NRF expects 137.4M Americans to shop online or hit stores this Black Friday weekend. With assortment playing a major role in retailers’ strategies this holiday, 360pi, the leader in product and price intelligence, today released a special edition holiday infographic, taking a look at which products were in Amazon’s aisle this holiday. This infographic, Amazon’s Endless Holiday Aisle, follows the observed shifts in Amazon’s category, product, brand, and seller coverage between May and November 2016, providing unprecedented insight into Amazon’s assortment, marketplace and holiday strategies. Some highlights include:
Third-party sellers let Amazon “have their cake and eat it too”
While 360pi’s recent analysis shows marketplace sellers account for 96.2% of all products offered on Amazon.com, these same sellers only represent half of all merchandise sold on Amazon. This lets Amazon dominate the retail landscape at a fraction of the risk and cost of other sellers.
Key holiday categories signal Amazon’s growth strategy
Observed changes between May 2016 and November 2016
- Electronics & Computers, one of the most highly competitive holiday categories, saw a 75% increase in the total number of products available by all sellers, including Amazon proper.
- Despite the vast number of marketplace sellers seen capitalizing on retailer out-of-stocks this holiday, Amazon saw no change in seller count in Toys & Games over the observed time period.
- 360pi observed 22% growth in the number of brands offered for sale on Amazon.com in the Home & Kitchen category. Earlier this year, 360pi also found that 60% of top marketplaces offered products in this category.
- Amazon continued its aggressive play into Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry, as evidenced by the recent influx in product listings. The retailer showed a 55% increase in listings over the past six months, which follows an earlier 87% increase between May 2015 and May 2016.
Marketplaces are driving the bulk of Amazon’s category ramp-up this holiday
In preparation for the holidays, Amazon proper expanded their product offering by 30% from May to November 2016 – the equivalent of 3.6M new products. Amazon’s marketplace sellers cumulatively increased their count by 17.5% (6M+ products) over the same time period.
Amazon’s Endless Holiday Aisle is part of 360pi’s fourth annual award-winning Holiday Insights Series, delivering subscribers exclusive weekly holiday product and pricing trends across several major retailers, including Amazon, Walmart and Target. Sign up for the Holiday Insights Series to download the infographic and to receive 360pi’s special Black Friday and Cyber Monday analyses, a must-have for every retailer and brand manufacturer this holiday.
Source: 360pi.com Press Release
