Amazon and Walmart online shopping, compared

At the end of the day, the experiment entailed a lot of boxes.Hollis Johnson

• Amazon and Walmart are the two largest sellers of merchandise online.
• Amazon  has been dominant, but Walmart has drastically beefed up its online offerings to compete.
• I tested both of them head-to-head to see which one does e-commerce better now. It was difficult to come to a conclusion.

Amazon versus Walmart is the story of our time — at least when it comes to shopping online.

As more and more customers move their shopping online, retailers are racing to convince them to buy from their website instead of a competitor’s. The two companies that have captured many of those customers are Amazon, and, to a smaller extent, Walmart. It seems on the surface level that the two retailers’ offerings now might be equal in terms of price and convenience.

While Walmart stumbled slightly in its quest for online dominance in the fourth quarter last year, it made a slight comeback in its most recent quarter, reporting 33% online sales growth year over year. Amazon, on the other hand, had a record-setting holiday season, and analysts estimate that it took nearly half of all online sales. Its sales grew 39% year over year in the most recent quarter. 

Keeping that in mind, there was only one thing I could do: put both retailers’ e-commerce offerings to the test.

I ordered a handful of items from each retailer, matching the SKU as well as I could. Then it was time to sit back and watch the orders roll in, making sure to log every email correspondence and message from the companies.

What I found was that while the two services are not exact copies of each other, they’re basically equal. I had quibbles with both, and I found there’s definitely room for improvement and innovation in the e-commerce space. Keep reading for my full experience:

So what did I learn? In the end, I was confused, but satisfied, and practically buried in Reese’s Eggs.

Hollis Johnson

There aren’t a whole lot of difference between the two services at this point. Walmart tended to ship faster and in more boxes, while Amazon shipped in fewer packages but with support emails I still can’t make heads or tails of. Walmart tended to package things better, but I didn’t like how they canceled my order without warning.

Amazon has an enormous selection, but that can be confusing and overwhelming. Walmart is simpler, but that also means there are fewer options.

One major caveat: the two orders arrived roughly at the same time, but I only got the 2-day shipping from Amazon because I was a Prime member. That’s a point in favor of Walmart, at least if you mostly have orders that total over $35.

Ultimately, for most customers it will come down to which company is offering the best combination of price and convenience. That war is still being fought.