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BOSTON — Kantar Retail LLC’s third annual price-comparison survey found that Walmart’s website is undercutting prices at rival Amazon.com Inc. as well as at the retailer’s own Supercenters.
Kantar Retail LLC’s third annual price-comparison survey found that Walmart’s website is undercutting prices at rival Amazon.com Inc. as well as at the retailer’s own Supercenters.
The consulting firm compared prices on 53 branded items across four categories in August and concluded that the items were 5% more expensive at a Supercenter than on Walmart.com. Last year, Kantar found that the hypothetical Supercenter’s basket was 7% cheaper than the website’s.
Amazon’s basket was 12% more expensive than the Supercenter’s this year and 17% more costly than at Walmart.com.
"While historically the Supercenter has dominated from a price-point standpoint, this year’s findings indicate a shift to more alignment between Walmart.com and the Supercenter," according to Kantar.
The consultants compared prices in the edible grocery, nonedible grocery, general merchandise and health and beauty aids categories. The survey was performed during the back-to-school shopping season, Kantar said, "to capture results from a period when the retailers would be particularly vying for position."
Kantar singled out third-party items, particularly in the grocery categories, in explaining why Amazon’s baskets were more expensive. Amazon’s baskets were most expensive in three of the four categories; in edible grocery, prices at Amazon.com were 37% higher than at either Walmart channel, Kantar said.
Amazon’s general merchandise basket was cheapest, at a cost of $196.02, Kantar said, compared to $232.38 at a Supercenter and $200.31 at Walmart.com.
Total basket costs at Walmart.com were $578.06. The Supercenter basket came in at $605.28, and Amazon’s total basket cost $678.74, Kantar said.
Shipping costs were excluded from the survey, as were any subscription discounts offered to online shoppers.
"While Walmart looks to offer consistently low prices across channels, it is also contending with the dynamic pricing realities online retail entails," said Anne Zybowski, vice president at Kantar Retail and a contributor to the study.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Walmart is testing a program to match online prices from such competitors as Amazon during the holiday shopping season.
Walmart has resisted matching online prices in a bid to keep shoppers from “showrooming,” or browsing brick-and-mortar stores but subsequently buying at online competitors, the Journal said.
