Amazon Prime Day approaches, launching showdown with Walmart and Target

The season for big summer sales has arrived, and retail giants like Amazon, Walmart and Target are already getting the word out and launching early bird specials on a wide range of big ticket goods and grocery items, too. 

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event runs July 11-12, but the company is already running deals for members of its $14.99-per-month ($139 annually) premium service, Amazon Prime. That includes savings of up to 50% on select items from its Amazon Fresh grocery banner.

Walmart and Target have followed suit with their own sales—Walmart Week from Monday through July 13 and Target Circle Week from Sunday through July 15. Members of Walmart , the company’s premium service that costs $12.95 a month or $98 a year, get early access to deals beginning Monday. Target’s Circle Week sale is exclusive to Target Circle members, but the service is free.

While much of the hype around these massive sales events is focused on electronics and other goods that can save shoppers hundreds of dollars on a single item, the grocery side has been growing amid soaring food inflation. 

Six of the top 15 items sold during Prime Day 2022 were in the household essentials, grocery or supplements category, according to Chicago-based data analytics company Numerator. Numerator’s 2022 report showed the list included Cascade Dishwashing products, Luminex Teeth Whitening products, Frito-Lay Variety Pack, Mrs. Meyer’s Hand Soap, Dawn Platinum products and Crest 3D Whitestrips.

Household essentials took the top spot for Amazon last year during its Prime Day sale, with 30% of shoppers buying something in the category. That’s up from 27% in the previous year. The health-and-beauty category held steady from the previous year, while both the grocery and pet care categories climbed 2 percentage points each to 17% and 15%, respectively, Numerator reported.

Shoppers largely remained loyal to Amazon during the 2022 sale, with 44% saying they only considered buying items from Amazon on Prime Day. Thirty-two percent considered buying items from Walmart on Prime Day 2022, and 24% considered buying from Target, according to Numerator.

The report added that despite Amazon boosting shopper awareness about its 2022 Prime Day, Walmart still dominated in the grocery category, with 77% of survey respondents buying from the retail giant. Comparatively, 36% of respondents purchased groceries from Target and 17% from Amazon on Prime Day 2022.

Those numbers were a lot closer in the household essentials category, where Walmart got 35%, Amazon 30% and Target 25%.

More than four out of every five shoppers last year said they were extremely or very satisfied with their purchases, followed by Walmart at 69% and Amazon at 64%.