The analogy I would use is that e-commerce retail is smart phones in 2008 (maybe a bit later) and the broader retail market includes landlines and feature phones. Even today landlines exist and feature phones are sold. The growth trajectory for e-commerce won’t change and big box retail won’t encounter a meaningful resurgence. Amazon is the second biggest retailer alone as compared with Walmart which primarily makes money on big box store and has a retail presence in name only (if you take just their online sales it’s not meaningful competition). The concern is that the reason Amazon holds such dominance in e-commerce is because it’s really leveraging cross-market dominance. AWS subsidizes their marketplace to be extra competitive, their data on retail has them introducing first-party products that compete with suppliers selling through their platform by focusing on high-margin items.
The better question is whether or not this kind of behavior needs regulation, or needs regulation yet. I’d argue yes having read the story from the diaper.com founder and Bezos’ laughable diversion.
As for ease of switching, I think e-commerce can’t be directly compared as the driving user behaviors are different. I could argue it’s easier with a big box store because I could just drive to a different one, use my CC and move on whereas in e-commerce I have yet another account to manage, I have to make sure I’m not getting scammed, etc.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I like the convenience of online shopping, but I also like convenience of immediately taking possession and curation. I'm price sensitive of course. I buy most of my electronics from Best Buy. Their prices are almost always the same as Amazon and if they're not its trivial to ask for a price match, which they always do.
Obviously Best Buy or other retailers can't stock everything, but they can stock a lot of the things I want to buy in Electronics. And they leverage Amazon search, ratings and price. They're just more convenient. They have been doing very well over the last decade.
I think people extrapolate too much of the current trends. Physical retail has been around longer than Amazon and will likely be around when Amazon is gone.
It depends on what you call the marketplace. Look at the broader "retail" sector
> The eCommerce giant [Amazon] accounted for 3.2 percent of total consumer spending in Q2 (spanning all categories, including retail) and 9 percent of total retail spending... When it comes to consumer spending, Walmart accounts for 3.4 percent overall and 10.2 percent for retail. That’s up from 9.6 percent in Q1 2020.
Walmart has a considerable share.
> so even if Home Depot wanted to exploit their position, they probably couldn't
Do you really think Amazon has more pricing power than Walmart? I'm much more likely to switch online retailers than my brick and mortar store. It's a lot easier to compare prices and switch.
https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2020/amazon-and-walmarts-...