No surprises here: Amazon is top e-retailer in North America

Mass merchant and consumer electronics retailers top an annual ranking of the top 500 North American e-commerce retailers by web sales.

Amazon ranked No. 1, followed by Apple, Walmart, and Dell Technologies on the Digital Commerce 360 list. The Home Depot (No. 5) was the highest-ranked e-retailer by web sales outside the mass merchant and consumer electronics categories. The remainder of the top 10 was filled out by Wayfair, Alphabet Inc. (Google parent company), Staples, Quarate Retail Group, and Best Buy.

Digital Commerce 360 analysis indicates that the top 500 e-retailers grew their collective web sales by 16.3% in 2019 over the year before. That’s at a faster clip than the North American e-commerce market as a whole at 15.1%. 

The 135 retail chains and 171 web-only retailers in the Top 500 were the standouts, growing their web sales 
by 17.2% and 17.8%, respectively. By merchandise category, housewares and home furnishings and sporting goods retailers led the way, growing at 22.7% and 22%, respectively. Food and beverage retailers came in third, with 21.5% growth. Office supplies retailers grew online only by 1.7%, making office supplies the slowest-growing category in the Top 500.

Overall, the vast majority of the Top 500 grew web sales: 96.2% of the top 500 increased web sales in 2019, and 56% grew sales more than the North American e-commerce market average. The 485 U.S.-based retailers in the 2020 Top 500 accounted for 88.2% of U.S. online retail sales in 2019. 

The retailers analyzed in the Top 500 report represent the bulk of e-commerce in the U.S. In the U.S., e-commerce accounted for 57% of total retail sales growth in 2019, up from 30.9% in 2010. From 2010-19, total online retail sales in the U.S. increased at a compound annual growth rate of 14.9% compared to 3.8% for total retail sales.

Other interesting findings include:
• The 38 digitally native retailers in the Top 500 collectively increased their online sales by 33.1% in 2019 – more than double the 16.3% for the overall Top 500 and the 12.6% for consumer brand manufacturers when excluding digitally native brands. 

• U.S. sales on Amazon.com increased by 26.2%, when including purchases from Amazon and marketplace sellers. Those sales accounted for 37.3% of U.S. online retail sales and 59.7% of its growth. 

• Walmart, grew its web sales by 47%. 

• 32.8% of top 500 retailers’ web sales came from tablets and smartphones in 2019. The median share of online sales from mobile in 2019 for the top 500 was 39.1%. And, the median share of digital traffic from mobile was more than half at 58.3%, with nearly half (48.5%) of all digital traffic to Top 500 retailers coming from mobile devices.