5 pictures to understand the current development of Walmart in the United States

Walmart's head of sales Ryan Mayward recently said that Walmart plans to attract more advertising spending for its retail media business. eMarketer released Walmart's current data in the United States and compared it with its biggest competitor Amazon.

1. Walmart’s e-commerce share ranks second, but far behind Amazon

Data shows that as of 2023, Walmart ranks second in the list of US retail e-commerce companies, accounting for 6.4% of the retail e-commerce share, but is still far behind Amazon's 37.6%.

Walmart's e-commerce sales growth rate ranks third, behind Carvana and Chewy. eMarketer predicts that Walmart's e-commerce sales will increase by 10.9% this year and 11.3% next year to $81.75 billion.

2. Walmart’s physical stores will drive advertising revenue growth

eMarketer predicts that Walmart's advertising revenue in the United States will grow 39.1% this year, outpacing Amazon, Etsy and eBay. However, Walmart's $3.16 billion in advertising revenue is still only a small fraction of Amazon's $33.96 billion in advertising revenue.

According to analysts, the next phase of retail media in the U.S. will be a shift toward in-store media formats. Walmart has a large physical footprint and is taking advantage of this by building new in-store retail media experiences such as demos, events and in-store screens.

3. Walmart+ is growing slowly

Three years after its launch, eMarketer predicts that Walmart+ will reach 29.2 million users in 2023. To drive user growth, Walmart has added a series of discounts and benefits, including cash rebate programs, free subscriptions to Paramount+, and even launched promotions that rival Amazon Prime Day.

However, Walmart+ only accounts for 1.5% of paid retail membership revenue in the United States, lagging behind Sam's Club and Costco.

4. Search is one area where Walmart is ahead of Amazon

According to JungleScout data, U.S. consumers are increasingly starting their online shopping searches on Walmart.com, while Amazon, search engines and Facebook are losing share.

Walmart recently revamped its website and app to improve the user search and shopping experience, launching a homepage that encourages shoppers to browse products like they would on a social media platform. The redesign also provides a more curated experience to better showcase its product offerings.

5. Walmart increases investment in artificial intelligence

Walmart is using OpenAI’s GPT-4 and other language models to help it advance its conversational AI capabilities, including its “text to shop” feature (which allows customers to add items to their carts via text or voice) and an internal chatbot that employees use for customer service purposes.

Desirée Gosby, vice president of emerging technologies at Walmart Global Technology, told VentureBeat that generative AI will become standard for retailers in the coming years. She said AI will be “as transformative as mobile was in the way our customers interact with us.”

Editor✎ Ashley/

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