Amazon everyday pricing bests other online retailers studied by 15% on average across key product categories
Profitero today announced the latest findings in its multi-year Price Wars series, which compares item-level price competition across the U.S. online retail landscape. Amazon heads into the “pandemic” 2020 holiday season as the online price leader, beating other major retailers on price by 15%, on average, across key products categories. Amazon was the most competitively priced retailer in all but two consumer product categories studied — tying Walmart.com for the lowest online prices for beauty items and Chewy.com for pet supplies.
The 2020 Price Wars study compared everyday prices on more than 18,400 best-selling items across 14 leading online retailers, including Amazon, Walmart.com, Target.com and specialists, like Chewy, Wayfair and Best Buy.
Other key findings of the report:
- Amazon rests easy in furniture: Retailers compete hardest with Amazon in Office & Electronics supplies, where Amazon was 5% less expensive. Meanwhile, in the Home Furniture category Amazon was the most competitive at 35% less expensive, on average.
- Amazon faces stiff competition from Walmart.com: The retailer seconded Amazon in 15 of 21 categories studied and was only 4% more expensive, on average. Walmart matched prices with Amazon on beauty items — an improvement from last year when Walmart was 8% more expensive.
- Target puts profits, not low prices, in its bullseye: Target is the least competitively- priced “Big Three” U.S. retailer (Amazon, Walmart, Target) -- averaging 10% more expensive than Amazon. Most notably, Target was 20% more expensive than Amazon on food & beverage items, down from last year’s study when Target was 12% more expensive.
- Specialty retailers are sitting on the sidelines of the price wars: Overall, specialty retailers are not competing with Amazon on price. Best Buy was 13% more expensive than Amazon in electronics, and Wayfair 37% more expensive in home furniture, as examples.
“Per Mckinsey, 48% of consumers will choose a holiday retailer based on price and promotions this year, so being competitively priced is mission critical,” said Keith Anderson, Profitero’s SVP of Strategy and Insights. “Creating value beyond price is important too, and we see many retailers, particularly category specialists, differentiating through service and selection and charging a premium as a result.”
To access Profitero’s 2020 Price Wars report, visit here.
About the Methodology
Each day, Profitero monitors prices and other data on more than 450 million product pages on hundreds of unique retailer sites. For this study, Profitero analyzed daily prices collected over an 8 week period (Aug. 24, 2020 to Oct. 18, 2020 at Amazon.com and other leading online retail sites across 21 categories. Only identical items available and in-stock in the same pack configuration were compared. Prices for the same items were collected within 24 hours of each other to ensure validity of the comparisons.
About Profitero
Profitero is the platform Adidas, L’Oreal, General Mills and 4,000 other brands use to accelerate their eCommerce sales. Using Profitero’s proprietary technology and algorithms, brands can optimize their 4Ps (Product, Placement, Price and Promotions) across 8,000 retailer sites and 50 countries while also uncovering what competitors are doing to win online. Profitero’s proprietary technology also estimates daily sales for products sold on Amazon, allowing brands to measure market share growth and size category opportunities for future investment. The platform was first in the industry to integrate Amazon sales and share metrics and digital shelf analytics together so brands can more quickly pinpoint the factors that will lead to more sales.
