In July 2023, Walmart and Amazon.com held their respective sales events—Walmart Plus Week (July 10-13) and Amazon Prime Day (July 11-12). Bloomberg Second Measure’s consumer transaction data shows that Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) experienced double-digit week-over-week growth in U.S. consumer sales during the week of Amazon Prime Day 2023. Meanwhile, ahead of Walmart Inc’s (NYSE: WMT) FY24 Q2 earnings call, our analysis revealed that the company’s U.S. sales declined week-over-week during Walmart Plus Week. However, during the week preceding Walmart’s July event, the company saw the biggest week-over-week increase in Walmart+ membership sales so far in 2023.
Amazon.com Inc’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) U.S. consumer sales increased during the week of Prime Day 2023, while Walmart Inc’s (NYSE: WMT) decreased during Walmart+ Week
Our data shows that U.S. consumer sales during the week of Amazon’s and Walmart’s sales events in July 2023 (defined here as the week ending on July 16) jumped 45 percent week-over-week at Amazon.com, while Walmart Inc saw its U.S. consumer sales down 5 percent week-over-week.
Notably, July 2023 marks the return of overlapping sales events at both Amazon and Walmart after a two-year break. Prior to 2022, Walmart hosted its Deals for Days sale around the same time as the Amazon Prime Day sales events. In 2022, the company opted out of running the event, pointing to the fact that many products were already on sale due to excess inventory. Instead, in June 2022, the company introduced the Walmart+ Weekend, a one-day sales event open exclusively to Walmart+ members.
Interestingly, the U.S. sales growth trend at both Walmart Inc and Amazon.com Inc has followed a consistent pattern during most weeks so far in 2023. Notable exceptions include the first week of 2023—when Amazon Inc’s U.S. consumer sales grew week-over-week, while Walmart Inc’s sales remained relatively unchanged—and the two weeks in late March and early April (around the Easter holiday), when Walmart Inc saw an increase in week-over-week sales and Amazon.com Inc’s U.S. consumer sales remained relatively unchanged.
Walmart+ membership sales soared during the week preceding Walmart+ Week
Zooming in on Walmart Plus, during the week preceding Walmart Plus Week (defined here as the week ending on July 9, 2023), membership sales soared 43 percent week-over-week. This has been the biggest week-over-week increase in Walmart Plus membership sales so far in 2023.
A possible factor contributing to the increased sales that week was the deal on Walmart Plus memberships that ran through July 13, 2023, and saw the $98 annual membership price cut in half. Additionally, Walmart+ members were offered access to Walmart’s July sales event a day before the general public, which may have also contributed to new membership purchases.
Aside from the week leading up to Walmart’s July sales event, so far, most weeks of 2023 have seen single-digit week-over-week changes in Walmart+ membership sales (with some variation likely attributed to the annual or monthly billing cycles for the membership). It is worth noting that apart from annual memberships, Walmart+ also offers monthly memberships (for $12.95/month). Bloomberg Second Measure’s data in this analysis is presented on a weekly rollup and captures annual memberships, as well as recurring payments for the monthly plan, but excludes free trials.
What to expect from Amazon’s second Prime sales event in 2023?
Amazon.com has been running its July Prime Day sales events since 2015. In 2022, the company hosted two Prime sales events for the first time ever, with the second one taking place in October. Amazon.com will host its fall Prime sales event again this year—Prime Big Deal Days, slated for October 11-12, 2023. During the October Prime event, the e-commerce giant is expected to put an emphasis on giftable products such as gaming bundles, handheld tech, and beauty sets, as retailers increasingly offer early holiday season sales over that period.
Bloomberg Second Measure launched a new and exclusive transaction dataset in July 2022. Our data continues to be broadly representative of U.S. consumers. As a result of this panel change, however, we recommend using only the latest post in assessing metrics, and do not support referring to historical blog posts to infer period-over-period comparisons.
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