They like to match each other pound-for-pound in the race to integrate AI, strengthen logistics and offer the lowest prices. But Amazon and Walmart compete for consumer retail spending, and each retailer’s eCommerce presence is proving to be the deciding factor.
In the first half of 2025, consumer spending across all retail goods and services was up 3.2% relative to 2024. With more dollars entering the market, Amazon and Walmart have both been able to capture new opportunities. Each has experienced sales growth that outpaces the overall rise in spending. Still, with Walmart’s rate of growth less than half of what Amazon’s was in Q2, the supercenter chain is lagging, and in some categories, dramatically so.
Amazon’s share of consumers’ retail spending keeps growing, while Walmart’s has been nearly stagnant for years. Today, the eCommerce giant’s market share exceeds Walmart’s in most retail categories. In those where Walmart retains its lead, Amazon is narrowing the gap.
These are just some of the findings explored in “Share of Wallet: Amazon Extends Gains While Walmart Holds Steady in Q2 Spending,” a PYMNTS Intelligence exclusive report. This edition examines Amazon and Walmart’s share of retail spending as of Q2 2025. It draws on PYMNTS Intelligence estimates based on Amazon and Walmart earnings reports and national data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
Amazon’s rebound is fueled by its eCommerce growth.
For all Amazon’s efforts to improve its brick-and-mortar presence, most of its growth is still coming from eCommerce. Amazon’s U.S. retail sales surged 9.5% year over year in Q2 2025. This marks a sharp rise in growth compared to the 3.8% year-over-year increase seen in Q1. Most of this Q2 growth came from its eCommerce sales, which increased 9.6%, while Amazon’s Whole Foods rose just 7.5%. Walmart, for its part, is also growing, but at a reduced clip. It saw a 4.6% year-over-year rise in retail sales in-store and online in Q2, up from 3.2% in the previous quarter.
Amazon’s share of wallet keeps growing, while Walmart’s holds roughly steady.
Over the last three years, Amazon’s share of wallet has gotten larger and larger. In Q2 2025, the company saw a 7.6% year-over-year rise in its share of U.S. consumer retail spending. This figure marks a dramatic increase from its 2.7% year-over-year uptick the previous quarter.
As Amazon’s share of wallet has crept up over the past six years, Walmart’s has been roughly stagnant. In Q2 2025, Amazon’s share was more than twice what it was six years prior. Meanwhile, Walmart’s was roughly the same. Since 2019, the Arkansas-based retail giant has seen its portion of total U.S. consumer retail spending hover at approximately 7% to 8%.
Notably, Amazon’s performance has more seasonal variation, with spikes around the winter holidays and slowdowns in the early months of the year. By contrast, Walmart’s performance remains fairly consistent year-round.
Amazon has outstripped Walmart in most retail categories—and is closing the gap in the rest.
Amazon is growing its share in key retail categories. For example, in Q2 it captured nearly one-third of the U.S. consumer sporting goods, hobby, music and books market, up from just 19% six years prior. Additionally, it captured 30% of electronics and appliances, up from 21% in 2019.
Walmart’s share in most categories, meanwhile, has more or less held steady. The retailer has seen modest gains in its grocery business, while it has lost share in auto parts.
Amazon’s share of consumer spending in sporting goods, hobby, music and books is nearly six times as large as Walmart’s. Its share of consumer electronics and appliance spending is more than five times as large. Amazon just recently outpaced Walmart in health and personal care and has held this lead since Q4 of 2023.
There remain a few key categories where Walmart continues to capture the greater share, namely, auto parts and grocery. However, in these, Amazon is shrinking the gap. Amazon now holds a 9.9% share of auto parts sales to Walmart’s 15%. Six years earlier, that gap was far wider, with Amazon’s share at 6% and Walmart’s at 17%.
In grocery, Amazon’s gains have been more modest, with Walmart continuing to hold the commanding lead. Amazon has grown its share of grocery to 2.7%, up from 1.8% six years prior. Walmart, meanwhile, has grown its share by two percentage points to 21% in the same period.
