Walmart closed price gap on Amazon ahead of Cyber Monday face-off
Walmart has closed in on matching prices with online retailer Amazon in hopes to regain its title as a low-price leader.
At Cyber Monday, Walmart marks a major milestone, with prices of its items coming within 0.3 percent of Amazon's
The news comes after an aggressive 2017 for the brick-and-mortar chain, which spent over $1bn making its prices more competitive against rivals in the space. This push sacrificed profits in the short-term, but had led to a significantly smaller price gap between itself and Amazon across a broad range of product categories.
On average, prices at Walmart are now 0.3 higher than on Amazon. This, according to Reuters and a study made by retail analytics firm Market Track, was a drop from a 3 percent price gap. Wearables, for example, went from being 12.6% more expensive than on Amazon, to about 6.4% cheaper within a year. Sports and outdoor products have also seen a considerable drop, from 3.5% more expensive to 1.3% less.
Online sales for Walmart grew 50% over the past year, now having it account for 3.6 percent of US online sales. It still has much ground to gain on Amazon, which at 43.5% of e-commerce sales in the US, retains a vise grip on the market.