Should You Forget Amazon? Why These Unstoppable Stocks Are Better Buys

James Brumley, The Motley Fool

Sun, Jun 1, 2025, 3:05 PM 6 min read

• Shopify is one of the reasons Amazon’s highest-growth days are in the rearview mirror.

• New and better technologies have reignited a considerably different kind of space race.

• The used car market is surprisingly fragmented, waiting for a player like Carvana to continue adding efficiency by scaling up.

• 10 stocks we like better than Shopify ›

There's no denying it. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been one of the market's most rewarding stocks for nearly the past three decades, rallying more than 270,000% since its 1997 initial public offering. This thrilling performance is a big reason so many investors are betting on the company now -- they're hoping for more of the same magic. And maybe they'll get it.

As the old cliché reminds investors, though, nothing lasts forever. Yesterday's winners aren't necessarily tomorrow's.

With that as the backdrop, here's a closer look at three unstoppable names other than Amazon that you might want to consider adding to your portfolio.

It's not exactly a coincidence that one of the stocks worth considering besides Amazon is the un-Amazon, or anti-Amazon. That's Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP).

Simply put, Shopify helps brands establish and manage their own e-commerce presence.

When the worldwide web was still relatively young and online shopping was still new, companies were content to use Amazon's high-traffic website as a sales platform. Things changed, though. As time marched on and its business matured, Amazon.com became crowded and competitive (including with Amazon itself). Sellers eventually figured out they'd be better served by their own online store. That's what Shopify facilitates.

And it's doing more and more of it. Although the company doesn't disclose its customer count any longer, somewhere on the order of 5 million stores sold a confirmed $292.3 billion worth of goods and services last year, translating to $8.9 billion worth of revenue and $1.1 billion in net income for Shopify itself. Those figures are up 24%, 26%, and a swing from a loss of $1.4 billion (respectively) year over year, extending a long-standing growth streak. Analysts expect a similar growth rate for at least the next several years, too.

There's actually an even longer growth runway ahead of Shopify, however.

See, for as big as the e-commerce industry has become, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that only about 16% of domestic retail spending is done online. The rest is still done in-store. While there's some consumer spending that will only ever be made in person, that's a lot of potential business to win. The shift away from third-party platforms to home-grown e-commerce stores only bolsters Shopify's potential upside.