Auto parts
Walmart kept its lead over Amazon in auto parts as both stayed roughly flat versus Q1, a pattern shaped by the category’s need-it-now jobs (dead batteries, flat tires) that favor Walmart’s 4,700+ store footprint and its in-store Auto Care Centers for oil, battery and tire services, plus fast curbside pickup and express delivery for urgent items. Amazon countered with “Your Garage” fitment and expanded OEM assortments and installer networks, but hazards and fluids face hazmat limits, and fitment mistakes still create return friction. Macro Q2 tailwinds, such as record Memorial Day road travel and an aging U.S. car parc at 12.8 years, kept maintenance spend solid.
Food and beverage
Amazon has spent billions on Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh, yet it still trails Walmart in grocery. As Walmart’s 4,600 supercenters put 90% of Americans within 10 miles of a store, shoppers can easily grab low-priced perishables or use free curbside pickup, which now dominates online grocery orders. Those parking lot hand-offs turn each store into a same-day fulfillment hub, sidestepping the costly last mile and spurring impulse buys. Amazon’s smaller network of Fresh depots and 530 premium-priced Whole Foods outlets serves a narrower, mostly urban audience and requires more expensive home delivery.
Health and personal care
While Walmart held the lead in this category in Q1 2019, Amazon slowly crept up over the years to surpass Walmart in Q4 2022. In Q1 2023, Walmart took this lead back for a few quarters, but fell again to Amazon in Q4 2023, with Amazon holding 7.3% and Walmart holding 6.3%. Since then, Amazon has stayed on top for spending in this category, with Walmart just a small percentage behind. In Q2 2025, Amazon held 7.3% of spending in this category, and Walmart held 6.8%.
Electronics
Amazon’s endless aisle of gadgets, customer reviews and two-day Prime shipping has turned the site into the first stop for electronics, driving its share of U.S. electronics and appliance sales higher than 30% last year, while Walmart hovers near 6%. Prime Day-style promotions and painless returns give shoppers the confidence to click “buy” on big-ticket items such as televisions and laptops, a convenience that Walmart’s store pickup and longer delivery windows struggle to match. Many customers still test-drive products in a Walmart aisle, but with fewer models on display and barcode scanning only a tap away, they often complete the purchase on Amazon, keeping the gap firmly in Amazon’s favor.
Sporting goods, hobby, music and books
Amazon has turned sporting goods, hobbies, music and books into another one-stop digital aisle, giving it roughly one-third of U.S. spending in the category. Shoppers gravitate to Amazon’s vast long-tail catalog of niche bike parts, model-train kits and out-of-print paperbacks, supported by millions of peer reviews and creator videos that double as product research. Membership perks such as Prime’s two-day delivery and no-questions returns remove the friction of buying baseball bats or vinyl records sight unseen, while Kindle Unlimited, Audible and Twitch lock in repeat monthly subscription payments that never cross a Walmart shelf. Walmart’s stores carry a curated selection aimed at weekend athletes and casual hobbyists, with limited selection in books and music, but finite space and slower online assortment growth leave enthusiast customers searching Amazon first.
Furniture and home furnishings
Amazon has widened its lead in home furnishings by pairing a near-limitless online assortment with digital tools such as “View in Your Room” augmented reality, letting shoppers size up sofas or rugs without ever setting foot in a store. The strategy helped the eCommerce giant capture roughly 19% of furniture and decor spending in Q2. This gap keeps growing as inflation-hit consumers chase Amazon’s fast shipping and event-driven discounts like the Big Spring Sale. Industry analysts say the category’s fragmented brands and bulky, price-sensitive items play to Amazon’s strengths: a marketplace that aggregates scores of low-cost overseas makers, millions of peer reviews that build confidence for sight-unseen buys and an easy returns process that turns the living room into the showroom. Walmart, by contrast, must ration in-store floor space, lean on fewer third-party sellers and rely on curbside pickup for larger furnishings.
Clothing
Read more about apparel sales in “Big Brands and Small Details Drive Amazon’s Apparel Dominance.”
Amazon and Walmart’s total discretionary spending
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Methodology
“Share of Wallet: Amazon Extends Gains While Walmart Holds Steady in Q2 Spending” examines Amazon and Walmart’s share of retail spending as of Q2 2025. It draws on PYMNTS Intelligence estimates based on Amazon and Walmart earnings reports and national data from the BEA.
