The Great Unbundling

The last time Amazon was worth $34 billion was in September 2007! Amazon's net revenues that year were $14 billion, with $3.4 billion of gross profit. While most of Amazon's volume at the time was first-party e-commerce, its marketplace business constituted nearly 30% of unit (not dollar) sales. Based on recent filings with more business unit granu... See more

Meanwhile, the more recent rise of social media — plus digital publishing and the continued growth of e-commerce — has given brands strong incentives and tools to build direct relationships with their clientele, skipping the retail middlemen and keeping the rest of their margin.

Brick-and-mortar grocers have built in geographical demand, but online grocers must pay “rent” to Google, Facebook and other top-of-funnel acquisition tools—and that rent tends to rise over time