🌀 The Flywheel Trap: Why Amazon’s 77% Market Share Isn’t Just a Number

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:

• Amazon takes 77%. Walmart takes 8%. That leaves 15% for everyone else. That’s not market share, it’s a consolation prize.

• Smaller retailers are often dependent on Amazon just to access customers, which is like renting space from your biggest competitor.

• Brand identity? Visibility? Direct relationships? Amazon eats that too—your product is in their store, under their rules, playing their game.

• And if you want to build your own media network? Good luck finding the budget to hire a single competent ad ops team, let alone build a DSP.

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

• Best Buy has carved out a profitable niche by going all-in on tech audiences.

• Some smaller players are building real muscle through smart third-party partnerships—think The Trade Desk, TransUnion, etc.

• And interestingly, Amazon opening its ad tech to other retailers could weirdly end up empowering the same rivals it dominates… if they’re smart enough to use it without getting swallowed in the process.

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:

• How Amazon reinvests every penny to widen the moat

• How supplier trade budgets shift away from smaller players

• Why “catching up” isn’t a strategy—it’s a bedtime story retailers tell themselves

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.