I ordered items online from both Amazon and Walmart to see which site does it better — and they both frustrated me

Amazon vs Walmart 1

Amazon and Walmart are the two largest sellers of merchandise online.
Amazon has been dominant, but Walmart has drastically beefed up its online offerings to compete.
I tested both of them head-to-head to see which one does e-commerce better now. It was difficult to come to a conclusion.

Amazon versus Walmart is the story of our time — at least when it comes to shopping online.

As more and more customers move online, retailers are racing to convince them to shop on their website over a competitor's. The two companies that have captured many of those customers are Amazon, and, to a smaller extent, Walmart. It seems on the surface level that the two retailers' offerings now might be equal in terms of price and convenience.

Walmart stumbled slightly in its quest for online dominance in its most recent quarter, falling to 23% online sales growth from 50% in the previous quarter. Amazon, on the other hand, had a record-setting holiday season, and analysts estimate that it took nearly half of all online sales.

There was only one thing I could do: put them both to the test.

I ordered a handful of items from each retailer, matching the SKU as well as I could. Then it was time to sit back and watch the orders roll in, making sure to log every email correspondence and message from the companies.

What I found was that while the two services are not exact copies of each other, they're basically equal. I had quibbles with both, and I found there's definitely room for improvement and innovation in the e-commerce space. Keep reading for my full experience: