Molson Hart

Amazon is a big company, but what does that mean? How big is ‘big’? What does ‘dominant’ or ‘scale’ or ‘huge’ or ‘monopoly’ mean when US retail is $6 trillion every year?

Running the numbers, Amazon has about 35% of US ecommerce. But, it competes with physical retailers as well - it competes with Macy’s, Walmart and Barnes & Noble. On that basis, Amazon’s real market share of its real target market is closer to 6% (it’s 2/3 the size of Walmart)

yeah, but that doesn't mean they're not the elephant in the room. retail includes grocery, cars, luxury, convenience, gasoline, restaurant (not 100% sure about restaurant) if amazon plays in those categories, they are a non-player and they don't do many of the biggest i.e. cars

If you read the link (or look at the chart I posted), I excluded restaurants & bars, cars & car parts, and gasoline from total retail.

I didn't really do either. I will though. Took a quick look at the chart just now. I don't think it's right, but after I read what you wrote, I'll know better.

Okay, pretty good article, but I think you should've exclude more than you did. You rightly pointed out that it doesn't matter that Amazon's book business is 0.1% of retail (or whatever it is). The key point is what is its share in books itself. Basically, for this reason, it

makes sense to net out not only restaurants/bars, cars and auto parts, and gasoline, but probably also other categories where they have deminimus or zero penetration: grocery, pharmacy, convenience/truck stop (in gas?), luxury, building materials etc.