AMZN vs WMT Weekly: Another Prime Day, Another Set Of Record Sales For All

In case you hadn’t heard, Amazon and Walmart had some pretty big sales earlier this week — though consumers bought smaller items and overall spent slightly less than in previous years, at least from Amazon.

Still, $11 billion in U.S. eCommerce sales — a 6.1 percent increase over last year’s Prime Day and competing sales, according to Adobe Analytics — is nothing to sneeze at. Among the top items sold, Amazon said, were tools, beauty products, nutrition, baby care and, of course, electronics. Consumers also leaped at the opportunity to get ahead of back-to-school shopping, snapping up 600,000 backpacks, one million laptops and 240,000 notebooks — and it remains to be seen how this could impact the official back-to-school sales later this summer.

Though it’s unclear exactly how Amazon, Walmart and other retailers split the $11 billion pie, Adobe Analytics’ preliminary finding showed that big retailers — those with $1 billion in annual revenue — reported an increase in sales of 29 percent during Prime Day in comparison to a typical June day. Small merchants — those with less than $10 million in annual revenue — reported a 21 percent increase in sales.

Amazon also touted the fact that Prime Day was the biggest two-day period ever for third-party sellers, growing even more than Amazon’s own retail business. One small business reported a 750% increase in sales, while another said it saw a 400% increase in new customers. During last year’s delayed Prime Day in October, which also focused attention on SMBs, third-party sellers netted $3.5 billion in sales.

One surprise, though, was that 16 percent of Prime Day purchases were for groceries, according to retail analytics firm Numerator. If that trend held true across the industry, Walmart may have seen a boost during its four-day Deals for Days, as it currently dominates the food and beverage category and outsells Amazon by a 10-to-1 margin.

A Win for Alexa

Alexa is free to continue helping consumers order groceries after a federal jury ruled against Israeli connected technology company Freshub, which had accused Amazon of knowingly using Freshub’s patented grocery voice-ordering technology in its Alexa and Echo smart home devices.

Although PYMNTS data from How Consumers Live in the ConnectedEconomy found that the use of voice-controlled assistants is declining overall — down 7 percentage points between August and April — those who do use them are doing so frequently. About 30 percent of consumers say they have made shopping lists using voice-activated devices, and almost 15 percent report doing so multiple times a day.

Amazon Pay Head of Product Kris Zanuldin told PYMNTS in a September interview that the company sees a growing opportunity in voice ordering, with consumers becoming “more and more okay with giving up the nearly infinite selection choice over to Alexa.”

“It’s a road to get there, but eventually, just like any trusted friend, you will ask for a recommendation,” Zanuldin added. “And more likely than not, you’ll take advantage of that resource.”

Partnering Up

Walmart officially launched its partnership with Gap this week in a formidable combination of the former’s retail muscle and Gap’s styling prowess. Complete with a digital lookbook displaying the merchandise and a co-branded designated landing page, the 400-item Gap Home line made a splash in the home décor arena.

The Arkansas-based retailer also once again expanded its partnership with Green Dot Bank, now offering a demand deposit account to Walmart MoneyCard accountholders and allowing customers to access Green Dot Bank’s digital banking platform.

The conversion of the MoneyCard from prepaid to demand deposit is a leap forward in Walmart’s ambitions to provide banking services to the millions of customers who visit the retailer online and in-store. Julia Unger, vice president of financial services at Walmart, said the company is “committed to offering our customers valuable services to help them manage their financial needs.”

At the onset of the pandemic, Walmart had hoped that customers would sign up for MoneyCard accounts in order to access government stimulus payments. A month later, Walmart and Green Dot enhanced certain features of the MoneyCard program, including a 2 percent annual percentage yield on money saved with a connected savings account and free cash deposits at a Walmart Money Center or Customer Service area.