 5 million marketplace sellers across all Amazon marketplaces.
- 1,761,784 sellers have products listed for sale.
- Nearly half (46.7%) of US internet users started product searches on Amazon compared with 34.6% who went to Google first
If you are thinking about becoming an Amazon Seller these stats really illuminates the Amazon business opportunity. It should come as no surprise that Amazon sees a steep incline in sales during the holiday season that is fast-approaching. During last year’s holiday shopping season, Amazon saw one billion items purchased from its third-party sellers. The platform likewise accounts for a staggering 49.1% of the online marketplace. So to be selling a product online and not have it on Amazon is a severe misstep that will almost certainly cost retailers valuable sales.
Did You Know?
- During the Holiday Season, customers ordered more than 1 billion items from third-party sellers on Amazon, with more than 140 million items ordered between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
- More than 300,000 third-party sellers started selling on Amazon in 2017.
- More than 140,000 third-party sellers surpassed $100,000 in annual sales.
In learning that Amazon possesses such incredible dominance over the e-commerce market, it might come as less of a surprise that Amazon has inundated the online search dominion the way that it has. Behavioral patterns indicate that most potential buyers will search for a desired product or service on Amazon before visiting that product’s corresponding Facebook page, website, etc. In fact, 46.7% of product searches start on Amazon. This means, with Amazon’s grasp on the e-commerce market, shoppers are quickly finding it to be their one-stop shop to find and complete a purchase. Make no mistake that Amazon has worked to make their search experience as easy and gratifying as possible for its users.
Simply put, other search markets cannot keep up. Though this might be bad for other online retailers, this provides nothing but an amazing Amazon business opportunity for those with a desire to be third-party sellers within the Amazon marketplace.
Amazon has seen a staggering influx of new sellers joining its marketplace with about one million joining in 2017. This comes out to about 3,000 joining every day. With new sellers moving into the Amazon Marketplace each day, it is absolutely vital to get your products up there as soon as possible to take advantage of this Amazon business opportunity. This gives you a better chance to be one of the first to penetrate that market with your products.
Amazon takes a lot of the legwork of getting consumers in front of your product page due to many of the points discussed above (market ownership, search functionality, etc.). The final step is to ensure that your page is properly optimized and running like a well-oiled machine in order to maximize conversions and, ultimately, purchases. You may want to consider hiring an Amazon Seller Consultant/Marketer to help you get setup correctly, optimized and profitable.
With the incredible sales growth opportunity that Amazon provides comes with new ways to strategize and maximize your product’s visibility within the marketplace. One way to look at this is by understanding just how valuable search queries on Amazon related to your product truly are. In addition, it is crucial to understand your seller velocity. This is the rate at which shoppers end up on your specific product page on Amazon and whether or not they purchase that product. All of these add up to the creation of a viable marketing strategy on Amazon to ensure that your sales are maximized.
So, you’ve seen the numbers, you understand the vitality of the Amazon Marketplace, and now you’re asking yourself “What’s next?”
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Ryan Flannagan is the Founder & CEO of Nuanced Media, an international eCommerce marketing agency specializing in Amazon. Nuanced has sold $100s of Millions online and Ryan has built a client base representing a total revenue of over 1.5 billion dollars. Ryan is a published author and has been quoted by a number of media sources such as BuzzFeed, CNBC, and Modern Retail.