Can Walmart catch Amazon in ecommerce? The retail giants rank No. 2 and No. 1, respectively, in the Top 1000 Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers. They are also the top two Mass Merchant retailers in the database. Nevertheless, they each have unique strengths associated with their assets and priorities.
Amazon vs. Walmart ecommerce market share
Amazon and Walmart, two retail titans, have significantly expanded their reach in both brick-and-mortar and online retail over the past decade and a half. While Amazon has long reigned supreme as the largest online retailer in the U.S., Walmart’s impressive ecommerce growth in the last seven years has propelled the company to a position where, for the first time, these two giants collectively control more than half of all global online sales among the Top 2000 North American online retailers.
Amazon and Walmart have dramatically reshaped the U.S. retail landscape in recent years. While Amazon has maintained its dominant position, Walmart’s ecommerce surge has been equally impressive. In 2017, Amazon held a 36.4% share of the Top 2000 North American online retailers’ sales. Today, Digital Commerce 360 projects it will reach 39.7% in 2024. Meanwhile, Walmart’s share has skyrocketed from 4.4% to a projected 10.6%.
Combined, these two giants now account for over 50% of all global online sales within the Top 2000, solidifying their status as the leading forces in ecommerce. Still, even though these two companies bring in more than half of North America’s online sales, Amazon’s share of sales as No. 1 remains about 3.75 times larger than the share Walmart holds.
Walmart’s ecommerce growth in the U.S. has been nothing short of remarkable. In just a few years, its domestic online sales have surged from $27 billion in 2019 to $82 billion by the end of 2023. This represents a substantial increase from 68% to 82% of Walmart’s global ecommerce operations. Meanwhile, Amazon’s U.S. ecommerce share has remained relatively stable, increasing only slightly from 66% in 2019 to 69% in 2023.
Despite Walmart’s impressive growth in U.S. ecommerce market share, Amazon’s expansion has been even more substantial. During the same period (2019-2023), Amazon’s U.S. ecommerce sales increased by nearly $142 billion, compared to Walmart’s growth of $55 billion.
Amazon vs. Walmart online penetration
Over the years, the two retail giants have moved in opposite ways, as Walmart, the largest retailer in the U.S. has been putting emphasis on its omnichannel and ecommerce business, while Amazon, the largest online retailer in the U.S., moved into the brick-and-mortar space with its acquisition of Whole Foods.
In 2018, Amazon’s online penetration was at 77.2%, while Walmart’s online penetration was much lower, at 4.9%. The Top 2000 online retailers’ ecommerce penetration was at 8.5% in 2018, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates. By the end of 2023, Amazon’s online penetration was down to 71.7% while Walmart’s online penetration had reached an all-time company high at 15.4%.
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