Amazon.com Inc. reported that net sales increased to $134.4 billion in its fiscal second quarter ended June 30, 2023. That’s up 11% year over year from $121.2 billion in Amazon Q2 sales in 2022.

Amazon’s total sales include its own product sales, as well as marketplace seller fees, advertising fees and revenue from Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s new 2023 Global Online Marketplaces Report. The Global Online Marketplaces Database ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by 2023 third-party GMV.

Digital Commerce 360 estimates Amazon Q2 web sales reached $95.18 billion. That’s 6.7% year-over-year growth, according to Digital Commerce 360 data and analysis.

Amazon said its online stores, which accounted for 39.4% of total sales, grew just 4.2%.

The other elements that impact web sales, including third-party seller fees and advertising, accounted for a combined 32.0% of total sales and grew 19.0% for the quarter, Amazon said. Combined, these two revenue segments are closing in on online stores’ revenue for Amazon, standing at $43.01 billion compared with online stores at $52.97 billion.

“Weak sales through its online stores segment may seem worrying,” said James Risley, research data manager and senior analyst at Digital Commerce 360. “But Amazon is making up for it by convincing brands and sellers to pay more to show up in its marketplace.”

Amazon Q2 sales

In North America, Amazon sales increased to $82.55 billion. That’s up 10.9% year over year. Meanwhile, Amazon international sales increased to $29.70 billion in Q2. That’s up 9.7%.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) sales grew 12.2% year over year in Q2 to $22.14 billion. The mass merchant reported it “delivered its largest selection of products to U.S. Prime members at the fastest speeds ever in the quarter.”

Also, the largest online retailer in the region announced Amazon Business is one of its fastest growing offerings, with $35 billion in annualized gross sales. It serves more than 6 million customers.

Amazon Q2 sales do not include the merchant’s Prime Day event that fell July 11 and 12. The sales event brought in $13 billion worldwide, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates. Amazon reported in its earnings release that Prime members worldwide purchased more than 375 million items during the event. Home, fashion, and beauty were among the top-selling deal categories, Amazon said.

Amazon and AI: ‘It is going to be at the heart of what we do’

Every business inside Amazon has multiple generative AI initiatives running at the moment, said Andrew Jassy, president and CEO.

“Inside Amazon, every one of our teams is working on building generative AI applications that reinvent and enhance their customers’ experience,” Jassy said. He added that, “It is going to be at the heart of what we do.”

He broke down large language models in generative AI as having three key layers:

• The lowest layer: The computing power required to train foundational models, make inferences and make predictions.
• The middle layer: Large language models as a service. He said developing these large language models takes billions of dollars and multiple years.
• The top layer: The applications (such as ChatGPT, he said) that run on top of these large language models.

Jassy said one of the early compelling generative AI applications is a coding companion. He attributes that to why Amazon built CodeWhisperer, an AI-powered coding companion that recommends code snippets directly in the code editor. This is meant to accelerate developer productivity in the coding process.

Jassy said the company sees AWS as “poised to be customers’ long-term partner of choice in generative AI.”

“AWS not only has the broadest array of storage, database, analytics and data management services for customers,” Jassy said. “It also has more customers and data store than anybody else.”

Electronics retailers in the Top 1000 are most likely to sell on Amazon, according to a Digital Commerce 30 analysis. More than three quarters of consumer electronics retailers in the Top 1000 sold on Amazon in both 2021 and 2022.

Fulfillment and delivery

Amazon now offers U.S. Prime members free same-day or one-day delivery on tens of millions of items, it reported Aug. 3. And it announced just days before its earnings call that it would double the number of U.S. same-day delivery facilities.

“As Amazon faces pressure from retail chains like Walmart and Target, it is competing more and more with the convenience of stores,” Digital Commerce 360’s Risley said. “The fact that it’s now delivering same day or next day for more than half of orders in 60 metros across the country shows that it’s playing on different turf than its store-based competitors. Amazon is betting consumers will be turning to its faster delivery services over curbside and BOPIS options from stores.”

54% of Top 1000 retailers sold on Amazon in 2022, according to Digital Commerce 360 data.

Per Amazon, customers worldwide saved more than $1 billion in the last 12 months through Subscribe & Save. The program lets customers select their preferred delivery frequency for eligible products. Amazon said the program has tens of millions of global subscribers with hundreds of millions of subscriptions.

Moreover, Amazon Day deliveries saved 136 million boxes in 2022, the merchant reported. Amazon Day gives Prime members the ability to choose a designated day of the week to receive their orders.

“On top of making deliveries work for customers’ personal schedules, this free Prime benefit uses 30% fewer boxes on average,” Amazon said.

Amazon recently reported that its carbon emissions fell in 2022 for first time. Emissions are up by about 40% since Amazon set the target in 2019. That’s fueled in part by supercharged sales during the pandemic. But Amazon says its carbon intensity is down 24% during the same period, thanks to the renewables push and the addition of about 9,000 electric vehicles to Amazon’s delivery fleet, among other factors.

Small businesses

In the quarter, Amazon released its annual U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report. In it, it said more than 60% of Amazon sales in its marketplace came from independent sellers. Most of them are small and medium-sized businesses, Amazon said.

U.S.-based independent sellers sold more than 4.1 billion products and averaged more than $230,000 in sales, Amazon said. It also announced a filter on its marketplace to search for small businesses.

Digital Commerce 360’s Risley said for Amazon to make its goods business sustainable, it will have to rely on growth from outside sellers using its platform.

“It seems to be succeeding at that strategy,” Risley said. “I think we’ll see fees from marketplace sellers and advertising outpace online sales in future quarters when the retail business is slower. And it’s not just small sellers who are paying those fees and placing ads — retailers like Crocs and Peloton are paying those fees to be on the site where most shoppers turn to first when looking to buy.”

Competing marketplaces

Ebay and Etsy both released earnings for the same period. Similar to Amazon, both marketplace operators shared their visions for AI application in their companies.

Ebay has begun using AI to power authentication for apparel, as well as improve the listing process for its sellers. Like Ebay, Etsy is using AI to streamline sellers’ listing process. Etsy also is using AI to improve buyer search and recommendations.

All three marketplaces closed their fiscal second quarters on June 30. Ebay reported its revenue grew 5% to $2.54 billion. Its gross merchandise value (GMV) decreased 2% to $18.2 billion.

Meanwhile, Etsy’s gross merchandise sales were almost flat, decreasing slightly at 0.6% year over year to $3 billion, but revenue was up 7.5%.

Etsy and Ebay generate revenue from similar strategies as what drives Amazon’s third-party and advertising fees. Amazon’s comparable revenue sources grew 19.0%.

Amazon earnings

For the fiscal second quarter ended June 30, Amazon.com Inc. reported:

• $134.38 billion in Amazon Q2 sales. That’s up 11% year over year from $121.23 billion in the year-ago period.
• Amazon sales in North America in Q2 grew to $82.55 billion. That’s up 11% from $74.43 billion.
• International sales increased to $29.70 billion, up 10% year over year from $27.07 billion.
• AWS sales in Q2 also grew 12%, to $22.14 billion this year from $19.74 billion last year.

For the fiscal first half ended June 30, Amazon reported:

• $261.74 billion in the first six months of the fiscal year. That’s up from $237.68 billion in the first half of fiscal 2022.
• Amazon sales in North America in the first half grew to $159.43 billion. That’s up from $143.67 billion.
• International sales increased to $58.82 billion, up year over year from $55.82 billion.
• AWS sales in the first half also grew, to $43.49 billion this year from $38.18 billion last year.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding.

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