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Business Insider
8 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
The shopping wars are heating up this July as Dollar General and Walmart offer discounts ahead of Amazon's Prime Day
What used to be one of the sleepiest times of year for retailers has turned into a major shopping event thanks to Amazon. Amazon's Prime Day this year will last four days between July 8 and 11 — longer than it has run before, and the earliest that the sale has started. A range of other retailers, from Dollar General to REI, are also offering sales that coincide with or start earlier than Prime Day. Fourth-of-July sales for products, such as mattresses or seasonal items like lawnmowers and inflatable pools, have been around longer than Prime Day. Overall, though, early summer was historically a slow time for retail. "July used to be the dog days of summer when people didn't spend that much," said Zak Stambor, senior analyst of retail and e-commerce at EMARKETER, which shares an owner with Business Insider. Prime Day, which Amazon first hosted in 2015, changed that. Now, "July is a time that consumers are conditioned to be on the hunt for deals," Stambor said. "Every retailer needs to respond and lean into that." Best Buy, Dollar General, and other retailers are getting in on the action Besides Prime Day, this year's sales lineup includes a seven-day Fourth of July sale from Best Buy. Like Amazon, Best Buy is offering deals on electronics to members of its paid loyalty programs. Best Buy's sale lasts three days longer than Prime Day, though. It also started on Monday, over a week ahead of Prime Day. Dollar General is planning its own "7 Days of Savings" event, which starts on July 6. The dollar store's discounts for the sale are more limited than Amazon's, with one deal per day, such as a discount on a fan or a buy-one, get-one deal on bratwurst. Walmart and Target, which have offered their own sales around Prime Day in years past, are also getting in on the action again. Walmart's sale, for example, will start on July 8 and run for six days. Members of Walmart+, the big box store's paid membership, will get early access to deals. Department store Kohl's, outdoor gear retailer REI, and home improvement chain Lowe's are also among the stores offering Fourth-of-July and other sales around the same time as Prime Day this year. Amazon may have drawn inspiration from its rivals for its longer Prime Day, Stambor said. Last year, when Prime Day was two days long, Walmart's sale was twice as long. "Amazon can see that those events have resonated, and so why not hop in the pool and join them?" Stambor said. All those deals could be welcome this year as consumers watch their spending closely and worry about prices going up due to tariffs. President Donald Trump's 90-day pause on many of the tariffs that he enacted in April expires on July 9, the second day of Prime Day. Amazon still has an edge over many other retailers when it comes to conveniences like fast delivery and value, Stambor said. And marquee sales events like Prime Day allow Amazon to increase its market share in the long run. Rival retailers' sales are also a chance for them to win over customers. "What is their unique value proposition that will drive consumers to buy from them rather than just go to Amazon or Walmart?" Stambor said.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart Prices Are Rising. Here Are the Products That Could Cost You More
Walmart has said it could start raising some prices soon. It hasn't yet said which products might see higher prices. Experts say to watch for product categories that are typically imported. Among the categories highlighted by experts we spoke with; electronics, toys, apparel and seasonal are girding themselves for Walmart prices to rise in the coming weeks. But which products will actually get larger price tags? The company hasn't said yet, and it declined to comment for this story. Executives, however, have offered clues, and retail experts have ideas: Watch the products that make up the roughly one-third of Walmart (WMT) goods sold in the U.S. but are made outside the country—and for which the company expects to pay more under the Trump administration's tariff regime. Most of Walmart's imports come from China, Mexico, Vietnam, India and Canada, CEO Doug McMillon said last week. 'There's little doubt that categories heavily exposed to imports from China will see prices rise,' said Zak Stambor, a senior retail and ecommerce analyst with market research firm eMarketer. 'That means consumers should expect to pay more for items like electronics, toys, apparel, footwear, and sporting equipment.' Seasonal goods—including stuff bought for back-to-school, Halloween and Christmas—are at risk of price hikes, Stambor said. The July-to-August back-to-school season, when many shoppers buy new clothes, backpacks, laptops and dorm essentials, is typically retailers' second-most important sales period after the holidays. And Stambor expects prices for Halloween and Christmas items to go up, as much of that merchandise—costumes, decorations, artificial trees and lights—is imported from China. Walmart has touted strong sales of groceries, its biggest product category, in recent quarters, but McMillon said the company could struggle to hold prices low on items imported from countries such as Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia. 'We'll do our best to control what we can control in order to keep food prices as low as possible,' he said. Retail expert Mark Cohen, former director of retail studies at Columbia University's business school, said Walmart and other large retailers can decide where to raise prices and where to hold them. 'But they can't decide what is tariffed and what is not,' he said. 'If a tomato is going to be 15% more expensive because it is imported from Mexico, and Walmart doesn't want to raise the price by that much, it can choose to put the 15% burden on some other product, which it believes has more price elasticity." Other retailers are also likely to raise prices to offset the effects of tariffs on their own imports–and because Walmart's increases could give it cover to do the same, retail experts say. Target (TGT) executives earlier Wednesday said tariffs weighed on its first-quarter sales; President Donald Trump has expressed displeasure with the notion of higher prices at Walmart. 'With tariffs at their highest levels in nearly a century, the math is getting tougher for retailers like Walmart to square,' Stambor said. Read the original article on Investopedia Sign in to access your portfolio
