The Hidden Metric That Allows Amazon To Dominate Online Retail

It’s been well publicized how much Amazon.com dominates online retail traffic. About half of all online product searches in the United States begin on Amazon’s website. Amazon took 54% of general merchandise online shopping traffic in the country during the first two months of 2018, according to a recent survey from SimilarWeb. But traffic is just half the story. Traffic in and of itself isn’t worth much. All of those viewers have to turn into paying customers. And surprise surprise, Amazon leads the field in that regard as well. Amazon is able to convert its visitors at nearly twice the rate of its biggest rival, Walmart, and at more than 2.5 times the rate of Target. Even Costco, which fosters more loyal shoppers through its warehouse membership, struggles to convert traffic at a rate even close to Amazon.com’s. Read more at The Motley Fool.