By KIM BELLARD
Cyber Monday is here and you’ve likely been shopping this weekend. This year, in-store sales on Black Friday rose 2.2% while online sales increased nearly 8% to $9.8 billion, over half of which was spent via mobile shopping. Cyber Monday is expected to surpass Black Friday’s online shopping with an estimated $12 billion, a 5.4% increase from last year.
It’s worth noting that Amazon’s Prime Day is even bigger than both Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
With all this shopping comes many deliveries. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis revealed that Amazon is the leading (private) delivery service. The analysis found that Amazon has shipped around 4.8 billion packages door-to-door and is expected to finish the year with about 5.9 billion. UPS is projected to have around 5.3 billion, while FedEx is close to 3 billion. However, it’s important to note that both UPS and FedEx’s numbers include deliveries where the U.S. Postal Service handles the “last mile delivery.”
A few years ago, the notion that Amazon would deliver the most packages was considered “fantastical,” but in recent years, Amazon has achieved this feat. This is attributed to its contractor delivery program and a pandemic-driven expansion of its logistics network, regionalizing its logistics network to reduce distances packages travel across the U.S. to improve delivery times and profitability.
But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Amazon has a track record of excelling in new ventures like cloud computing. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become the market leader with 32% share and generates close to 70% of Amazon’s profits.
Amazon’s subscription service, Prime, has now reached 200 million subscribers worldwide, with 167 million in the U.S. Prime members spend about three times as much on Amazon as nonprime members.
Despite its success in other areas, Amazon’s interest in healthcare has been met with skepticism. The acquisition of online pharmacy Pillpack in 2018 was a significant step in this direction. Recently, Amazon introduced Amazon Pharmacy, offering home delivery to customers. Additionally, Amazon sought to entice Prime members to join One Medical by offering a discounted membership fee.
While Amazon’s success in the healthcare space is unclear, the company’s rapid growth in other industries suggests that Amazon may become a major player in healthcare in the near future.
