eMarketer dropped a new report this week, and buried inside the upbeat language and growth curves was a stat that should make any non-Amazon retailer spit out their cold brew: Amazon will hold 77% of the retail media market—now and in 2028.

That’s not a blip.

That’s a gravitational event.

A strategic black hole. And everyone else? You're just floating debris hoping not to get pulled in.

This isn’t just dominance. It’s design.

Amazon’s 77% market share in retail media isn’t some accidental outcome—it’s a strategic gravity well that pulls in dollars, data, suppliers, and customers like a Dyson on steroids. Drew Cashmore called it a “flywheel,” and he’s right. Every dollar Amazon earns gets reinvested across logistics, ad innovation, customer experience, and even pricing power. It’s the opposite of zero-sum. It’s exponential. The more they make, the more they pull ahead—and the harder it becomes for anyone else to even stay in the race.

Meanwhile, the rest of retail is frantically hot-gluing their own “media networks” together, praying for incremental margins and maybe a few trade dollars. It's like showing up to a Formula 1 race in a golf cart powered by vibes and optimism.

Cashmore laid it out: even as retailers scramble to build their own flywheels, Amazon’s head start is almost unfair. They’ve got an obscene synergy machine—first-party data, same-day shipping, customer obsession, ad tech so advanced it might be sentient. Walmart's trying to keep up with an omnichannel strategy and some clever in-store activation, and good on them. But the fragmentation of the rest of the space makes it laughably hard for brands to manage multiple platforms. Spoiler alert: they won’t.

This market will consolidate. Harsh, but true. Cashmore predicts only a handful of players—Amazon obviously among them—will survive this round of retail media musical chairs. Everyone else will either get absorbed, partner up, or quietly fade out while muttering about “Q4 headwinds.”

Now let’s talk about the small fish. If you're not Amazon or Walmart, you're basically fighting over Amazon’s table scraps:

Now, to be fair, it’s not all doomscrolling. There are openings:

But let’s be honest here. Amazon’s flywheel is no longer a clever metaphor. It’s a closed-loop ecosystem of commerce, content, and advertising that’s self-reinforcing and brutally efficient. It sucks oxygen out of the room—and most retailers are left gasping for ad dollars while pretending their “connected retail experience” is enough to stay relevant.

Here’s what I’m watching next:

We’re not at the end of the retail media game, but we are well past halftime. The next few quarters? Bloodbath.

Stay bold. Stay curious. And build something Amazon can’t copy.

Let’s be clear—I wanted to be optimistic. I looked at that shiny “retail media will grow by $46 billion by 2028” headline and thought, maybe, just maybe, this means real opportunity for everyone.

Then I kept reading.

And guess who’s pocketing most of that $46B windfall? Surprise: Amazon. Again. Always. Forever.

So here's what I'm thinking: retail media is growing, yes—but it’s not growing for you. It’s growing around you. Amazon isn’t just dominating. They’re hoarding. And what’s left for everyone else? Whatever’s under the fridge after the feast.

While the rest of the industry builds pitch decks about “seamless omnichannel journeys,” Amazon is executing a vertical stack of pure dominance.

Here’s why the math doesn’t lie:

It’s not just about banner ads anymore—it’s infrastructure warfare. And most retailers? Still trying to plug a loyalty card database into a janky DSP and call it a day.

The typical response from retailers has been... underwhelming. Selling banner ads next to cereal boxes isn’t a strategy. It’s a coping mechanism.

Here’s what’s actually broken:

If I had to go up against the Death Star, here’s how I’d fight dirty (and smart):

You know what customers actually buy. Go beyond age and gender—target “people who bought probiotic cat food in the last 60 days.”

In-cart prompts. Voice search suggestions. Dynamic placements in your weekly circular. Ads that belong in the flow—not ones duct-taped onto a page.

Amazon's big advantage? Attribution. Build your own closed-loop measurement and show brands how many diapers they moved thanks to their campaign.

Endcaps, data reports, exclusives. Build value, not just CPMs. Offer what Amazon can’t—customization, insight, human support.

If you’re a home goods retailer, don’t sell “ads.” Sell insights: “Outdoor entertaining spikes in Q2, here’s the SKUs that ride the wave.” That’s value.

Can’t match Amazon’s reach? Team up. Like Albertsons + Instacart + Carrot Ads. Give brands scale without handing over raw data.

Amazon isn’t just better. They’re different.
They’re not selling space. They’re selling outcomes. If you’re not doing the same, you’re playing the wrong game.

