Walmart Doubles Down on Deal Days as Consumers Seek Sales Events

Walmart is following up its just-finished summer savings event with another one weeks later, as the retailer looks to compete with Amazon’s Prime Day to capture consumers’ increased demand for seasonal sales.

Walmart announced Monday (June 24) an upcoming savings event, “Walmart Deals,” slated to commence on July 8 and run through July 11, highlighting the retailer’s responsiveness to the increasing trend among consumers to concentrate their purchases around seasonal sales, particularly leading into the back-to-school season. There will be discounts on school-related goods, for example, as well as several discounts on high-cost electronics.

The event will be Walmart’s second summer savings occasion in short succession. Its Walmart+ Week, which offered seven days of savings to participants in the retailer’s paid membership program, ended Sunday (June 23). Walmart Deals, conversely, is open to everyone, although Walmart+ members get early access.

The announcement of the second event so soon after the close of the first could suggest that Walmart has seen a positive response to its just-ended initiative and is looking for ways to keep the momentum going as its rival, Amazon, gets ready for its Prime Day event, which is typically a blockbuster.

Amazon, for its part, is already looking to drum up enthusiasm for its event, releasing an array of how-to guides meant to get consumers focused on the event and teasing early deals. A TechRadar report Monday spotted a snippet from the company’s Google search results in the United Kingdom saying that the event will run July 16-17, but Amazon has not officially announced the dates.

Historically, Amazon has won big over Walmart when it comes to deals events. The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Summer Deal Days 2023: How Amazon Still Dominates” drew from a survey of more than 5,500 Amazon Prime members and Walmart shoppers, aiming to assess the performance of these sales events among their respective customer groups. The study revealed that Amazon Prime Day saw twice as many participants as Walmart+ Week last year, despite the former being a members-only event and the latter having been open to all.

Specifically, 40% of consumers made purchases during Amazon’s deals event, while half that share did so during Walmart’s, versus 36% and 11%, respectively, in 2022. As such, it seems that while Walmart saw much lower participation, it saw much greater growth by opening the event to all customers. This year, by having a members-only event followed by one open to the public, Walmart may hope to have its cake and eat it too regarding exclusivity, incentivizing new signups for its paid membership in the former and reaching a broader customer base in the latter.

Other merchants are joining the mix too, with DoorDash having brought back its seasonal members-only sales event Summer of DashPass and major electronics retailer Best Buy in the midst of its Member Deals Days.

Overall, consumers are increasingly concentrating their spending around seasonal sales moments, as has been noted by merchants ranging from Best Buy to Target-owned same-day delivery aggregator Shipt.

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.