The top 15 online shopping sites in America generate billions of dollars in sales every year and are expected to dominate the market in the years to come. The e-Commerce industry in the U.S has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, having reached $322.2 billion in 2016. However, despite the impressive increase in sales and very optimistic forecasts, online retail is still just a small percentage of the $4.95 trillion total retail sales registered last year.
E-commerce, which involves buying and selling products exclusively online, has three main branches: business-to-consumer (B2C), which involves online shopping sites selling items to consumers, business-to-business, when companies exchange products and services among themselves, and consumer-to-consumer, when individuals sell products to other individuals through online marketplaces like eBay and Etsy.
Business-to-Consumer e-Commerce, or online shopping, is the most common form of online retail and the one that has been experiencing the most growth. In the last seven years, online retail sales’ share of overall retail sales jumped to 9% from around 4%. It has also been helped by the fast pace of closures among traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. In the first-half of 2017, different companies announced the closures of around 5,300 stores and Credit Suisse estimated that 8,600 stores would close this year, after 2,056 and 5,077 stores had closed in the previous two years, respectively.
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Moreover, in the first six months of this year, 345 retailers filed for bankruptcy, as companies are struggling to attract customers that are more likely to buy things online from the comfort of their homes. Toys ‘R’ Us is one of the latest victims to the shift from brick-and-mortar to online shopping, as the company recently filed for bankruptcy. The chain’s 1,600 locations have remained operational for the time being, but the bankruptcy highlighted the issues faced by traditional retailers, especially if they don’t pay enough attention to their online platforms.
The future looks bright for online shopping sites in America. Forrester Research estimates that by 2022, online sales will represent 17% of total U.S sales. Many retailers are adjusting to the changing trends in the retail space by increasing their online presence. Large retailers that operate many stores have the advantage of proximity to customers, so they use the retail locations as fulfillment centers that deliver products that customers ordered online and use their online platforms to boost their customers’ offline shopping experience, by offering click-to-collect services, for example. This is becoming a common practice among grocery supermarket operators, which traditionally build their locations close to large residential areas. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which owns the leading e-Commerce platform in the U.S, is also taking advantage of the benefits of supermarket operators by having recently purchased the Whole Foods supermarket chain.
It’s well known that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) dominates the online shopping space in America, accounting for the bulk of sales. Amazon’s platform not only offers millions of products, but is also commonly used for research even when customers eventually purchased items on other online shopping sites in America.
With this in mind, we have selected the top 15 shopping sites in America based on their Alexa rating. Check out the list beginning on the next page.
