Amazon Statistics: The Key Numbers and Fun Facts

We don’t need to tell you that Amazon is popular. Odds are you’re already an Amazon customer. You may even do a lot of your shopping through the marketplace.

However, until you see detailed Amazon Statistics you may not really understand just how dominant the company is. This post will cover some interesting Amazon stats showing how popular the marketplace is for both customers and sellers and how it continues to grow.

1. Amazon Web Traffic

Amazon.com consistently receives over 2 billion website visitors each month. June 2021 saw the marketplace attract 2.72 billion visitors (Similarweb, 2021).

These numbers make Amazon.com the most visited e-commerce site in the world. Overall, it is the 4th most popular site in the United States and the 11th ranked worldwide site.

2. Number of Amazon Users

How many people use Amazon? It is estimated that the marketplace has over 300 million active users. In fact, 65% of the entire US population visited Amazon once per month to shop for products in 2020.

Many of these people end up becoming customers. In 2019, 172 million people bought something on Amazon in the US.

Of these Amazon customers, a significant number have an Amazon Prime membership (more on this in a bit).

3. Number of Amazon Sellers

We can see that massive amounts of people use Amazon, but how many sellers are on Amazon?

There are currently 6.2 million total sellers on Amazon (Marketplacepulse, 2021). Of this total number, 1.5 million are active. 377,000 of these sellers are new sellers, having just started in 2021.

Third-party sellers account for nearly 2 million of the total number of sellers. 

How many sellers on Amazon use FBA? 57% of third-party sellers use FBA exclusively, 34% use FBA and FBM, and only 9% use FBM only.

Use Amazon FBA product research software to make it easy to launch your FBA business.

4. Amazon Prime

Many of Amazon’s customers are members of the Amazon Prime program. As a Prime user, you get all sorts of benefits including free two-day shipping for many items and access to their streaming video service.

As of Q1 2021, there are over 200 million people enrolled in Amazon Prime  (Statista, 2021). 148 million of these people are in the US. By the end of 2021, it is estimated that 74.4 percent of US households will have a Prime membership. Prime members make up 65% of all Amazon customers in the US. 

5. Amazon Sales Statistics

With so many users and active subscribers, you may be wondering how many orders does Amazon get per day? While we do not know the exact number of orders the market receives, there are multiple reports that show Amazon ships close to 1.6 million packages each day (Market.us, 2020).

Keep in mind this doesn’t take into account multiple orders that are shipped together or items that are fulfilled by the merchant.

Amazon generated $346 billion in global retail sales in 2019 (Statista, 2021). This comes out to almost $950 million in retail sales per day. Now, this doesn’t indicate how much revenue the company brought in as most of these are third-party sales, of which Amazon only takes a small percentage as a commission.

To check sales for a particular product or track price changes, use the smart tool AMZScout PRO Extension.

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6. Third-party Seller Statistics

The majority of sales on the Amazon marketplace come from third-party sellers. In Q1 2021, third parties accounted for 55% of all marketplace sales (Statista, 2021). This number is in a steady uptrend, having risen from 50% at the end of 2017.

7. Amazon Statistics: Revenue and Income

So how much does Amazon make with all these visitors and sales? Let’s examine some key Amazon revenue and income statistics (Statista, 2021):

• Amazon total revenue: In 2020, Amazon generated $386 billion in total revenue.

• Amazon net income: In 2020, Amazon reported $21.3 billion in net income

• Amazon’s share of third-party sales: Amazon takes between 6% and 20% of all third-party sales

Seeing that Amazon makes over $21 billion in income per year, we can answer the following questions (Amazon Annual Reports, 2021).

How much does Amazon make a day? -  $58.35 million in income per day

How much does amazon make per second? - $675 in income per second.

8. Number of Products on Amazon

There are over 353 million products listed on the marketplace. 12 million of these items are sold by Amazon themselves (Retailtouchpoints, 2020). The rest are sold by third-party sellers. This product count total does not include books, media, and services.

9. Amazon’s Global Presence 

Amazon has a footprint around the world with 17 different international marketplaces. Many of these markets get heavy traffic just like the US market. Four of the most visited e-commerce websites in the world are Amazon marketplaces.

Such a big global presence naturally leads to a large workforce. As of 2020, Amazon has 1,298,000 employees (Statista, 2021).

