Justin Bullock, FISM News
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, retail grocery and commercial good stores suffered substantial losses as Americans were confined to their homes due to restrictions. During that time the online marketplace experienced a boom as people continued to make purchases, just now from the comfort of their living rooms. One of the most significant benefactors of the situation was tech giant Amazon.
In the most recent earnings and sales report Amazon out earned every other company in the US for retail sales, including Walmart. Amazon outperformed Walmart by over $40 billion dollars according to sales reports from last year, making it the first time in nearly 20 years that Walmart was not the top grossing retail company in America.
Amazon is also considering expanding their retail offerings from the internet to real brick and mortar buildings as well. Amazon has already performed a test run of sorts when it acquired grocery chain, Whole Foods in 2017. Since then Amazon has been able to compete in the retail market by way of physical stores. They are now looking into opening hundreds of stores across the country where customers would be able to find commercial goods in a similar way to how their online retail service functions. Amazon has indicated that the first stores will be gradually introduced and opened in Ohio and California. If these are successful, then American consumers can expect to see Amazon retail stores popping up across the country.