Amazon still dominates ecommerce … for now

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While Walmart continues to make the necessary investments in ecommerce to find its digital footing, Amazon still far outpaces its competition in sales, reports news and analysis company PYMTS. 

According to the research created by combining data gathered from Amazon and Walmart earnings reports, and U.S. Census Bureau numbers, there is a significant gap between the two retailers.  

PYMNTS found that Amazon accounts for an estimated 48% of U.S. retail spend compared to Walmart’s 7%. In addition, quarter-over-quarter between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023 Amazon increased its share of ecommerce spend from 43.7% to 47.9% (growth of four percentage points). During the same period, Walmart increased 5.7% to 6.7%.

Both retailers are poised to capture spending, with the two alone having a combined share of more than five percentage points. Together they capture a large portion of an ecommerce market that’s worth more than $1 trillion per year. 

However, the report reveals that there are signs of Walmart changing focus to take a bite out of Amazon’s share of digital sales via the details stated during Walmart’s latest earnings call. Walmart posted 27% growth in its comparable ecommerce sales gains. That translates to $16.9 billion in sales in Q1 2023. The retailer cited that double-digit store-fulfilled pickup and delivery growth primarily fueled this rise during the call.

Related:Amazon needs to ‘make a call on physical grocery’: Analyst

What’s more, drawing from a survey of nearly 2,700 U.S. consumers conducted last month, results revealed that 61% of U.S. consumers are Amazon Prime members, 26% are subscribed to Walmart , and just 35% of consumers are not members of either service, leaving room for increasing membership growth.

President and CEO Andy Jassy said in Amazon’s annual report that its center-aisle assortment consists of 3 million items.

Product assortment is also top-of-mind for John Furner, Walmart’s U.S. president and CEO. Furner said that marketplace seller expansion has helped spur ecommerce growth as Walmart now offers a greater “assortment delivered in one or two days. And we see a pretty significant increase in conversion rates when a seller is using fulfillment services and can deliver within two days.” 

Other notable signs that Walmart is taking e-commerce share per PYMNTS, includes: 

Related:Amazon Prime vs. Walmart+ in race for grocery

While Walmart is seeing success in its omnichannel strategies, it is hard to determine if the uptick in online sales is related to grocery as much as buy-online, pick-up in-store. “This shopping feature could account for Walmart’s rise, especially as more people return to work at an office and, logically, could be picking up groceries on their way home,” according to PYMNTS.