Some Amazon markets grow faster during the COVID-19 epidemic

These are not the Amazon marketplaces you would have thought of.

It was observed at the publication of Amazon's second half results: it will take more than a pandemic to stop the giant. On the contrary, Amazon's figures are very good in the second quarter of 2020: with sales of $88.9 billion and profits of $5.2 billion (x2 compared to the same quarter of 2019), Jeff Bezos' firm is doing better than ever.

With such results, it is interesting to look at the traffic of Amazon's various marketplaces. How has it evolved over the last few months, marked by COVID-19? In which countries has Amazon exploded or perhaps slowed down?

Marketplace Pulse recently published a report that gives us some answers. In particular, it illustrates the evolution of visits to Amazon's 15 marketplaces between February and August... a period that interests us! Bizon presents this data.

Amazon traffic continued to grow in Europe during COVID-19

Between February and August, the number of visitors remained stable in all countries where Amazon is present. In all of these markets, monthly visits overall increased by an average of 24% compared to the same period in 2019.

Growth in visitors to Amazon marketplaces between February and August 2020 / Source: Marketplace Pulse Research

Italy, India, Germany, Japan, France and the United Kingdom lagged slightly behind the United States, which saw their visits increase by 29%.

It should be noted that February is generally a "weak" month for e-commerce. By chance, it is also the month preceding COVID-19. By analyzing the evolution of traffic between a "low" month and a few months after the peak of the epidemic, we can have a precise look at the impact that the international containment has had on Amazon and e-commerce in general.

The 29% growth in the United States serves here as a reference base for other markets. ➡️ If the traffic growth observed in the other marketplaces exceeds 29%, it can be said that they did indeed experience strong growth during VIDOC-19.

Excluding the United States, the average growth in visits to Amazon's marketplaces was 20%. We could stop at this figure and conclude here and say that the effect of the epidemic on visits was rather negligible... but we have to look at some of the marketplaces to grasp the whole issue.

An explosion of visits for Amazon in Singapore, Turkey and Australia

Where the SimilarWeb data advanced by Marketplace Pulse becomes really interesting is when it shows record growth for some of Amazon's smaller international markets.

Australia nearly doubled its traffic between 2019 and 2020, and over the February-August period, its number of visits increased by 70%. By contrast, the 29% growth in the US appears very slim.

Canada, Brazil and Mexico have also experienced strong growth, each by more than 40%. ➡️ These three markets are geographically close to the United States. Canada and Mexico benefit from Amazon's NARF (North America Remote Fulfillment) program, which facilitates sales in these countries for American sellers.

Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Netherlands are marketplaces recently launched by Amazon. Of these four countries, the increase in visitor numbers is unmistakable and up to 100% for Singapore.

➡️ These are the marketplaces to look at. The first sellers to position themselves there according to those who will do best because they will be able to conquer a whole new audience that has adopted Amazon. The audience is growing exponentially: it would be a shame to deprive ourselves of it, we see the full potential of these new marketplaces on a daily basis as an Amazon agency.