Black Friday and Cyber Monday came and went, but this year’s stats are in and have proven to be as impressive as ever. This year retailers reeled in a whopping $14.1 billion—$6.2B coming from Black Friday and $7.9B on Cyber Monday.
Companies of all shapes and sizes are getting in on the buying phenomenon of this week-long shopping frenzy, but there are select retailers who’ve established themselves as the consumers’ first-stop shop of choice—giants like Amazon and Walmart rule the holiday shopping season.
These companies have cast massive shadows over the online and offline retail landscape and it’s easy to see why. Amazon effectively created the standards for online retail experiences and are now expanding their presence into the world of brick-and-mortar: first through their acquisition of Whole Foods and now with their expansion of cashier-less stores.
Meanwhile, Walmart boasts 2,000+ stores across the nation and rounded out their digital reach with recent acquisitions of Jet.com, ModCloth, and other smaller e-commerce sites.
The battle for market share will continue forth but will ultimately be won through customer experiences. As these companies evolve toward parity in the realms of merchandising and accessibility, winning the hearts and minds of customers will determine who leads the retail industry pack.
Black Friday Battle: Amazon vs. Walmart
To see how these two companies are sparking customer engagement during the biggest shopping event of the year, we played the role of a new, highly-engaged shopper during the weeks of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Inside our latest User Engagement Teardown, we analyzed two-weeks’ worth of Amazon’s and Walmart’s cross-channel communication for an inside look at their customer outreach strategies.
To conduct our research, we registered for an account on each site and increased our level of activity over the course of two weeks. We completed our profiles, downloaded their mobile apps, browsed promotional deals and abandoned our shopping carts.
After analyzing the content of all messages received, we identified what these businesses are doing well and what areas could use improvement.
(Note: if you can’t see the embedded SlideShare, make sure to turn off any ad blockers!)
You can also see our past comparative teardowns (including Uber vs. Lyft and Blue Apron vs. HelloFresh) on our User Engagement Teardowns page.
Note: Amazon and Walmart are not Iterable customers.
