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I don’t want to let a milestone pass without screaming THAT THIS IS A GREAT MOMENT.

Amazon, like my colleagues Karen Weise and Michael Corkery, has recently surpassed Walmart as the largest retailer outside of China. Wrote Tuesday. Shoppers around the world – but mostly in the United States, which remains Amazon’s largest market by far – now buy more than $600 billion of products from Amazon each year. Yes, that’s too much. It’s about the money Americans spent in restaurants and bars last year.

Some of you reading this may be surprised that Amazon doesn’t currently sell more than Walmart. No. Keep in mind that people in most countries, including the United States, still do the majority of their shopping in stores. This makes it even more remarkable that Amazon has grown so much. (Footnote: The total value of annual purchases made at Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is about twice that of Amazon. Really lots.)

What is most notable is how Amazon got to this point. Unlike Sears and Walmart, America’s retail managers of previous eras, Amazon came to power because it nailed convenience, the strength of habit, and a system for moving goods from one place to another. Amazon isn’t always the best place to shop, but it wins by mastering everything but shopping.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Amazon was on track to overtake Walmart as America’s retail leader. But changes in our shopping habits have accelerated Amazon’s sales more than Walmart’s. (Read more from my colleagues on Amazon’s landmark.)

As regular On Tech readers know, I’m a teeny bit obsessed with Amazon. And among my obsessions is the question: How does Amazon make a gazillion dollars and still feel like a clunky shopping site from the 1990s?

I realize this is a subjective assessment. But if you’ve browsed through the endless options for curtain rods on the site, squinted at blurry product photos, i felt confused by the search parameters or questioned the reliability of reviews, you took a look at the shortcomings of Amazon as a store.

Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of e-commerce research firm Market Pulse, told me about something that struck me a few months ago: If Amazon started today, it might not work because it doesn’t have to offer the best products at the cheapest prices or be a particularly pleasant place to shop.

But most shoppers on Amazon don’t focus on the flaws. Amazon has trained people believe they can trust it often to quickly find what they need. Buying is usually a breeze, and Prime members and people with Amazon credit cards only have incentives to shop there. Getting help is easy if you have a problem – not always, but often. Amazon’s prices aren’t always the lowest, but sometimes they are, and many people don’t bother to look elsewhere.

Amazon “works for most consumers most of the time,” Kaziukėnas told me. Perhaps this is not an inspiring corporate slogan worth etching. Jeff Bezos in his spaceship, but that explains Amazon’s appeal.

Amazon is proof of that once again. the best product doesn’t necessarily win. We turn to products and services like Amazon, Netflix, and Zoom that earn our trust and make using them so easy it feels like magic.

Oddly enough, this isn’t too far from the plan for Sears and Walmart. Sears made it easy to buy anything stockings stockings and was an expert in sorting and transporting goods. Same for Walmart, which specializes in logistics and reaches shoppers where they live, increasingly in the suburbs. There is important differences It also existed between Sears, Walmart, and Amazon, but the earnings of these companies were not necessarily because they offered the best experience in-store, catalog or website.

Ultimately, proof of Amazon’s strength is not just in its dazzling sales figures, but in the fact that it is more important than the products it now sells.

It may not have the exact pair of Nike shoes you want. He may occasionally miss an order or annoy you about his treatment of his employees or the crowding of local shops. But people are now buying from Amazon because It’s Amazon.

Before you go …

• The driver called it “stupid cruise control”: U.S. auto safety regulators said on Monday they are launching an extensive investigation into Tesla’s driver-assist technology called Autopilot. My colleague Neal E. Boudette author About a Tesla in 2019 that activated Autopilot and crashed into a parked car, and what this fatal accident makes us think about the failure of the system in its core function of emergency braking.

• Cool companies can’t give up on a certain design style: Often referred to as “Corporate Memphis”, it is an aesthetic characterized by the colorful but lifeless cartoon figures you see on many websites and apps. Protocol talked to illustrators About the role of gig work and cut-and-paste design technologies that helped create this visual style.

• You need this feel-good story about human relationships: Marissa Meizz came to the fore on TikTok as she was ostracized by her friends who excluded her from her birthday party. Taylor Lorenz talks about how she got her revenge on Meizz: Using her online power organizing real-world meetings for people who feel lonely.

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2nd rockhopper penguin chicks get their first swimming pleasure, in the children’s pool. Extra hugs for the person who needs a little persuasion to dive.