Study: Amazon makes big strides in capturing health, personal care, food shoppers

SANDY, Utah — Amazon is gaining a significantly larger share-of-wallet for everyday household items — and the retailer continues to build momentum.



Across the U.S. housewares, health & personal care and beauty industries, the online retailer has a combined average year-over-year growth (YoY) rate of 38%, compared to the total retail market's combined growth average of 6%, according to research from One Click Retail. The firm uses a combination of website indexing, machine learning and proprietary software to estimate weekly online sales figures at the SKU level on Amazon.



As Amazon far outpaces total retail growth YoY in American household purchases, the retailer is on track to cause serious disruption to the U.S. superstore, grocery and drug store channels. This can be credited to millennials who are spending more than twice as much as other demographics when purchasing household items online, the report said.



Specifically, Amazon’s growth rate in housewares is three and a half times that of the total U.S. domestic market. The housewares product group proved to be one of the main drivers of Amazon's 2016 success, accounting for 15% of the company's YoY sales growth in 2016. Housewares, including home and kitchen, generated almost $7 billion in sales for Amazon in 2016, a significant increase over 2015's $5 billion plus, the study revealed.



When it comes to health and personal care sales, Amazon’s are growing close to 5 times faster YoY than the total domestic market, with significant increases in nutrition & wellness (+ 40%), baby care (+ 30%), household consumables (+ 55%), and health care (+ 45% YoY growth).



Amazon Prime Pantry's immense growth this year illustrates the success of subscription-based e-commerce initiatives. Items that historically struggled online can now be packed alongside other pantry items and shipped in a single box, bringing shipping costs down.



Despite the fact that total retail market growth of beauty and cosmetics sales in the U.S. is a stagnant 2%, Amazon sales have skyrocketed by 47% YoY. Skincare products and men's products are the drivers behind Amazon’s beauty product group’s growth. Amazon's success in this product group is driven by the sale of a very large volume of small, inexpensive items.



The future success of drug stores and supercenters will be dependent upon whether they consider selling on Amazon, introducing their own online sales strategy or choosing to do nothing at all, according to the report.



"What we're currently witnessing is e-commerce finally beginning to disrupt everyday household products, with Amazon leading the pack," said Spencer Millerberg, OCR's CEO. "Consumers benefit from buying these items in bulk, and having them delivered right to their doorsteps. Our numbers continue to demonstrate just how significant these everyday items are in helping to drive Amazon's exponential YoY growth."