The irony? Amazon might even help some smaller retailers now. They’re opening their ad tech to others—so in theory, you could borrow the same toys. But let’s be honest: if you rely on Amazon’s stack to survive... they still win.

Stop chasing scraps. Start building your own gravity.
You don’t beat Amazon by out-Amazoning them—you beat them by being you, but better.

Own your audience. Prove your value. And don’t ever mistake a growing market for a fair one.

Next up: we get into the supplier-side game and why trade dollars are fleeing to the biggest bully in the yard. Spoiler: it’s not about innovation—it’s about leverage.

Stay bold. Stay curious. And don’t trust market share charts without reading the fine print.

Here’s what stood out this week—buried between the retail media growth projections and the usual Amazon dominance narrative: the money flowing to Amazon isn’t just from media budgets. It’s increasingly coming from supplier trade spend, and that’s a much bigger story than most are willing to admit.

In a recent discussion, Drew Cashmore—formerly of Walmart Connect—made it clear that what sets Amazon apart isn’t just its retail media product. It’s how Amazon reinvests those dollars across its business to create leverage. Advertising doesn’t exist in a vacuum for Amazon. It feeds logistics, reduces prices, improves consumer experience, and most critically, gives them negotiating power with vendors. In Cashmore’s words, the flywheel isn’t limited to ads; it’s about how those dollars compound across the entire business.

This creates a massive competitive gap. While other retailers are still trying to stand up basic ad units and sell banner inventory against margin, Amazon is monetizing trade budgets at scale—and making it easy for suppliers to justify those shifts with performance data.

What makes this dynamic so problematic is that other retailers simply aren’t structured to compete on the same terms. Most trade budgets aren’t being redeployed to the next-best retail media network—they’re consolidating at the top. And the top is Amazon.

Retailers may think they’re building media networks to capture incremental ad dollars, but from the supplier's perspective, the calculus is simple: go with the platform that makes budget allocations easiest to defend internally. Right now, Amazon is the only one consistently delivering closed-loop performance, scalability, and measurement clarity.

This puts everyone else at a disadvantage:

The shift is already happening. Brands are reallocating not just advertising, but the entire shopper marketing and trade investment pie, toward platforms that can prove return. That increasingly means Amazon—and in some cases, Walmart. But for mid-size and smaller retailers, it’s becoming harder to justify fragmented investment when Amazon delivers scale, precision, and end-to-end control.

This also reinforces the 77% market share stat in a new way: it’s not just about Amazon dominating media. It’s about Amazon quietly becoming the de facto owner of multiple budget lines that used to be distributed across dozens of retailers.

Cashmore emphasized that brands are already reducing the number of retail media partners they work with. Not because of preference—but because of efficiency. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to optimize campaigns, unify reporting, and manage spend across 15 different retail media platforms. Especially when one of them does it all better.

If retailers want to reverse this trend, they can’t just offer ad inventory—they have to create platforms that integrate seamlessly with trade strategy, offer performance guarantees, and provide actual intelligence back to the supplier.

That means:

Retailers who fail to address this shift won’t just lose media budgets. They’ll lose trade partnerships, influence, and the ability to shape the supplier agenda.

Next week: we’ll look at how some retailers—especially those with strong vertical specialization—are building moats, not marketplaces.

Until then: Stay bold. Stay curious. And start asking where the rest of the money is going.

Back then, five bucks could get you out of a speeding ticket and a handshake. Today? That same bribe (adjusted for inflation and moral decay) gets you ADOTAT+, which teaches you how to outmaneuver Amazon without needing Bezos’ wallet or his mid-life crisis spaceship.

Here’s what you’ll learn this week inside the velvet rope of ADOTAT+:

🛡️ How to Build a Moat Without Drowning in Buzzwords
Walmart, Target, and Kroger aren’t trying to be Amazon. They’re doing something far more dangerous: beating it where it’s weak. Physical retail. Loyalty data. Emotional shopping moments. You know—human stuff.

🧪 The 2025 Innovation Stack
We’re talking shoppable CTV, clean room coalitions, and AI that actually does things—like sell product—not just write mediocre blog posts about AI.

📍 Strategic Blind Spots Amazon Hopes You Ignore
You’ll never ship faster than Bezos, but you can outsmart the empire by building real vertical control, owning store data, and turning checkout lines into media channels.

All for less than the cost of convincing a 1950s cop to forget you “borrowed” your neighbor’s Cadillac.

👀 Because if you're still spending your media budget like it's 2012, you're not just behind—you're building Amazon's moat, not your own.