Amazon Extended Prime Day Boosts Walmart Traffic, Shifts Shopper Behavior

Amazon extended its 2025 Prime Day to four days, aiming to offer shoppers more time to find deals amid economic pressures, but this strategy led many deal-seeking consumers to explore competitors like Walmart, which capitalized on the opportunity with aggressive promotions and its Walmart+ membership program. While Amazon reported record-breaking sales with an estimated $750 million in U.S. online transactions and a 4.9% sales growth, Walmart's weeklong "Deals" event outperformed Prime Day in several key metrics, including a 24% growth in online spending and substantial increases in web traffic and app usage. This shift reflects a broader change in consumer behavior, with inflation-conscious shoppers prioritizing value over loyalty and treating Prime Day as an industrywide sales event rather than an Amazon-exclusive occasion. The competition is further intensified by Walmart’s strength in brick-and-mortar retail, which Amazon lacks, benefiting from a notable surge in physical store visits during the period. Experts highlight that while other retailers are launching parallel promotions, many shoppers remain focused on Amazon for deals, indicating untapped potential for competitors that must increase awareness and improve deal discovery. Overall, Prime Day has evolved from an Amazon-centric event into a significant retail moment leveraged by a diverse range of merchants, reshaping the competitive retail landscape.