When summer comes, what can arouse people's interest more than a shopping spree?

Similar to the popular 618 shopping carnival in China, Amazon.Com Inc holds an annual promotional spree, or Amazon Prime Day, on Monday and Tuesday, June 21 and 22, respectively.

Last year, although most merchants, such as Amazon.Com Inc, had to postpone the promotion festival until October because of the epidemic, small and medium-sized enterprises on Amazon.Com Inc still generated $3.5 billion in Prime Day revenue, up 60 per cent from the previous month.

However,This year Amazon.Com Inc once again faced a challenge from Walmart Inc. After Amazon.Com Inc announced his promotion, Walmart Inc launched a super promotion called "2021 Deals for Days" on the same day, which lasted from June 20 to 23, two more days than Amazon.A spokesman for Walmart Inc said that in these four days, whether on Walmart Inc's official website or in brick-and-mortar stores, consumers can enjoy huge discounts on "Black Friday" on gardening, electronics, household goods, toys, makeup, fashion and other goods.

It is reported that this year Walmart Inc moved the "Black Friday" promotion held every year on the day after Thanksgiving (that is, the fourth Friday in November) to June, while no more promotional activities will be held in November.

The competition between Amazon.Com Inc and Walmart Inc, the world's two largest retailers, is no stranger. When Amazon.Com Inc's Prime Day event was held in 2020, Walmart Inc launched a five-day "Big Save" promotion. In December 2020, Walmart Inc also launched a membership service called "Walmart Inc +" (Walmart +), which is very similar to that of Amazon.Com Inc Prime members.

According to the research report released by JPMorgan Chase & Co Bank of the United StatesAmazon.Com Inc is expected to replace Walmart Inc as the largest retailer in the United States in 2022.. Analysts said Amazon.Com Inc's retail sector in the US was "the fastest growing", although neither of them reported total merchandise trading volume in their quarterly results, but Amazon.Com Inc's total merchandise trading volume is estimated to grow faster than Walmart Inc.

Amazon.Com Inc's total commodity trading volume rose 41 per cent month-on-month to $316 billion in 2020, while Walmart Inc's total commodity trading volume rose 10 per cent month-on-month to $439 billion in 2020, analysts said. Although the total transaction volume of Amazon.Com Inc is currently lower than that of Walmart Inc, at the current growth rate, Amazon.Com Inc is expected to overtake Walmart Inc in 2022.

Although Amazon.Com Inc is full of momentum, the future pattern of the US retail industry still needs to be analyzed from more specific aspects.

01 Amazon.Com Inc vs Walmart Inc, omni-directional comparative analysis

Offline physical sales

As far as offline physical retail business is concerned, Walmart Inc has an advantage for a long time. Walmart Inc, which has more than 4700 stores in the United States, has long become a place where Americans are used to spending, with an estimated 90 percent of Americans living less than 10 miles from Walmart Inc's store.

At the same time, Amazon.Com Inc's physical retail business is making great strides. In 2020, Amazon.Com Inc expanded his offline business. In addition to opening more than 500 stores in Whole Foods, Amazon.Com Inc also opened large-scale Amazon.Com Inc Amazon Fresh stores across the United States. At present, Amazon.Com Inc is operating 11 Walmart Inc stores, and 28 are under construction, but Amazon.Com Inc did not go any further on his future plans.

From the perspective of offline business, Walmart Inc occupies a dominant position in the field of brick-and-mortar stores with its ubiquitous stores. Despite Amazon.Com Inc's rapid development, there is still a long way to go.

E-commerce growth and network service

The COVID-19 epidemic has put all stores on the fast track of digital growth, and Walmart Inc and Amazon.Com Inc are no exception. Walmart Inc's e-commerce business grew 79 per cent in fiscal year 2021 (from February 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021). Amazon.Com Inc, on the other hand, accounts for 40% of all e-commerce sales in the United States, and that number is growing.

Walmart Inc's new app and new store design incorporate customers' mobile phones into shopping, blurring the line between offline shopping and online shopping. In 2020, Walmart Inc launched "Walmart Inc +" (Walmart +) members, the equivalent of Amazon Prime members, including free delivery services, Scan and Go in-store shopping services and gasoline discounts. In the five months since its launch, Walmart Inc has gained about 8 million users.

From Amazon.Com Inc's point of view, in addition to online shopping, Amazon.Com Inc has also achieved great success in the Prime streaming video business, which has more than 175 million users in 2020, and the length of streaming media has increased by more than 70 percent year on year. In addition, Internet Services (Amazon Web Services) is now the company's darling, generating a profit of $13.5 billion for Amazon.Com Inc in 2020.

When it comes to online business, the winner is undoubtedly Amazon.Com Inc, whose B2B and B2C businesses, as well as streaming media, have grown to become the industry leader.

Innovation and development

Both Amazon.Com Inc and Walmart Inc are at the forefront of innovation.

For Amazon.Com Inc, last year alone, Amazon.Com Inc announced innovative services such as face payment, FAA-approved drone delivery, and even created a hair salon-all during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Amazon.Com Inc also continues to expand into new areas, such as increasing drug supply and strengthening his smart home equipment. In May, Amazon.Com Inc announced the acquisition of MGM for $8.45 billion to expand its commercial footprint.

