WalMart's eTail Numbers in the Tank

It's nearly impossible to find time to post this weekend but this story caught my eye and I didn't want to lose it in the ether:

Wal-Mart outdoes Target when it comes to overall sales, but the Bentonville-based retailer lags behind Target when it comes to online sales, according to Advertising Age.

Advertising Age said in a Friday article that the average per-shopper sale on Target.com is $151 vs. $59 at Walmart.com.

Also, Target's online audience grew 83 percent to 11.4 million in September 2005, compared with the same month last year, while Wal-Mart's grew 4 percent to 15.7 million for the same period, according to research firm comScore Media Metrix.

Research firm Internet Retailer said Target logged 25 percent growth in online sales to $756 million in 2004, compared with 8 percent growth to $782 million in 2004 for Walmart.com.

"When it comes to online sales, Wal-Mart is a real laggard," said Kurt Peters, editor of Internet Retailer.

Target also consistently outperforms WalMart in same-store sales increases, a point that is routinely overlooked by business pages.  But look at that gap in online sales.  This is a big deal.  WalMart is counting on overcoming many consumers' resistance to being seen in a WalMart with online shopping.  I thought it was a good plan until now. 

UPDATE: I'm working on a dial-up so I can't get the link to the story.  I'll add it later.

Comments

[Kevin Hayden]

Onliners tend to be more choosy and better informed. Which is probably why WM has been doing the massive advertising push, trying to counter the negative image that's caused by the truth.

PR = Anti-Truth, after all. The Billionaire Benton-Heirs can buy everything, including the truth. Next week, they're buying God.

[Mick]

Next week, they're buying God.

At a discount, no doubt.

[Pepper]

Fascinating. It's not for lack of trying. I checked out walmart.com after reading your post, and I thought it would be really cluttered and disorganized. (I found it to be so a long, long time ago when I was working for a comparison-shopping dot.com.) But, as far as e-commerce goes, the site isn't half bad. That goes to show that if Wal-Mart's business practices weren't so nefarious, then maybe they might be worth shopping. They're just shooting themselves in the foot.

[eRobin]

They did really well over the Thanksgiving weekend with their etail sales. Amazon, eBay and WalMart topped the list.

Sigh.

[bill bledsoe]

the gang at walmart is a favorite target of a lot of folks (please pardon the pun) but, what is facinating is that they are trying to play on the "experience" field. This is turf that Target OWNS. Walmart.com is a good site. Their "best customers" aren't shopping for their stuff yet on it. It will be a battle between these two titans, as walmart looks to upscale its offerings... and target looks to drive more value out of its experience. We should know after the holidays where these two stand.

Note however that neither of these two are in the just out internet retailer best of the web for 2005

[eRobin]

I read an article over Tgiving weekend (I'm driving the thanks out of Thanksgiving) that said that Amazon, eBay and WalMart were the top sites visited over the holiday. What continues to fascinate me is how Wall St. refuses to report on CostCo.