How Amazon’s Ever-Expanding Private Label Empire Is Taking Over The Internet

If you thought Amazon was already a big enough part of your life, hang onto your hats: retail trend experts like “Queen of the Internet” Mary Meeker just released new findings that show Amazon’s ever-expanding private label empire is poised to infiltrate our every consumer need.

AmazonBasics, which first launched in 2009 (and has had some rocky starts in other categories like diapers), already has become so popular that its line of batteries are currently the #1 bestseller online — and according to Fortune is poised to woo even more Amazon Prime customers this July during the retailer’s biggest annual shopping day of the year, generally planned for the third week of July. (Last year’s Prime Day was on July 12th.)

In what tech insiders call “the most highly anticipated slide deck in Silicon Valley,” Meeker — an investment partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — recently presented annual research findings that show in detail how Amazon’s many forays into creating house brand generic product lines are really starting to pay off both for the mega retailer and for its most value-oriented customers. Particularly in categories like batteries and baby wipes, where AmazonBasics now owns more than 30% of the overall market share.

Never content to just turn the retail industry upside down with what experts now call “the Amazon effect” of its middleman model, Amazon’s ambitions instead have led it to begin slapping its brand on all manner of cheap in-house brands over the past few years. In addition to home storage, fitness equipment, and pet products (and batteries, of course), it’s even venturing into fashion and gourmet food—which is all the more relevant, now that Amazon announced today that they’re buying Whole Foods in a whopping $13.7 billion deal.

And Amazon wants to keep you ever-brand-loyal by turning your home decor into a veritable multi-pronged easy-order button, integrating single-click reorders and Prime discounts on Amazon private label products through its increasing number of devices, like the Amazon Echo (aka Alexa) and the Dash Button (and presumably the new Dash Wand).

Retail analysts recently told Mashable that in addition to using the cut-rate prices of its fashion and food brands as an incentive for new Prime sign-ups, the exclusive placements double as a more focused testing ground for new items, since research shows that Prime members are more willing to take a chance on items found on the site than the average shopper. And that’s big business for Amazon, since Prime members spend $1,300 on average each year, compared to $700 from non-Prime customers.

Last but not least, the chatter picked up by Fortune shows that next month’s annual Prime Day may actually extend into a Prime Week for the first time ever, so get those wish lists ready.