Updated May 29, 2023
Overview of Amazon Alternatives
The fact that we are discussing alternatives to Amazon indicates its flagship position in the Ecommerce space. Amazon started as an online bookselling company in 1995 and has grown as the largest online retail Ecommerce Company today.
Amazon’s online retail sales in the US in 2018 almost equal all retailers’ sum value. In 2018, their sales touched $260 billion, which is 49.1% of the online retail market and 5% of all forms of retail. Amazon is growing in other geographies as well. In India, Amazon made its debut in 2012-13, and its current market share is 30%, sales are $5 billion, and market worth is $16 billion, with an overall annual growth of 20%.
In this article, let’s analyze alternatives available for Amazon.
Success Story of Amazon and its Reasons
- Amazon expanded from an online book store to electronic goods, toys, games, software, fancy items, readymade dresses, furniture, and other retail items.
- They leaned on technologies to study consumer behavior, weird requirements, and market dynamics to roll out innovation in their portal to retain and expand the customer base.
- Focused more on new services to customers like the return of goods, cash on delivery, etc.
- The improved user experience by providing a rich look and feel screens, easy search facility, additional product information, etc.
- Developed innovative products like Kindle made reading e-books easy and almost the same as reading physical books.
- Leveraged AI technology (NLP) to roll out gadgets like Echo to listen to queries and answer them in natural language.
- Relies more on the marketplace model to offer third-party vendors goods/services in their portal to enable customers to shop all the items in one place, and the revenue of this model is more than 50% of Amazon’s sales. Logistics/distribution of goods/services in this model are managed by Amazon optionally.
- Vibrant management, Concentration on customers over the competition, and Customer satisfaction over profits are the other reasons.
Why Alternatives to Amazon?
There are a few reasons why we should look out for alternative options for Amazon, and a few of them are below:
- Market Dominance: Amazon dominates online retail in the US and is expanding fast in other countries. They are expanding into developing their products/services like Echo and other AI products, AWS cloud services. Their dominance and growth may be repressive on third-party vendors and kill their business.
- Business Ethics: Private investigations have revealed that Amazon pressures its workers for unreasonable performance. Amazon indulges in a few other unethical practices due to its powerful position in the market.
- Monopolistic Attitude: Their monopoly position may turn the wave against their customers on the future price front and service levels.
Top Alternatives to Amazon
Following are the top Alternatives to Amazon explained below:
1. Alternatives to Amazon in the US and their Unique Selling propositions (USP)
- eBay: It doesn’t own any products they sell and is famous for bidding. eBay connects third-party products with potential buyers, and they can buy products on outright purchase and bidding models. Some products are offered on both of these models, and buyers can choose either of them.
- Overstock: This site is familiar with selling artisan-made niche products, and it was started as a website selling surplus unwanted items cheaply. It shares a good portion of the sales revenue with artisans for their contributions.
- Newegg: It mainly deals with Electronic goods like Digital cameras, computers, TVs, etc. Faster delivery backed up with good customer service and price matching with others are their strengths.
- Zappos: An e-commerce site known for its excellent customer service and mainly handles apparel. It offers a unique facility of accepting customer returns as late as one year after the procurement. It is a subsidiary of Amazon.
- Aliexpress: This website is run by Alibaba group, and it connects manufacturers with customers avoiding middlemen to achieve a price economy. It offers plenty of cheap items in its portal and releases the payment to vendors only when buyers acknowledge the receipt of goods.
- Jet.com: Branded items are offered at cheap rates to customers in the US in this portal. Seasonal sales offers and promotions are the main attractions of this site.
- Barnes & Noble: Primarily deals with Books and is a tough competitor to Amazon. It offers physical and e-books and has a huge collection of books in its kitty.
- Rakuten: Like eBay, this site connects manufacturers with buyers. Video reviews and an attractive reward points system are the strengths of this portal.
- Walmart: Daily discounts/offers and low prices are the specialties of this largest physical store Conglomerate. One can buy items available in physical stores on this site. Items are either delivered at home or the nearest local store.
- Target: Deals with high-quality products with the latest trends. It is another supermarket chain in the US, like Walmart. Seasonal sales offers and offering trending products to its customers are its strengths.
- QVC.com: Quality, value, and convenience are the full form of QVC. Starting as Television marketing, it offers niche branded products at a slightly higher price.
- BestBuy.com: It mainly deals with Home electronic items and computers. Periodic sales offers and hassle-free returns are its strengths.
- Etsy: This site offers customers artisan handmade and classic vintage items. Most of the sales revenue is shared with artisans. Home decorators and those who look out for unique gift items are the major customers of Etsy.
2. Alternatives to Amazon in India
- Flipkart: National leader in e-commerce in India, acquired by Walmart. Like Amazon, it started with books and expanded to other products.
- Snapdeal: A diversified platform competes for national leadership.
- Indiamart: Connects suppliers, manufacturers, exporters, and consumers through this platform.
- Bookmyshow: Familiar with online ticket booking for events, exhibitions, movies, etc.
- Myntra: Mainly deals with apparel, fashion, and lifestyle items.
- Firstcry: Offers baby care and kids’ wear.
Conclusion
There are many e-commerce vendors to challenge Amazon in all geographies with their innovative products by leveraging the latest Digital technologies and vibrant business models.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Amazon Alternatives. Here we discuss the success story of Amazon and its reasons, along with top alternatives to Amazon in the US and India. You may also look at the following articles to learn more-
