The National Retail Federation’s annual report on the Hot 100 Retailers is based on increases in domestic sales for the most recently completed fiscal year. The breakout charts look at sector leaders.
Ecommerce isn’t as easy as it seems, and that might be why only three purely ecommerce retailers are included in the Hot 100 Retailers list. Amazon is the undisputed king of ecommerce, but even the king has six different bricks-and-mortar formats in its portfolio, including the multibillion-dollar Whole Foods Markets chain.
Check out our complete list of the 2020 Hot 100 Retailers here.
Boxed.com showed the smallest gain in market share, based on 2019 sales. That will probably change this year, however, with so many consumers switching to online to purchase groceries and household supplies during the pandemic, even in the bulk sizes offered by Boxed.
“Millions of new shoppers have discovered Wayfair while they shelter in place at home and we are seeing a strong acceleration in new and repeat customer orders across almost all goods and across all regions.”
Niraj Shah, CEO and co-founder, Wayfair
Build.com also received a boost during the pandemic when consumers, looking for things to accomplish during lockdown periods, took to doing fixup projects around the house. Build.com has expanded its basic plumbing offerings to include all sorts of furnishings and gadgets for kitchens, bathrooms and other sections of the house on its ecommerce platform.
Wayfair, the category leader in market share gains among online-only retailers, saw its sales spike during the height of COVID-19 infections and even afterward. Consumer spending online on home furnishings “exhibited strong growth,” according to Earnest Research, with Wayfair being one of the major ecommerce beneficiaries.
In its first fiscal quarter this year, Wayfair saw revenue rise 19.8 percent to $2.3 billion compared with last year’s first quarter. What excited CEO and co-founder Niraj Shah even more, he said, was that “millions of new shoppers have discovered Wayfair while they shelter in place at home and we are seeing a strong acceleration in new and repeat customer orders across almost all goods and across all regions.”