Why Walmart is beating Amazon in the online fight for groceries

Until five years ago, Amazon was the undisputed market leader for online groceries in the United States. Now, however, Walmart has taken over the lead and keeps on expanding it. What happened?

Turning point

It is a remarkable finding: in 2016, Amazon still held 24 % of the online grocery market (food purchases) in the US, while Walmart – by far the largest physical supermarket chain in the country – only had a 16.3 % market share. However, in 2019 already, Walmart had closed the gap and overtook its online rival. Since then, Amazon has only seen the gap with the new market leader grow larger.