Walmart’s 11% Share Is Not the Headline. The Seven-Point Gap Behind It Is.

For the first time on record, two retailers each account for more than 10% of total U.S. retail sales. Walmart leads at 11.08% of 2025 retail sales, with Amazon at 10.34%, according to a preview of Coresight Research’s upcoming U.S. Retail Market Forecast and Market Share report, published this week and covered July 14 by Chain Store Age. Amazon’s figure is up from 8.35% in 2021, a four-year gain Coresight says no other retailer approaches. Coresight calls accelerating consolidation among top-tier retailers the “defining story” of the U.S. competitive landscape.

The milestone will get the headlines. The gap behind it should get the planning attention. Costco holds third place at 3.82% of total retail sales. The Home Depot and Kroger follow at 2.90% and 2.82%, and Target sits at 2.0%. By Coresight’s count, roughly one in five U.S. retail dollars now flows through two companies, and the drop from the leaders to third place is steep: more than seven points from Walmart, six and a half from Amazon. For a supplier or seller deciding where the next dollar of trade investment, retail media budget, or organizational attention goes, that shape matters more than the round number.

The Ranking Depends on the Ruler. The Concentration Does Not.

Readers who follow this race may notice something odd: they have recently read that Amazon passed Walmart. Both claims are in print from reputable firms, and both are defensible. PYMNTS Intelligence, which builds its Share of Wallet series from company earnings reports, Census Bureau retail data, and Bureau of Economic Analysis spending figures, has had Amazon ahead since the first quarter of 2024. By its measure, Amazon held 9.3% of U.S. consumer retail spending in the first quarter of 2026 against Walmart’s 7.8%, and Amazon’s 11.1% in the fourth quarter of 2025 was its highest on record.

The two rankings diverge because the rulers do. Coresight measures Amazon on estimated gross merchandise volume, which counts the full value of everything sold across its platform, including everything moved by third-party sellers. A revenue-based measure counts Amazon’s own sales plus only the fees it collects from those sellers. Neither approach is wrong; they answer different questions. What suppliers should take from the disagreement is what survives both methodologies: two companies pulling away from everyone else, a gap to third place measured in multiples rather than points, and an Amazon figure that is substantially a marketplace number however it is counted. The milestone is not just a story about two retailers getting bigger. It is a story about the marketplace model becoming the mechanism by which retail share consolidates, which is precisely the model Walmart has spent the past several years building at speed.

The Share Is Being Manufactured on the Digital Shelf

Walmart’s most recent disclosures show where its side of the consolidation is coming from, and the numbers are steeper than the annual figures suggest. In the quarter ended April 30, reported May 21, U.S. marketplace sales grew nearly 50%, the division’s best performance in ten quarters, and U.S. e-commerce sales grew 26%, led by store-fulfilled delivery up roughly 45%. Walmart characterized the quarter as broad-based share gains driven by accelerating customer transactions and e-commerce growth. The share position Coresight measured for 2025 was earned disproportionately online, in the part of Walmart’s business where assortment, the Buy Box, WFS, and Walmart Connect determine who captures the growth.

For 1P suppliers, the consolidation math reframes two familiar conversations. Walmart captured 20% of all U.S. food and beverage spending as of the third quarter of 2025, per PYMNTS Intelligence, a position the firm notes has kept strengthening even as Walmart’s overall share by its measure held flat. In consolidating categories, that means Walmart’s growth increasingly is the category’s growth. That strengthens the case for weighting joint business planning and Connect investment toward the retailer accumulating the customer rather than defending margin evenly across accounts that are ceding her. It also clarifies what Walmart’s price investment posture is buying: the share gains Coresight measured are the return on it, and suppliers who fund that flywheel are funding the channel most likely to still be growing in 2027.

For 3P sellers, the measurement footnote is the tell. If marketplace volume is how Amazon’s number gets built under either methodology, then Walmart’s marketplace is not a side channel to test when time allows. It is the second seat at the table where most of retail’s share is concentrating, with more than 200,000 active sellers as of 2025 per Marketplace Pulse and marketplace sales growing at nearly 50%. Units shipped same or next day through Walmart Fulfillment Services grew nearly 150% in the same quarter, and the company said on its earnings call that WFS use correlated with faster marketplace growth. Sellers already operating on Amazon should read the gap to third place as the answer to the diversification question: the growth is not in the middle.

The Off-Price Exception Is Not a CPG Exception

Coresight identifies off-price as another consistent share gainer, with TJX Cos., Burlington Stores, and Ross Stores set to open a little over 300 U.S. stores this year and, per consensus revenue estimates, to top $100 billion in combined worldwide sales for the first time in 2026. That matters for apparel and home suppliers weighing an outlet strategy. It offers no comparable lane for food, consumables, or most general merchandise, where the consolidation runs through two ecosystems.

The backdrop makes the concentration sharper, not softer. Coresight projects total U.S. retail sales growth accelerating to 4.4% in 2026, up from 4.0% in 2025, taking the market to $5.5 trillion. The pie is growing. The question Coresight’s data answers is who has been capturing the growth, and heading into the firm’s full 50-page report, the preview already gives that answer two names.

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