Top 10 e-commerce companies list and guide (2024)

Online shopping is commonplace now, but it was once a novelty. The first online sale took place in 1994 when a man sold his CD of Sting to his friends through his website called Netmarket, which was the first online retail platform.

Since then, e-commerce as a business model and the scope of e-commerce companies have exploded, completely redefining the global retail landscape in the process. Global e-commerce sales are expected to reach $5 trillion in 2022 and $6 trillion by 2024. In the US, e-commerce accounts for more than 13% of total sales.

What is e-commerce?

E-commerce is an abbreviation for “electronic commerce” and is a business model for buying and selling products and services over the Internet.

It also involves the transfer of money and data that makes these transactions possible. While many consumers associate e-commerce only with products, the term also encompasses everything made possible by the Internet, whether it's buying a sweater from a New Zealand manufacturer or hiring the services of a cleaner through Craigslist. Includes commercial transactions.

E-commerce growth has been driven by both digitally native global online marketplaces such as Amazon and Alibaba, and traditional brick-and-mortar retailers that are expanding their own e-commerce presences such as Target and Best Buy. Ta. Although each of these retailers is operationally similar in terms of e-commerce fundamentals, each of these retailers offers a unique niche in the e-commerce environment by focusing on product range and developing unique fulfillment strategies. We have developed the following.

Top 10 e-commerce companies

1. Shopify
2. Amazon
3. eBay
4. Etsy
5. craigslist
6. meta
7. walmart
8. the goal
9. best buy
10. alibaba

1. Shopify

Shopify is a complete digital commerce platform that allows anyone to start, grow, manage, and scale a business. It allows businesses to build online stores, market to customers, and accept payments across multiple sales channels and locations, all in one place.

Shopify's expertise and leadership in commerce is based on the experience of millions of business owners who use our platform. The success of these businesses, for independent contractors and corporate brands alike, allows Shopify to build the right features and products to power today's businesses and help shape the future of commerce.

Merchants like Allbirds, Silk Laundry, and Quad Lock have found success with Shopify.

2.Amazon

Amazon is an American multinational technology company focused on cloud computing, digital streaming services, and AI, as well as e-commerce. The company is considered one of America's top five technology companies, along with Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft, and is also one of the world's largest e-commerce companies.

In addition to selling products directly, Amazon also acts as a platform for third-party vendors to sell their products, with 60% of sales on Amazon coming from third parties.

From a consumer's perspective, there is no difference between products sold by Amazon and products sold by third parties. From a vendor's perspective, sales are either handled by Amazon (FBA), where the products are warehoused and shipped by Amazon, or by sellers, where a third-party vendor stores and ships the products (FBM). ). However, you must follow Amazon's shipping and packaging standards.

3. eBay

eBay is an American multinational e-commerce company headquartered in San Jose, California. Founded in 1995 as an online auction site by Pierre Omidyar, eBay was a prominent figure in the dot-com bubble of the late 2000s, the stock market crash caused by his excessive speculation in online companies in the late 1990s. He is one of the survivors.

Today, eBay is a multibillion-dollar e-commerce business that facilitates both consumer-to-consumer sales on a best-offer basis and traditional current price sales. Buyers can use the site for free, but sellers have to pay a fee to list items. eBay's annual net revenue for 2022 was approximately $9.8 billion, down from $10.4 billion a year earlier.

4. Etsy

Etsy is an American e-commerce platform focused on selling handmade and vintage products such as jewelry, clothing, home decor, furniture, crafts, and tools. The site follows in the tradition of physical craft fairs and gives small business owners a personal digital storefront where they can list their products for a fee of 20 cents per item. Etsy reported 2022 revenue of $2.6 billion and has approximately 92 million active buyers.

5. Craigslist

Craigslist is an American classifieds website modeled after the confidential section at the back of a newspaper, with sections for jobs, housing, items for sale, gig services, and discussion forums. List's namesake, Craig Newmark, founded the company in 1995 as an email Listserv for friends in San Francisco focused on events in the Bay Area. His Listserv he transformed into his website in 1996 and has since expanded into other advertising and sales categories.

