Amazon beats Walmart in online revenue, lags in online growth

Amazon and Walmart can both claim victories in their increasingly intense competition in the e-commerce realm.

According to a new study from online selling platform Jungle Scout, Amazon is expected to end 2021 with over $468 billion in global e-commerce revenue. This is roughly six times Walmart’s expected 2021 global online revenue of $75 billion. 

However, Jungle Scout analysis also finds that Walmart’s e-commerce sales could increase by as much as 89% year-over-year in 2021, more than five times the 16% online sales growth it predicts for Amazon. Amazon holds a 40% share of the U.S. e-commerce market, compared to Walmart’s 7% share.

Amazon also has far more global third-party online sellers (6.3 million) than Walmart (roughly 115,000). While just 7% of Amazon third-party sellers are also current Walmart.com sellers, Jungle Scout finds that 39% of Amazon third-party sellers are considering selling on Walmart Marketplace in 2021, with 95% of them operating in the U.S. Amazon marketplace.

In addition, one-third of Amazon third-party sellers believe Walmart’s online presence will compete strongly with Amazon’s online presence in 2021 and beyond, and more than one in five (22%) of Amazon sellers are worried about competition from Walmart.

[Read more: Survey: Walmart beats Amazon in two key e-commerce areas]

Examining consumer behavior, Jungle Scout found that during 2021, 65% of consumers shopped on Amazon, and 37% shopped on Walmart.com. When broken down into consumers who prefer one over the other, 35% of consumers shop on Amazon but not Walmart.com, compared to 9% of consumers who shop on Walmart.com but not Amazon. Interestingly, 57% of Amazon-exclusive online shoppers also shop in-store at Walmart.

Amazon-exclusive and Walmart.com-exclusive online shoppers displayed similar rates of buying many products, such as clothing (35% Amazon vs. 33% Walmart.com), beauty/personal care (25% vs. 22%), and home & kitchen (17% vs. 16%). Amazon-exclusive shoppers only showed significantly higher likelihood to purchase electronics (19% vs. 11%). In contrast, Walmart.com customers reported much higher purchase rates in product categories including groceries (41% vs. 20%), cleaning supplies (30% vs. 17%), and over-the-counter medicine (29% vs. 10%).

Jungle Scout also uncovered a number of other interesting comparative statistics about Amazon- and Walmart.com-exclusive shoppers:

• 54% of Amazon-exclusive shoppers are making purchases on Amazon weekly or more.
• 57% of Walmart.com-exclusive shoppers are making purchases on Walmart.com weekly or more.
• 73% of Walmart-exclusive shoppers earn household income below $50,000/year, vs. 54% of Amazon-exclusive shoppers.
• 41% of Walmart-exclusive shoppers are aged 18-34, versus 32% of Amazon-exclusive shoppers
• 76% of Amazon-exclusive shoppers and 67% of Walmart.com-exclusive shoppers are looking for products with the lowest price when shopping online.
• 76% of Amazon-exclusive shoppers and 56% of Walmart.com-exclusive shoppers are looking for products with the fastest shipping when shopping online.

Insights from this report were sourced from Jungle Scout’s 2021 Consumer Trends Report, a quarterly, anonymous survey of over 1,000 adult U.S. consumers about their buying preferences and behaviors. The majority of analysis in this report compares Amazon shoppers to Walmart or Walmart.com shoppers. This report also draws from Jungle Scout’s 2021 State of the Amazon Seller Report, an annual study of nearly 5,000 Amazon entrepreneurs, business owners, and major brands.