Amazon is the only game in town, retail expert says

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the only game in town when it comes to the retail industry. Strategic Resource Group Managing Director Burt Flickinger tells FOX Business “it will rule retail.”

Since launching in 1995, the Seattle-based company expanded from an online bookshop to an online consumer goods business and now the grocery business.

“With these bags coming out, they are going to rule everything from the refrigerator to the freezer to cupboard to the closet,” Flickinger told Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co,” while referring to reusable totes used to make deliveries for its subsidiary Amazon Fresh.

In Flickinger’s opinion, its potential entry into the pharmacy business is what drove CVS (NYSE:CVS) $66 billion bid for Aetna (NYSE:AET).

“CVS is merging with Aetna because Amazon is taking all of their lipsticks cosmetics and fragrance sales,” he said. “Everything from lipstick to the groceries to the consumer electronics all come in this thing and everybody else is shipping and in boxes and paper bags,” he said.

Accounting for 43% of all U.S. online sales, the e-commerce giants’ third-quarter earnings are a tell-tale sign of further retail dominance, according to Flickinger.

“And their other big 43 number is their quarterly sales which is about double the size of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s combined for the year and Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s are the biggest and most successful leading department store chains,” he said.