Grocery Battle Shifts to Loyalty as Walmart Dominates and Amazon Expands Digital

When it comes to the Amazon-Walmart competition, grocery has become a key battleground. Why? It’s the closest thing U.S. retail has to a weekly subscription. Win the cart, and you earn repeat trips and durable customer habits. That’s why recent consumer-tracking data showing Walmart’s grocery penetration at a record 72% of U.S. households lands as more than a headline. The same tracker says Walmart now serves more than 190 million Americans each month.

That makes for good watercooler talk, but the clearest way to compare Walmart and Amazon in grocery is share of wallet. In the PYMNTS Intelligence Share of Wallet: Amazon vs. Walmart series, Walmart captured 20% of all U.S. dollars spent on food and beverages in Q3 2025. That strength also explains Walmart’s profile: the report estimates food and beverages represent about 60% of Walmart’s total sales. Amazon’s mix is the reverse. Its biggest gains are in discretionary categories, and food and beverages account for only 7% of its retail sales.

Earlier PYMNTS Intelligence work makes the grocery gap concrete. In Q2 2024, Walmart captured 20.2% of consumer spend in food and beverages while Amazon captured 2.7%, which is a roughly 7-to-1 difference.

To read more, please visit PYMNTS.