I don’t see how you could argue they’re a monopoly compared to retailers. They’re the #2 retailer, and smaller than #3 and #4 combined:

https://www.retail-insight-network.com/features/top-retail-c...

Also, most stores on that list have store brands to compete with many products, and specifically Ruffles.

#1 on the list is famous for pushing suppliers around because they know they can put suppliers out of business by cancelling contracts.

In fact, they established a 3% “fine” on any goods delivered late due to Covid:

https://progressivegrocer.com/walmart-pressures-suppliers-de...

There are basically three large grocery chains in the US, plus Target and Walmart.

The e commerce market isn’t so different. Amazon has a 40% share. Walmart is a big player, then Shopify et al enable lots of DTC companies.

Amazon is only a monopoly if you redefine the relevant market to be “Amazon”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supermarket_chains_i...

But as you can see from the gigantic list on that page, most grocery stores don't belong to those top 3.

I live in NYC, for example, and I don't know a single grocery store here that belongs to a national chain or even a regional one -- they're all local. (With the sole exception of Target, but that surely doesn't make up even 1% of grocery sales here.)

So the ecommerce market is entirely different. There's no grocery store equivalent of Amazon's 40% share. And people can easily visit different grocery stores, but Prime members tend to shop mostly exclusively on Amazon for the obvious reasons, so it's locked-in in a very unique way.

For statistical purposes NYC basically isn’t America. It’s basically the only true city in the US, and is not representative of anything. Most other US cities become suburbs rather quickly, whereas NYC has an extensive urban built environment.

Walmart is the top grocer in the US and has a 27% market share. The top five grocery chains are about 45%. Top five ecommerce are about 53%. It’s not massively different.

Outside of NYC Wallmart has significant marketshare over grocers. https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Walmart_Grocery_...

They've butted heads with their vendors over the years, and drive pricing decisions nationwide.

> I live in NYC, for example, and I don't know a single grocery store here that belongs to a national chain or even a regional one -- they're all local.

1. Whole Foods

2. Trader Joe’s

3. Acme (subsidiary of Albertsons)

4. Wegmans (on GP’s linked list)

5. Fairway / Morton Williams (depends on how you define “regional chain”, but both are Shoprite affiliates and Shoprite is on GP’s linked list)

About the only truly “local” chain grocery stores I can think of in NYC are Gristedes and Westside Market, but I’m not an expert on the subject.

Ah, I wasn't thinking of more "upscale" stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, good point.

But in my part of Brooklyn everything's extremely local -- FoodTown, Western Beef, Associated, etc. And in Manhattan I indeed always shopped at Gristedes, Westside, Fairway (which looking up their ownership, is at most regional if not local -- and even Shoprite is regional, not one of GP's 3 national chains).

But the main point stands -- across all 5 boroughs, the vast majority of grocery stores are local chains. Grocery stores are in no way concentrated in any way analagous to Amazon.

> But the main point stands -- across all 5 boroughs, the vast majority of grocery stores are local chains.

I’m not going to do like others and say your main point is irrelevant because NYC is unlike the rest of America (although arguably it is an outlier in almost every way), but the fact remains your main point is incorrect, the ‘vast majority’ of grocery stores in NYC are not local chains. I’m not invested in this debate enough to prove it by counting the number of grocery stores in NYC, but I’ve already shown that 5 (if not more) of the top ten grocery store brands in NYC are regional or national chains, so that disproves your “vast majority” claim without further effort in my opinion. YMMV!

Edit: even one of the ones you mentioned (Associated) is a regional chain... https://www.asghq.com/

Edit2: Foodtown is also a regional chain covering three states per their website. Further, Western Beef even has locations in Florida which stretches even the definition of regional to me!

Those 5 boroughs are pretty unusual compared to a majority of the USA. There are about 5,000 towns in the USA with more than 5,000 people and Wal-Mart has about 5,000 stores with $340 billion in grocery sales. Kroger and Costco both have over $100 billion in annual revenue with over 3,000 stores between them. Wal-Mart has over 40% of grocery stores in the country and these 3 stores together have over 70%.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/197621/annual-grocery-st...

https://www.foodindustry.com/articles/a-list-of-the-top-ten-...

Your statistics aren't adding up.

There are 38,000+ grocery stores in the US.

There are less than 5,000 Wal-Marts. So if Wal-Mart is the largest grocery store, it's still less than 15% market share. Kroger has 2,800, and Costco has a little over 500.

The overall picture is clear: the long tail of supermarkets is long, and even the largest grocery chains command only a small percentage of overall market share.

I did not downvote you, but I see why you were confused. I should have clarified, but one of the links said total grocery sales revenue is $750 billion, so that's how I was calculating what fraction of the market Wal-Mart and other stores have. All those tiny grocery stores in dense urban areas account for much smaller slices of the revenue pie.

There are 1,100+ grocery stores in NYC.

There are only ~16 Whole Foods and 9 Trader Joes. And only one Wegman's. And not even a single "Acme", so I don't know where you got that from.

So no, I stand by my claim that the vast majority aren't national chains at all. You haven't "disproven" anything at all -- to the contrary, your list is actually a perfect demonstration of just how tiny of a market share these chains have. And I don't really care about nitpicking between local and regional chains.

My whole original point was that there aren't 3 major national companies that control the majority of grocery stores, and therefore it's totally different from Amazon. And that point still stands entirely.

> So no, I stand by my claim that the vast majority aren't national chains at all.

Shifting goal posts (now it’s “not national chain” vs “everything is local”), dismissing factual information that doesn’t align with your views, yep, all classic signs of “I’m right no matter what” mentality. Have a nice day!

NYC is not a typical US city.

I believe Amazon is more like 50%+ now, and to compared to brick & mortar... Wal-Mart is considered huge and still only ~10% of the market.

There are more than 3 grocery chains in your link, I think you may have overlooked the regional chains listed below.

Nope, 40.4%: https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-dominates-us-ecomme...

maybe I was looking at bad data? this says 51.2% of retail ecommerce

https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2021/amazon-walmart-nearl...

Tbh I’m not sure. May be different market definitions? “Ecommerce vs retail ecommerce”

It's not clear to me how Amazon is even a "quasi-monopoly" as you put it. What are they doing to suppress competition? They aren't forcing exclusivity.

A few rich guys put together Jet.com ~7 years ago. A totally independent operation from Amazon and they sold all sorts of crap before being acquired by Walmart. So what am I missing?