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Amazon and Walmart will lock horns this week, after the ecommerce giant and the world’s biggest retailer set their flagship annual discount periods for the same dates in a battle to win US consumers.
Seattle-based Amazon moved its annual “Prime Day” digital sales event to begin on July 8, matching the date of Walmart’s sales period last year, and lengthened it from two to four days.
Walmart held to the same start date, setting up a head-on clash — and one-upped Amazon by extending its event from four days to six. Its “Walmart Deals” period will take place online and, for the first time, inside its 4,600 US stores.
“The two retail giants are locked in heated competition for US consumer loyalty,” said Sky Canaves, an analyst at Emarketer. “Amazon set the early date this year and other retailers are matching or trying to get an even earlier start with their sales.”
Amazon has long been the largest ecommerce operator in the US, with more than 40 per cent of online sales, according to Emarketer.
But it is facing intensifying digital competition from Walmart, the largest brick-and-mortar retailer in the US, which has invested heavily in online infrastructure. Ecommerce sales at Walmart are growing by more than 20 per cent a year.
Amazon launched Prime Day in July 2015, giving users of its Prime paid membership scheme exclusive deals on electronics and back-to-school merchandise.
Other retailers followed suit, and retail traffic during the period after the July 4 public holiday has begun to outpace business during the established Black Friday sales in November.
Prime Day is expected to generate $23bn in gross merchandise value — the total revenue for both Amazon itself and third party sellers on its platform — across four days this year, according to Bank of America.
“While competition from other retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy has increased during Prime Day, we believe that the event will remain a positive driver,” said Justin Post, an analyst at BofA. He noted Amazon’s decision to extend to four days suggested it was not constrained by stock shortages, despite earlier tariff concerns.
But Walmart, whose US ecommerce unit reported $79bn in sales last year, has been moving aggressively to improve delivery speeds for online orders, build up its online inventory to more than 500mn items and market itself as a high-tech ecommerce player.
Jared Mason, vice-president of ecommerce at Pattern, the largest third party seller on Amazon, said that it was placing more “emphasis and focus” on Walmart’s platform.
“We’re happy that Amazon isn’t as dominant,” Mason said. “The fact they feel these smaller marketplaces at their heels has absolutely changed their behaviour and we benefit from that.”
Arkansas-based Walmart has also sought to compete directly with the Prime with a membership scheme called Walmart+, which it created five years ago. The company is heavily discounting subscriptions around its sales event, to which members will gain early access on July 7.
Amazon’s Prime service is nearly three times more popular than Walmart’s equivalent, according to a recent survey by Jefferies.
Walmart said that it timed its sales event when customers “will be shopping and looking for savings opportunities”, while Amazon said it planned Prime Day “many months in advance”.
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