Profitero’s latest study in its Price Wars series compared prices on 100,000 products across 16 retailers from April – June 2018. Overall, Amazon had the lowest prices on the broadest selection of popular items, winning 11 out of 15 categories studied. Walmart.com had the most competitive prices to Amazon’s, with prices averaging 2.3% higher. Jet had prices 4.2% higher than Amazon, while Target averaged 11.9% higher. There were a few exceptions where Amazon wasn’t the lowest priced in market. For instance, Chewy.com was 2.3% cheaper in pet supplies and Jet.com had lower prices than Amazon in beauty (.4%) and music & CDs (2.6%).
Other highlights from the study include:
- Amazon continues to dominate specialty retailers: Amazon’s price advantage was most notable versus specialty stores. On average, Amazon was 13.3% cheaper on appliances and 15.2% cheaper on electronics versus Best Buy; 18.4% cheaper on sporting goods versus Dick’s Sporting Goods; and 24.9% cheaper on furniture compared to Wayfair. This dramatic price gap could have a major impact on these retailers’ holiday shopping sales if trends continue into November and December.
- Walmart is making furniture and baby a key focus: As already noted, Walmart.com had the most competitive prices to Amazon’s among any other retailer. Walmart appears to be making the largest strides to keep up with Amazon in the home furniture and baby categories, where they were found to be priced -0.7% and -0.3% lower, respectively.
- Grocery competition intensifies: In February 2018, Profitero noted that Walmart, Jet and Target were locked into fierce price competition with Amazon within online grocery. Since then, Jet.com has separated from the pack, lowering grocery prices by 5%.
Keith Anderson, Profitero’s SVP of Product Strategy and Insights and author of the study said: “Based on our latest data, it’s clear that Amazon is the best-priced retailer across the broadest selection of products. That said, for those willing to spend the time, deals can still be found in price-competitive categories like baby, pet, and beauty products.”
For the full report, Price Wars: A Study in Online Competitiveness (April - June 2018), go here.
Methodology Summary
Each day, Profitero monitors prices and other data on more than 450 million product pages at more than 8,000+ online retailers. For this study, Profitero analyzed daily prices collected from April 1, 2018 to June 30, 2018 across 16 leading online retailers. Categories analyzed included Appliances, Baby, Beauty, Electronics, Grocery, Home Furniture, Household Supplies, Music & CDs, Office Supplies, Pet Supplies, Sports & Outdoors, Tool & Home Improvement, Toys & Games, and Video Games. The study only compares prices collected on the same day, with both retailers in-stock. Amazon prices reflect 1P only on Amazon.com, exclusive of Fresh and Prime Now. The other retailer online prices studied could reflect promoted prices, but exclude coupons, other discounts that require additional shopper action, or special prices available through retailer-specific programs like Target REDcard or Jet Smart Cart.
