Walmart Push for Monday Shopping Takes Aim at Amazon: EMarketer

Walmart's “Case of the Mondays” ad is a shot at Amazon and part of a bigger strategy to compete with the e-commerce giant head-on, blogged eMarketer analyst Andrew Lipsman Monday. The ad promotes Walmart’s “Black Friday Deals for Days” promotion, which ran every Monday this month, leading up to Cyber Monday. The campaign addresses the “recent decline of Thanksgiving weekend as both online and offline shopping activity has plummeted on Thanksgiving and Black Friday,” which used to be Walmart’s “sweet spot for the holiday season,” Lipsman said. While Walmart traditionally owned the Thanksgiving weekend for in-store shopping, “as shoppers return to work on Mondays, they shifted their holiday shopping online, often on sites other than Walmart,” said the analyst. The “Case of the Mondays” campaign aims to keep weekend in-store customers shopping with Walmart when the weekend ends, he said. Lipsman also noted Walmart is “quietly but aggressively” building its third-party marketplace to make onboarding and launching campaigns easier for third-party sellers. “Walmart is using its competitive advantage (physical stores) to attack where Amazon is weak on product selection (D2C brands)," he said: “This helps Walmart improve selection, which attracts more shoppers, and creates the proverbial flywheel effect for which Amazon is so well-known.”