Amazon is winning the biggest dollar share of new retail spending — both online and brick-and-mortar — and it's not even close. That's the finding of Morgan Stanley analysts, who said Amazon took 28% of incremental retail dollars spent in the first quarter — one of the strongest performances the e-commerce giant has ever reported outside of the Covid pandemic era. The next biggest gainer is Walmart , with 10%. Even more impressive: Morgan Stanley estimated the company's gross merchandise value (GMV) or the total value of merchandise sold during the first quarter — grew roughly 14% year over year while most of its retail peers had sales declines. This implies Amazon is continuing to grab overall market share. "Amazon's competitive advantage seems to be widening," the analysts wrote in a Monday note to investors, which they attributed to the company's investment in its digital and fulfillment investments. This means that "the leftovers for everyone else are meager." "What we are seeing is management's efforts to speed up delivery times resulting in consumers turning to the company for even more purchases like essentials," said the Club's portfolio analyst Zev Fima. As the company fills out the overbuilt fulfillment capacity left over by the pandemic, we'll see the cost to serve come down on a per item basis along with better operating leverage, he explained. Amazon's regionalization efforts have done wonders for improving delivery speeds. But the company's efficiency in fulfillment is far from over. The company is still focused on further streamlining its fulfillment network through robotics, automation and artificial intelligence which can help predict where to stock items within a certain region based on customer preferences. Improvements will take some time to materialize but the company has a plan and is on a solid path. AMZN YTD mountain AMZN stock performance year-to-date. "We've continued to inspect our fulfillment network for additional opportunities and are working on several areas where we believe we can lower costs even further while also improving the customer experience," management said in its post-earnings webcast April 30. The work Amazon has done so far has been paying off. Management has been able to figure out how to get deliveries to customers faster all while reducing costs and generating higher profits. Amazon's North America e-commerce sales during the first quarter grew 12% to $86.34 billion, a 455% surge in operating income to $4.98 billion thanks in part to further cost reductions. Morgan Stanley said Walmart 's performance this year is "not too shabby" but a distant second to Amazon. The discounter delivered solid first-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2025 earlier this month with strong revenue growth and operating income driven by share gains from higher-income households as consumers sought out lower prices for everyday purchases. Morgan Stanley said Amazon's share gains amid a tough backdrop are accelerating, likely boosted by its new Spring Sale online event which offered Prime members discounts on seasonal items featuring daily deals accessible to all customers. This spring sale is similar to the two-day Prime Big Deal Days event Amazon hosted in October 2023 to kick off the holiday shopping season. Amazon has been benefitting from the consumer's continued shift to buying stuff online, a trend that should benefit AMZN stock. Following the company's latest earnings, we upped our price target up to $200 per share from $190 while maintaining our 2 rating on the stock. AMZN shares are up 18% year to date, recently reaching a high of $191.70. The stock is too high for us to buy here, so we'd prefer to wait for a pullback before making a trade. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AMZN. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