10. Amazon Expenses

Operating such a large business does not come without significant costs. Here is a breakdown of some of Amazon’s biggest expenditures in 2020 (Statista, 2021):

• Fulfillment operations: $58.5 billion

• Shipping costs: $61.1 billion

• Marketing costs: $22 billion

• Annual advertising costs: $10.9 billion

These expenses have increased significantly as the business has grown. Here is a look at the percentage change since 2017:

• Fulfillment operations: 132%

• Shipping costs: 189%

• Marketing costs: 120%

• Annual advertising costs: 83%

11. Global Amazon Advertising Revenue 

As more sellers list items on Amazon, the company is able to make more money in advertising revenue. By the end of 2021, they are expected to generate more than $26 billion in advertising revenue (Statista, 2021).

12. Amazon’s eCommerce Market Share

Amazon has a massive share of the eCommerce market, particularly in the US. As of 2020, Amazon had 39% of the eCommerce market share in the US (Statista, 2021). This is estimated to grow to close to 50% by the end of 2021.

Amazon’s popularity isn’t limited just to people who buy products. Over 79% of consumers go to Amazon to begin their product search regardless of where they intend to ultimately make their purchase.

13. How Do Sales Increase During Special Events? 

Shopping holidays such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Day are huge sales drivers for Amazon merchants.

Of these special events, Black Friday has the biggest impact on sales. 25% of brands see the greatest increase in sales on this day.

Prime Day is the second most impactful sales event as 17% of sellers see the most sales on this day (Feedvisor, 2021). In fact, 41% of all brands saw an increase in sales on Prime Day 2020.

14. Other Stats About Amazon and Its Sellers

With the rise of Prime video, you are likely aware of Amazon’s efforts to continue to grow beyond a traditional online marketplace. Amazon has over 600 retail locations. This includes a mix of Whole Foods stores, convenience stores, bookstores, and general merchandise stores. The company also owns 400 of its own private label brands (PracticalEcommerce, 2020).

There is a diverse range of third-party brands on Amazon as well. This includes:

• Digitally native brands: 42% of all brands

• Private label: 44% of all brands

• Retail brands: 75% of all brands

• National or global brand: 60% of all brands

Products across verticals perform well on Amazon, but these are the categories most brands focus on:

• Clothing, Shoes, & Jewelry: 41%

• Electronics: 36%

• Home & Kitchen: 30%

• Cell Phones & Accessories: 29%

• Beauty and Personal Care: 29%

• Grocery & Gourmet Food: 28%

15. Why Do People Shop on Amazon? 

With so much to offer, there are many reasons why people shop on Amazon so frequently. A Statista report surveyed thousands of customers who listed the following reasons as the most impactful:

• Fast and free shipping: 80%

• Wide selection of products: 69%

• Desire to use Prime membership: 66%

• Best prices on products: 49%

• Easy returns: 44%

16. Fun Facts

Now that we’ve seen the important Amazon stats, let’s look at some more interesting facts and frequently asked questions about Amazon and its products.

• What is the biggest thing you can buy on Amazon? We believe it is this massive set of athletic bleachers. The item is over 27 feet long and can seat 180 people!

• What item has the most sales? This data is not openly available but according to the AMZScout Sales estimator, this pack of Amazon Basics batteries gets more sales than any other with over 136,000 orders per month.

  

  

  

  

  

  Here’s a snapshot of Amazon Basics batteries sales history, using AMZScout in 2021. Given that a lot can change between years, you should always reference accurate and up-to-date information.

  Unsurprisingly, face masks are also quickly gaining traction as the most popular product. Many items are now selling more than 130,000 units per month.

• What item is searched for the most? According to the keyword research tool Ahrefs, Nintendo Switch is the most searched item with over 1.3 million searches in the US each month.

  

  

  

  

  

Conclusion 

These facts about Amazon should put in perspective just how massive the online marketplace is. What’s even more interesting is that their momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. In fact, Amazon is on pace to pass Walmart as the largest US retailer (physical or digital) as early as next year. 

While there's still a great opportunity for third-party sellers, the market’s growth is also increasing competition. If you want an edge, you need strong tools to find the most profitable opportunities. AMZScout provides just that. Check out our suite of Amazon tools to see how they can help your business.

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