New insight from financial services firm Cowen predicts Amazon will be the top US clothing retailer within two years. The firm sees Amazon’s market share jumping from 5% to 14% by 2020, “comfortably passing Macy’s” in 2017.
The prediction comes on the heels of Amazon’s recent 20th anniversary Prime Day promotion—a stunt that sparked social media skepticism but ultimately paid off. Profits beat last year’s Black Friday and order growth increased by 266% over the same day last year.
Amazon is already seeing higher growth than apparel heavyweights Target and Walmart: While Amazon has averaged a 29% year-over-year increase in apparel purchasers for the last six quarters, Walmart and Target have seen 3% and 2% declines, respectively, according to Cowen.
Apparel and accessory ecommerce is poised to be a $60 billion industry this year, rising to $86.4 billion by 2018, according to eMarketer. And in China and the United Kingdom, more people are going online to buy apparel than any other category.
As this growing channel takes on a greater share of clothing sales, digital veteran Amazon is well suited to take the lead. Traditional retailers will have to double up their online efforts to keep pace with the e-tail behemoth.
Image source: NPR