Online giant Amazon is growing

More and more people are doing their shopping on the Internet, because the growing range of products offered by online retailers is overtaking even that of major department stores like Macy's. The online giant Amazon in particular is continuously expanding its range. Now the world's biggest online mail-order firm, Amazon initially sold only books, but it now handles around 230 mio products in a wide variety of categories. The pet category alone extends to over 670 000 products globally and offers customers a far wider selection of items than the average pet store. Product reviews by customers, the ability to compare prices quickly and fast delivery straight to the door are other features of this successful concept that is enabling Amazon to continue growing.
In the second quarter of 2017, sales of consumer goods at Amazon grew sharply by more than 45 per cent in North America and Europe. According to the market research company One Click Retail, Amazon is dominant in the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France and Germany in the categories of health and body care, cosmetics, food - and also pet supplies. In the health, body care and pet supplies categories in particular, sales in the countries mentioned increased by an average of 46 per cent in a year-on-year comparison.
With two billion dollars' worth of sales of consumer goods, the USA is Amazon's biggest market. In the second quarter the company experienced growth of 50 per cent with regard to food, 40 per cent in the health and personal hygiene categories and 30 per cent in pet products compared with the previous year. This shows that pet products are one of the key categories for Amazon; sales in this group in the second quarter exceeded tenfold the overall sales racked up by Amazon in the same quarter last year for the whole of Canada. In Great Britain and France, too, sales of pet products rose by 40 and 20 per cent respectively in the period under review. 
Is the extensive online product offering luring people away from high street stores or are people shopping more on the whole in online stores, which are open round the clock? Spencer Millerberg, CEO of One Click Retail, doesn't believe that more products are being sold: "People aren't buying more consumer goods; rather it is the case that e-commerce is taking business away from traditional high street shops." The fact is that online retailing has been nibbling away at the sales of many businesses for years. The sales of US department stores have declined…