Walmart chips away at rival’s lead in rich online shoppers

BLOOMBERG

Walmart Inc’s online subscription service is narrowing the gap with Amazon.com Inc in a key demographic: affluent shoppers.
Launched in 2020 as a competitor to Amazon Prime, Walmart+ is resonating with higher-income households eager to fend off inflation. At $98 a year, Walmart+ costs $41 less than Prime and offers many of the same perks, such as shipping discounts and video streaming. Walmart’s subscription service also has benefits Amazon can’t match, including discounted fuel at gas stations around the US.
In February, 28% of US households with annual income of at least $150,000 were members of Walmart+, up from 13% a year earlier, according to Prosper Insights & Analytics, which conducts monthly consumer surveys. Amazon Prime still has a commanding lead with 77% of those households, up 7 percentage points from the previous year.
Walmart’s inroads with this cohort mirror what’s been happening in its stores as the company gradually sheds its reputation as a destination
for lower- and middle-income shoppers. Attracting and hanging onto wealthier customers is now a key priority for the company, and executives see e-commerce as a big selling point.
Walmart+ is benefiting from the same “flywheel” effect Amazon experienced when it launched Prime in 2005: As Walmart attracts more shoppers, it lures more brands, which in turn bring in even more shoppers.
Besides borrowing Amazon’s online playbook, Walmart is capitalising on a network of stores located within 10 miles of 90% of Americans. Shoppers can pick up online orders from their closest Walmart. America’s largest grocer also has a decided advantage in fresh food, a market Amazon has been trying to crack for years. Walmart+ offers members free delivery on orders of at least $35. Amazon last month raised its free grocery delivery threshold to orders of at least $150.
“Walmart is eating into Amazon’s e-commerce market share and legitimately becoming a competitor,” said Alasdair McLean-Foreman, founder and chief executive officer of Teikametrics, a Boston-based software firm that helps merchants buy advertising on Amazon, Walmart and other platforms.
“People are seeing Walmart as a viable marketplace, and that wasn’t the case in 2019 or 2020.”
To be clear, Amazon remains the undisputed king of online commerce in its home market. US shoppers will spend $431 billion on Amazon this year, almost six times the $74 billion they’ll spend on Walmart, according to Insider Intelligence. Walmart is expected to have 6.3% of the US online market this year, a fraction of Amazon’s estimated 37.6% share.