Craigslist currently covers metropolitan areas in more than 70 countries and receives approximately 191.6 million monthly visitors.

6. Meta

Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company is best known as the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

We also operate Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace works similarly to Craigslist in that it offers consumer-to-consumer sales and gig services. We also operate e-commerce functionality for our shops on Facebook and Instagram. This allows users to click on her Instagram posts and purchase the featured products. Meta generated an estimated revenue of $116 billion in 2022.

7. Walmart

Walmart is an American multinational retail company that operates a chain of “supercenters,” or large-format stores, and a major e-commerce website of the same name. The company has been well known in the United States as the preeminent low-price mega-retailer since the 1960s, and is now one of the world's largest retail companies. In the United States, he has stores in all 50 states and also has a large presence (both physical and digital) in Canada and Mexico.

Walmart is leveraging its brick-and-mortar footprint for a successful e-commerce model by using existing stores as warehouses for online orders. Customers can purchase products from store shelves through Walmart.com, rather than from hundreds of shelves in a single warehouse. Or thousands of miles away. Walmart's 2022 revenue is approximately $611 billion, and Walmart.com receives approximately 268 million monthly visits.

8. Target

Target is a major department store in the United States and the second largest retailer in the country after Walmart. The company operates more than 1,800 stores across the country and has an extensive e-commerce footprint alongside its brick-and-mortar operations.

Like Walmart, Target sells a wide range of consumer goods, from fashion items and home decor to electronics and groceries. Like Walmart, Target uses its physical stores as alternative warehouses for online orders that are shipped nationwide. Target generated approximately $109 billion in revenue in 2022 and enjoys more than 154.7 million monthly visits.

9. Best Buy

Best Buy is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Minnesota. Founded in 1966 by Richard M. Schulz and James Wheeler as a stereo store called The Sound of Music, it was rebranded to its current name in 1983 to sell a wider range of electronic products.

In addition to its brick-and-mortar retail stores, Best Buy operates a robust e-commerce service through its website BestBuy.com. BestBuy's U.S. domestic revenue in 2022 was approximately $46 billion, accounting for more than 90% of its total revenue. The site averages approximately 93.8 million visitors per month.

10. Alibaba

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational technology company that provides e-commerce, Internet services, and technology development services. Founded in 1999 in Hangzhou, the company provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-business, business-to-business sales services and product search engines.

Alibaba is considered China's answer to Amazon as a one-stop e-commerce retailer offering a wide range of products. However, it surpasses that comparison by offering a significant range of wholesale products for individuals and businesses to purchase and resell. Alibaba's sales in 2022 were approximately $126.5 billion. The company's consumer site, AliExpress, receives an average of 431 million visits.

Choose the right e-commerce company

While the e-commerce landscape is undoubtedly being shaped by the growth of large e-commerce companies like Amazon and Alibaba, there is still plenty of room for online stores to leverage this model and make a name for themselves.

If you're considering adding e-commerce capabilities to your small business or launching a digitally native e-commerce venture from scratch, consider these questions:

• Do you have a website or do you have the means to design one (using a website builder or hiring a web developer)?
• If you already have a website, can you use it as-is to launch your e-commerce department, or does it need a redesign?
• Which e-commerce platform is best suited for your business format: B2C or B2B?
• What traffic goals does an e-commerce department need to achieve to be worth the investment?

Beyond just the best online store builder, think about the other business tools those platforms offer. It is often beneficial to have a seamlessly integrated ecosystem of online stores, payment processors, point of sale, and even small business lenders. For example, Shopify has a suite of tools to help you manage every aspect of your business and an App Store with more than 4,000 apps to help you customize the experience for your customers and your team.

Selling online with your own e-commerce website has never been easier, faster, or more scalable. Shopify is a single platform where customers can sell online, in person, or anywhere in between.