It is not unknown that there always has been a rift between the two retail giant of the U.S. although Walmart work on its own momentum, it still has a long way to go to catch up with Amazon. To bridge this gap all hopes lie on Walmart+, a subscription program, and also the fact that it has hired Chris Cracchiolo as the head of Walmart+.
There was a study on a national study conducted in the U.S among 2,297 consumers between June 24 and June 27 concluded that the number of Walmart+ subscribers has increased substantially from October 2020, a month after its launch, to May 2021, just eight months later. There were 44.4 million Walmart+ subscribers then and approximately 53.9 million subscribers in June 2021 — an jump in subscribers of over 21 percent. The vast majority of that spike in subscribers, about 91 percent, consists of subscribers who are also Amazon Prime members.
As of June 2021, Amazon has 171.4 million Prime members that accounts for three times more than Walmart+.
There was another study conducted after the end of dueling Amazon Prime Days/Walmart Deal Days events to understand who shopped those mega sales days, what they bought, and how much they spent. Using those data, it was discovered that the behaviors of users of Amazon Prime and Walmart+ Deal Days is a window into the larger issues facing America’s current reigning king of retail — one that, based on our current projections, is poised to lose that crown to Amazon a little more than a year from today.
It was found that Walmart is a retailer that relies on grocery sales to grow its top line and one that continues to lose ground in key non-grocery retail categories. But just focusing on groceries is not enough to beat the competition. Moreover, middle- and lower-income consumers who lived outside of urban centers who were once Walmart’s bread-and-butter customers are also Amazon Prime members buying groceries and retail products from them. Those consumers spent two times as much with Amazon during Prime Days (a $42 average transaction) as they did with Walmart on Deal Days (a $22 average transaction). Furthermore, one in five U.S. consumers has both an Amazon Prime and a Walmart+ account, with 43 percent and 38 percent of that crossover membership comprised of millennials and bridge millennials (33- to 43-year-old) consumers, respectively. Yet we also see that more of those demographic groups are shopping Amazon for non-grocery retail purchases online for delivery to their homes.
As far as the spending of consumers is concerned, only half the consumer population participated in Walmart Deal Days than it did in Amazon Prime Days (around 105 million). However, Walmart got a little preference, since it wasn’t compulsory for a consumer to be a member of Walmart+ to participate in those deals. The number of purchases was almost similar for both: approximately three per shopper. But the average spend per purchase was roughly 45 percent higher for Amazon Prime customers. The main reason for Walmart to get stuck behind can be owed to the lack of awareness by shoppers regarding Walmart’s Deal Days.
