The Small Business Spotlight Awards, introduced in September, honor and celebrate inspiring, unique, and customer-obsessed small businesses selling in Amazon’s stores.

Packaged Facts made the prediction in the brand new report, Amazon Strategies and the Amazon Shopper, 2nd Edition, which analyzes the e-commerce giant’s activities in grocery, pet products, and financial services.

Online grocery sales projections vary wildly, so I’m siding with Nielsen's forecast of $100 billion by 2022. Regardless of the exact figure, the pace of change in retail grocery is accelerating.

Between 2018 and 2023, Packaged Facts forecasts online grocery sales will more than quadruple as online options become more available and consumers become more open to trying online shopping or using online options more frequently to purchase their groceries.

Packaged Facts also reveals that among Walmart’s food retail competitors, Amazon grew usage penetration at the fastest rate from 2014 to 2018.

In early 2017 NPD reported that 6% of US consumers shopped online for groceries and now up to 16%, or over 52 million people, shop online, using either delivery or click-and-collect. The convenience of online grocery shopping has trumped some of the concerns consumers previously had about shopping online for groceries, such as higher costs, fees, or waiting for delivery.  And, like shopping online for other consumer goods, online grocery shoppers take an omnichannel approach and still shop at brick-and-mortar grocers.    

The Amazon Flavors product portfolio features natural extracts and flavors derived from the guarana plant, açai berries, oranges and grapes as well as cola flavors for the Brazilian beverage market.