In addition, Amazon.Com Inc has always been a leader in innovative technology and automation in the industry. In 2021, Amazon.Com Inc will invest $40 million to build a new storage space and will first open a 350000-square-foot (32516.064-square-meter) robotic transportation center in Massachusetts, aiming to expand the use of robots in the supply chain.

Walmart Inc also continues to innovate in order execution and customer experience. In 2020, Walmart Inc launched Alphabot, a platform that can extract, package and send online orders faster and more accurately than humans.

In addition, Walmart Inc is also redesigning 1000 stores and is expected to create a leaner and faster shopping experience for customers by the end of 2021. It is reported that the new design adds a more easily identifiable logo for customers, while the upgraded App function can show customers the exact location of each item.

In terms of innovation, Amazon.Com Inc is obviously better. Amazon.Com Inc has revolutionized the retail sector with his innovative products and services, as well as leading robotics and artificial intelligence technology, thus becoming a leader in the industry.

02 Walmart Inc's "copying homework": the last mile chase

As mentioned above, Walmart Inc's general advantage lies in offline service, while Amazon.Com Inc's advantage lies in online service. In order to compete with Amazon.Com Inc, Walmart Inc is trying to learn from Amazon.Com Inc's approach to build his own "last mile" (last mile) independent delivery service.

The establishment of an independent distribution business is one of Walmart Inc's efforts to narrow the sales gap with Amazon.Com Inc's e-commerce, Reuters said. Prior to this, Amazon.Com Inc has recruited a large number of small businesses to provide delivery services with trucks bearing the company's logo, in order to control customers' waiting time and costs.

Since the epidemic hit the US market last year, US United Parcel Service Inc delivery service company UPS, FedEx Corp FedEx and US Postal Service USPS have been saturated to deliver parcels, and delivery costs have soared, forcing major companies to seek new ways to deliver parcels while controlling soaring delivery costs.

John Furner, chief executive of Walmart Inc US, said on the company's earnings call that Walmart Inc was already experimenting with its first "last mile" delivery van to deliver packages from Walmart Inc stores or distribution centres to customers' homes.

Since January, convoys of minivans have delivered parcels in Bentonville and Rogers, near Walmart Inc's headquarters in Arkansas, said Walmart Inc spokesman Camille Dunn (Camille Dunn).

"they [Walmart Inc] set up a freight network and I can't say they took customers away from Amazon.Com Inc, but keeping parcel delivery internally does give an advantage," said Kathy Morrow, founder of Logistics Trends & Insights, a global logistics market research company. "

According to the analysis of Motley Fool, a well-known US investment media, Walmart Inc has certain advantages in distribution: Walmart Inc has its own independent stores and distribution centers, which means it has a network of stores to complete online orders and a logistics network to supply these stores, so that Walmart Inc does not have to pay attention to goods and warehousing space.

In addition, a large part of Walmart Inc's sales still come from in-store customers, who have formed shopping habits over the years. Therefore, Walmart Inc's powerful comprehensive sales service can retain "repeat customers" and ensure sufficient passenger flow.

03 Amazon.Com Inc's "ambition": the establishment of the global market

Although Walmart Inc tries to ensure his advantage in the retail market by building the "last mile", Amazon.Com Inc seems to have set his sights on the broader global market.

Take Amazon.Com Inc Prime members, for example. EMarketer, a subsidiary of Insider Intelligence, a digital research company, estimates that its users are growing faster outside the United States than in the United States. This may be because Prime members are close to saturation in the US market (about 65 per cent of US households will become Prime members in 2021, according to eMarketer), while in other countries, Amazon.Com Inc may only be in its infancy and has enough room for growth.

According to official data, the number of newly registered users of Amazon.Com Inc Prime Day reached an all-time high in 2019, and the registration rate outside the United States is getting higher and higher, which has contributed to Amazon.Com Inc's international sales. The 2021 Prime Day will be attended by 20 countries, including China, Mexico, Japan, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many others.

The benefits offered by Amazon.Com Inc through Prime vary from country to country. In the UK and parts of Europe, food is the main attraction, while in emerging markets, Prim uses video streaming as its main attraction. "in Brazil, for example, users first accept video subscriptions and then focus on other things, such as shopping, to become a wider range of Prime members," said Dave Fildes, Amazon.Com Inc's director of investor relations, on an April earnings conference call. This is a way to bring new customers into contact with Amazon.Com Inc. "

Fildes also pointed out that if users use streaming to watch videos, they are more likely to sign up for Prime membership after a 30-day free trial. And once registered, it is likely to spend on Amazon.Com Inc within the membership time, thus realizing the expansion of Amazon.Com Inc's global market.

Walmart Inc's global market, by contrast, is uncertain-in early 2018, Walmart Inc temporarily abandoned his slow-growing and struggling international business to seek a faster-growing e-commerce business. Since then, however, Walmart Inc has gradually reshaped his international business, buying Indian e-commerce start-up Flipkart for $16 billion and investing in ecommerce businesses in Canada and Mexico.

From January to March 2021, Walmart Inc International (Walmart International) announced that its income fell by 8.3% to US $27.3 billion "due to the negative impact of government restrictions on certain markets (under the COVID-19 epidemic)." However, due to the strong help of the international e-commerce business, the market still maintained 5.1% growth.

Who will win the crown of "King of American Retail" in this chase? Let's wait and see.