The Walmart Grocery Shopper: Consumer Insights and Competitive Strategies

Report Overview

• Walmart: A Retail Giant Gaining Grocery Market Share Amidst Inflation

As inflation continues to erode consumer purchasing power, food and beverage retailers are facing unprecedented challenges. Walmart, the nation's largest grocery retailer, has emerged as a beacon of affordability and convenience. By leveraging its vast network of stores, robust e-commerce platform, and strategic pricing strategies, Walmart has positioned itself as a go-to destination for consumers seeking value and quality.

In this report, Packaged Facts delves into the factors driving Walmart's success in a turbulent economic climate. Learn about consumer attitudes, habits, and priorities about grocery shopping and how that relates to strengths of Walmart and other grocery retailers. Find out how the retailer has adapted to changing consumer behaviors, embraced technological advancements, and solidified its position as a dominant force in the grocery market.

After excessive inflation hit consumer food budgets in 2022, consumers have continued to be worried about the rising cost of food on top of already-high prices. Rising prices can be especially concerning for low-income households due to not having a lot of disposable income and families with children since they have more mouths to feed.

Higher costs have led to many consumers changing their thinking and behavior, including measures such as:

• decreasing grocery spending or getting more value for the dollar:

  • reducing the amount of food and beverages purchased/limiting portions

  • choosing less expensive foods/ingredients (e.g., eating less beef in favor of chicken)

  • switching to private label versions of familiar products

  • adjusting grocery spending to lower cost retailers wherein consumers can get a similar cart for a lower price

• being more cognizant of food waste and more mindful of how to plan meals

• cutting back on impulse purchases and “extras”

• reducing spending at restaurants and on other conveniences, instead opting to eat more at home to save money (which in turn could cause people to spend more money on food and beverage groceries)

Walmart’s status as a value-oriented mass merchandiser means that it has been able to benefit from consumers who are looking to save money on groceries in the last few years, as its prices are often lower (and perceived as being lower) than many grocery market competitors.

With a focus on “what’s next” and current consumer trends, The Walmart Grocery Shopper: Consumer Insights and Competitive Strategies is packed with insights about consumer trends, behavior, and motivations to help food and beverage producers, retailers, packaging firms, employers, and investors gauge consumer perspectives and find areas for growth in a competitive grocery market.

The Walmart Grocery Shopper: Consumer Insights and Competitive Strategies delivers actionable predictions and recommendations designed to guide producers, retailers, and investors in making business decisions by providing data and insights about Walmart grocery shoppers.

Scope

The Walmart Grocery Shopper: Consumer Insights and Competitive Strategies is the go-to source for a complete understanding of Walmart shoppers and the overall grocery market. This report combines Packaged Facts’ extensive monitoring of the food and beverage market with proprietary surveys, and evaluates current trends and future directions for marketing and retailing, along with consumer patterns during the pandemic, during the inflation area, and across the broader food and beverage market.

This report examines Walmart shopper consumer insights. Consumer demographics, perceptions, motivations, and behavior are examined as pertaining to dietary and shopping choices.

The report also covers the dynamics of the current landscape of the retail grocery market and Walmart sales trends and competitive strategies.

Walmart US sales trends and US e-commerce sales are covered from fiscal 2019 through 2024. This report also provides estimates for Walmart’s US grocery market share from 2021 through 2024.

Reasons for and implications of shifts in consumer perception and behavior are analyzed in the context of future market opportunities.

This report has dozens of tables showcasing numerical survey data on consumer demographics and psychographics and numerous marketing photographs. This report goes in-depth on historical trends that have affected the food and beverage market.

Walmart Market Research Report Methodology

The information contained in The Walmart Grocery Shopper: Consumer Insights and Competitive Strategies was developed from primary and secondary research sources. Primary research includes interviews with food and beverage market experts; participation in and attendance at food industry events; and extensive internet canvassing.

Primary research also includes national online consumer polls of U.S. adult consumers (age 18+) conducted on an ongoing basis by Packaged Facts to analyze attitudes of consumers and their relevant food and beverage preferences and shopping behavior.

Survey data from MRI-Simmons are used to analyze the demographics and psychographics of Walmart shoppers.

Supplementing Packaged Facts’ exclusive surveys is analysis from the International Food Information Council Foundation’s (IFIC) 2024 Food and Health survey, which provides valuable insight into consumers’ perspectives on food purchasing decisions and diet and lifestyle choices. Additionally, IFIC’s 2023 Food and Health Survey is used to provide other useful information on consumer behavior. 

Rising Prices Impact Consumer Behavior

Rising prices, especially for food and beverages, have significantly impacted consumer behavior. With elevated prices, consumers are increasing their budgetary constraints.

• Lower income consumers are especially cash-strapped as their disposable income has in many cases not kept up with inflation.

• Families with children, in particular, feel the strain of higher prices due to larger household sizes.

• Consumers are more mindful of their spending and seeking ways to reduce costs.

Some people are changing their thinking and approaches to cooking and shopping:

• Consumers are more conscious of food waste and planning meals more carefully.

• Impulse purchases and unnecessary extras are minimized.

• To save money, consumers are opting to eat at home more frequently.

• This can lead to increased grocery spending, as people cook more meals from scratch.

Common ways that consumers are becoming more price-conscious shoppers include:

• reducing the quantity of food and beverages purchased or limiting portion sizes

• switching to less expensive brands, including private label options

• shifting shopping habits to lower-cost retailers like Walmart and ALDI

Private Labels Are More Desirable as Prices Rise

Private label products are less expensive than national name brands due to their lower merchandising and marketing costs. Many grocery stores offer high-quality private label products to be competitive with other stores and keep consumers coming back to shop. As packaged food products become increasingly premiumized, chain stores that sell groceries have offered more private label foods with premium characteristics – such as organic, “natural”, plant-based, non-GMO, and gluten-free.

For instance, Walmart has been boosting investment in its store brands, and it launched a new private label brand for premium foods called bettergoods in April 2024. This introduction presents higher-quality and specialty items under a private label, including foods for special diets such as organic, plant-based, gluten-free, and dairy-free.