How Amazon Dash is contributing to the growth of food, beverage e-commerce

By Carolyn Heneghan | March 16, 2016

Dive Brief:

• Three major food and beverage manufacturers made the list of the top 10 brands with the highest market share of sales of Amazon Dash Buttons, a CPG auto-replenishment service, according to 1010data’s Ecom Insights Panel. That market share is for sales of the buttons themselves, not product sales from consumers using the button.
• The top three manufacturers included PepsiCo (No. 4 - 7.5%), Kraft Heinz (No. 6 - 5%), and Coca-Cola (No. 8 - 3.7%). Wrigley, Larabar, Hershey, and Nestle weren't far behind.
• Among the top-selling individual buttons were for PepsiCo's Gatorade (No. 5), Kraft Heinz's Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (No. 8), and Coca-Cola's Smartwater (No. 10).

Dive Insight:

Cleaning supplies dominated the best-selling individual buttons list, but food products made a strong showing with nearly one-third of the top 10 spots. That percentage is significantly larger than food and beverages' portion of e-commerce sales overall, having accounted for only about $8 billion out of the $347 billion total. Amazon Dash buttons could rise a viable option for food and beverage e-commerce if brands continue posting these kinds of numbers.

Amazon and its varied e-commerce services are proving valuable to CPG companies, including food and beverage. In addition to Amazon Dash, Amazon Subscribe and Save has also driven CPG e-commerce growth, by 20% last year alone.

However, manufacturers are keeping in mind when creating their e-commerce strategy that certain products currently perform better in the e-commerce channel. Bottled water, protein powder, adult nutrition, and health snack bars were the top food and beverage categories for e-commerce sales last year, and the Amazon Dash results reflect that to an extent. Shelf-stable products, like those sold on Snyder's-Lance's online store, are going to be easier to determine e-commerce logistics for and costs than a fresh or frozen product.