Summer traffic swoon underway at Walmart.com

Walmart.com is the only conventional retailer to rank in the monthly Top 50 Web Properties report from comScore Media Metrix, but June traffic to the retailer’s site was below year-ago levels even as e-commerce is hailed as the next growth engine.

Comscore showed Walmart.com with nearly 40 million unique visitors during June — no other conventional retailer is close — but even at that level the company is down from 43.1 million unique visitors during June 2012. Meanwhile, Walmart.com faces a high bar this month because its unique visitor totals have flatlined this year yet July 2012 was one of Walmart.com’s busiest months with 45.2 million unique visitors.

If Walmart is concerned about the traffic decline it isn’t apparent from the company’s comments. Digital efforts continue to be highlighted during prepared remarks released after quarterly financial results, during investor conferences and at the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting.

Walmart’s e-commerce business is likely to be in the spotlight next week too when Neil Ashe, president and CEO of Walmart Global eCommerce participates in the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo., along with Karenann Terrell, Walmart’s chief information officer.

Traffic is only one variable in the sales equation with ticket being the other and average transaction sizes are thought to be increasing at Walmart.com. Within the past year has begun to talk more openly about its sales, going so far as to forecast $10 billion in online revenue this year.

That figure is well short of Amazon.com, where comScore data also showed June and May traffic to be below prior year levels. Unique visitors to Amazon.com totaled 98.3 million in June and 108.3 million in May, compared to 100.7 million in June 2012 and 99.4 million in May 2012. Similar trends were also evident at eBay and Facebook.