Amazon.com Inc. dominates North American online retail in 2024, capturing more than 39% of the dollars spent online last year by consumers in the United States, Canada and Mexico, data shows. But it faces significant challenges from store-based retailers selling online, as well as marketplaces. In addition, it must contend with two fast-growing Chinese newcomers to the market, Temu and Shein.
Those conclusions emerge from a first-ever Digital Commerce 360 analysis of the 50 most popular retail sites in terms of web sales to North American consumers.
For 20 years, Digital Commerce 360 has analyzed the sales of top online retailers and brands based on their home base. For example, the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 report digs into the worldwide online sales of the 1,000 biggest online sellers headquartered in North America. In this series, we look at it from the consumer’s perspective: Which are the 50 retailer sites and marketplaces where North America’s online shoppers buy the most?
Top 50 online retailers dominate North American ecommerce
The Top 50 represents the bulk of North American ecommerce: More than 84% of the dollars North American consumers spent online in 2023 were with these 50 companies. While Amazon is by far the leader, looking at North American online sales reveals some important insights on other companies that are winning, or not winning, in the North American ecommerce market.
Amazon’s share of North American ecommerce
The North American online retail market by country
Consumers in the United States accounted for 94.3% of the $1.170 trillion in online purchases by North American shoppers in 2023, with their peers in Canada and Mexico roughly splitting the rest. Online retail sales in Mexico surged by 34.0% in 2023 over the prior year, compared with 10.0% in Canada and 9.0% in the U.S.
Sales for the Top 50 online shopping sites grew by 10.4% in 2023 to $985.96 billion. As a result of that above-market growth, the Top 50’s share of North American ecommerce increased to 84.3% in 2023 from 83.4% in 2022.
Composition of the Top 50 online players
Retail chains that operate physical stores represent 24 of the 50 companies ranked in the Top 50. Pure marketplaces and consumer brand manufacturers are next with eight each. Web-only retailers, including Amazon, take seven of the Top 50 slots and direct marketers three.
Merchant types of the Top 50
Of the Top 50 players, 39 are based in North America, all but one in the United States. The lone Canadian company to make the list is Hudson’s Bay Co., which owns a major Canadian department store chain of the same name as well as U.S.-based chains Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor.
Seven Top 50 companies are based in Europe, including three in Germany (meal-kit seller HelloFresh, web and catalog retailer Otto Group and sportswear brand adidas AG.) Fashion conglomerate LVMH and cosmetics brand L’Oreal S.A. make up the French contingent. Netherlands-based grocer Ahold Delhaize, which owns such U.S. supermarket chains as Food Lion, Giant Food and Stop & Shop, and Swiss candy maker Nestle also make the list.
Chinese companies take four spots in the list. That includes the two relative newcomers, Temu and Shein. It also counts representatives of the two leading e-retail players in China, web-only retailer JD.com and Tmall, an online marketplace owned by Alibaba Group.
Composition of Top 50 by home region
Editor’s note: Read even more reporting, based on Digital Commerce 360’s Top 50 data in our coverage of the top online marketplaces selling in North America.
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