Amazon is completely blowing away competitors in one of the most important shopping channels
One big reason for Amazon's rapid growth has to do with its dominance in mobile. As more and more consumers have shifted to mobile shopping, Amazon quickly adapted and made sure its mobile shopping experience stayed up to par.
As noted by a Cantor Fitzgerald note on Thursday, Amazon blows away all of its competitors in time spent on their mobile websites by a long shot. Mobile visitors spent an average of 103 minutes on Amazon compared to Target's 20 minutes and WalMart's 14 minutes.
On top of that, Amazon's mobile service is proving to be sticky, causing customers to return 6 times a month, compared to 2.5x for WalMart and 2x for Target, according to the note. Other retailers like Macy's, Nordstrom, and even smaller e-commerce sites like Etsy hovered around 2x to 3x repeat customers, it said.
"Our analysis of mobile data for leading ecommerce and traditional players shows how Amazon not only leads the group in mobile adoption and usage, but that the gulf between the time spent with the company and virtually all other platforms is expanding rapidly, implying further market share gains ahead," Cantor Fitzgerald's research analyst Youssef Squali wrote in the note.
This is an important development given how mobile has become one of the most important shopping channels for consumers lately. Squali points out that 80% of online shoppers are visiting retail sites via mobile, citing comScore.
Here's a chart of total minutes spent on each retail website, charted by Cantor Fitzgerald:
