Walmart mailed its 2023 holiday toy catalog, hitting mailboxes 2 weeks after Amazon’s. The biggest differences between the two – Amazon’s 104-page mailer is of a higher print quality and even comes with stickers. Walmart’s 64-page mailer is the kind of mailer you’d expect to see as a newspaper insert around Black Friday.
The similarities: both feature activities for children to do, such as Walmart’s Mr. Potato Head connect-the-dots or Amazon’s word search puzzle. And both catalogs feature QR codes that let shoppers call up the toys featured on each page on their mobile devices.
Walmart’s catalog has a lot of pages helping shoppers find gifts under a certain price range – p. 4, for example, features “Find toys $10 & under.” Some of the callouts are brand-specific, such as “Select Bratz under $30” on p. 35. Flipping through the pages, they are eye-catching to value-shoppers.
Walmart also has a “Top Toy” badge displayed on what it says is “this year’s must haves – Look for this badge to discover the coolest toys of the season.”
Walmart promotes its membership program on page 2 under “Hey grownups, start here,” encouraging them to start a free 30-day trial at WalmartPlus.com. While Amazon Prime used to have the edge in terms of streaming with Amazon Prime Video, Walmart Plus now includes a subscription to the Paramount+ streaming service.
Amazon promotes its membership program on the back cover of its mailer, telling parents, “Grown-ups get more with Prime,” and also mentioning its streaming service.
It would be interesting to see which catalog grabs and holds children’s (and parents’) attention. The cover of Amazon’s catalog features a cartoon fox on a sled, while Walmart’s puts toys on its cover, including a Barbie doll and Ninja Turtle. Which cover will draw children’s attention to take a second, third, or fourth look?
Amazon’s catalog is bound, Walmart’s is stapled – but both give children plenty to covet in the run up to the holidays.
