Apparel and Grocery (and possibly Furniture) are Growth Categories for Amazon

For categories like Grocery & Apparel (both underrepresented in terms of e-commerce sales vs instore), online sales only grow when habits change.

The Whole Foods Aquisition is part of Amazon's grocery habit reforming plan. At the time of acquisition, it's speculated that WF was ~10% of Instacarts business. A year before, WF & Instacart had signed a 5-year deal. The habit was there, at least for some of the WF shoppers. 

Within months of the WF acquisition, Amazon quietly shut down Fresh in at least 9 states. I think the idea of buying fresh groceries from Amazon was too far outside the habit of most. 

Then in 2018, Amazon announced free delivery in select markets from Whole Foods. Instacart built the habit, Amazon is capitalizing on it.  

For the next lowest underrepresented category of Apparel, Amazon  has again launched programs to capitalize on habits other e-commerce companies have cultivated. For example, to take on Trunk Club and others, Amazon has Outfit Compare & their Wardrobe Program...& there are more coming (Google Amazon Body Scan).

Furniture is next, & I'm guessing AR will decide who wins. Having the ability to see the item in your room rather than in store is key. Ikea already has such an app, Amazon as well. As more and more sales shift to mobile, it's only a matter of time before that category falls the way of Amazon for items like cabinets and book shelves. I think items where there's a level of comfort associated with them (ie couches and chairs) will always have at least some brick and mortar footprint. 

Having said that, if you look at the growth of mattress sales online I could be dead wrong. 

​We shall see!