Ugam Analyzes Walmart and Jet's 2016 Holiday Competitiveness vs. Amazon
New report finds Walmart's first holiday season following Jet.com acquisition saw fewer out-of-stocks, but left room for improvement on pricing and assortment
NEW YORK, Jan. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ugam, a global leader in managed analytics, today released its report, 2016 Holiday Retail Analysis: Amazon vs. Walmart and Jet. To help determine whether Walmart's acquisition of Jet helped close the competitive gap with Amazon, the report compared how Walmart and Jet together competed with the retail giant for the top 100 trending toys and electronics in the U.S. during the recent Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday period.
Walmart's $3.3 billion acquisition of e-tail startup Jet in August 2016 was the largest buyout in American e-commerce history. Ugam's study sought to determine whether the acquisition may have helped Walmart match up better against Amazon on pricing, assortment and out-of-stock rates.
Key highlights from the study include:
- Walmart's out-of-stocks were significantly lower on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2016 compared to the same days in 2015.
- As in 2015, this year Amazon carried more trending toys and electronics than Walmart and Jet combined.
- Amazon offered the lowest (or tied for the lowest) prices on more toys and electronics than Walmart and Jet.
- Average toy prices on Walmart were higher than Amazon throughout the analysis period.
- For electronics, Walmart's average price trend mirrored that of Amazon. Both retailers had their lowest average prices on Thanksgiving Day.
"Amazon is still ahead of its competitors when it comes to data-driven merchandising," said Sunil Mirani, Ugam CEO. "Walmart's assortment and pricing were competitive this season, and it reduced out-of-stocks, but it still has work to do. Jet's proficiency with data analytics will likely help, and may spur other competitors to try to follow suit and start leveraging data analytics to spot trending products and make smarter pricing and assortment decisions."
To determine the Top 100 Trending Products, Ugam first identified the consumer electronics and toys available across major U.S. online retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Jet, Target, Toys"R"Us and Walmart. Using its proprietary big data platform, Ugam calculated a popularity score for each product, called the Ugam's Shopper Intent Index (SII), based on aggregated consumer demand data such as search volume, social media signals and online reviews and ratings.
Ugam then checked the availability of the trending products using its proprietary technology platform, which uses key product attributes to accurately match products across competitor websites. The platform collected and analyzed detailed assortment and pricing information to determine who carried the trending products and at what price. These analyses were done daily through Thanksgiving week, from Nov. 23-29, 2016.
The Amazon vs. Walmart and Jet analysis is part of Ugam's third annual Holiday Season report, which features a series of reports and analysis, highlighting insights that matter to retailers and manufacturers during this critical period.
To view the full report, visit: http://www.ugamsolutions.com/resources/ebooks/ugam-holiday-retail-analysis-amazon-vs-walmart
About Ugam
Ugam is a global leader in managed analytics that helps retailers, brands and market research firms transform big data into valuable insights. The company's unique managed services offering combines a proprietary big data technology platform with deep domain knowledge and analytics expertise to empower clients to make decisions that improve their business. For retailers, online marketplaces, and brands, Ugam supports better merchandising, marketing, and channel management decisions through the use of analytics. For market research firms and insight-based consultancies, Ugam offers a portfolio of solutions including end-to-end research operations, technology transitioning support, and data warehousing, visualization and reporting that enables them to better serve their clients. Five of the top 10 U.S. retailers, many of the world's largest brands and online marketplaces, and 13 of the top 25 market research firms work with Ugam because of its ability to deliver high-quality insights with unmatched customer experience. www.ugamsolutions.com.
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