Amazon Is Taking Over The Market, One Sector At A Time

The first time most traders ever heard about Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, the company was disrupting bookstores like Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS, Books-A-Million and the now-bankrupt Borders Books and Music.

Since that time, Amazon has expanded to wreak e-commerce havoc on discount retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT.

In addition, Amazon's AWS now dominates the global could services business ahead of rivals Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.

Nearly 20 years have passed since Amazon’s 1997 IPO, and the company is now the world’s largest retailer. The stock has been hitting all-time highs, and currently sports a market cap of $400 billion.

Yet Amazon is showing no signs of complacency.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon’s package delivery ambitions are larger than many had expected. Given Amazon’s history, that’s really bad news for United Parcel Service, Inc. UPS and FedEx Corporation FDX.

Related Link: Every 1% Of E-Commerce Market Could Equal $15 Billion In Revenue For Amazon

Amazon also recently announced its first one-hour beauty product delivery service in Chicago. Some traders are already wondering if Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. SBH and Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc. ULTA could be the next Barnes & Noble or Borders.

Amazon Prime also started offering original video programming in recent years. Together with Netflix, Inc. NFLX, Amazon is a major threat to traditional cable TV companies like Time Warner Inc TWX and Walt Disney Co DIS.

Amazon also seems to be taking aim at Shutterfly, Inc. SFLY's digital photo printing business as well. Amazon recently launched Prints, which sent Shutterfly shares tumbling more than 12 percent.

Finally, Amazon is looking to be one of the major early players in virtual reality content production. Last year, Digi-Capital projected that the virtual/augmented reality market could reach $150 billion by 2020.

Amazon has thrived for nearly 20 years on aggressive and ambitious disruption of a number of different markets. Recent headlines suggest the company seems to be sticking to the game plan headed into 2017.