Being a competitive grocer doesn’t mean just having low prices – it means having competitive prices for products that consumers look for most often.
As a retailer, where do you rank on your KVIs? That’s Key Value Items – those must-have products that consumers look at when they’re deciding if you’re giving them a square deal.
Maybe you don’t know where you rank, but you probably know where the big players fall – at least, you think you know – because it may surprise some folks that a certain Arkansas-based superstore is not the low-KVI leader.
In a ranking of retailers’ 35-item Super KVI baskets, Walmart currently ranks fourth, behind archrivals Lidl and Aldi, and – after clawing its way to the top – Amazon.
It’s all revealed in great detail within RDSolutions’ newly released Retail Pricing Insights Report for May 2025.
ACCESS THE REPORT HERE: https://go.rdsolutions.io/may-pricing-index-report
Among the report’s key takeaways:
- Amazon consistently leads on low prices, with the lowest SuperKVI index in three out of the four regions where it operates — often below 80, signaling strong price leadership.
- Amazon’s pricing shows a consistent decline, dropping from 100.2 in January to 82.0 in May. This indicates an increasingly aggressive price posture relative to other national retailers, especially in recent months.
- Aldi and Lidl maintain competitive pricing across all divisions, generally staying well below 90. (100 is the market average; scores consistently above 110 suggest price perception risks, especially on items that heavily influence shopper trust and loyalty.)
- Walmart holds a strong value position across most of the U.S., remaining below or near regional averages.
To be sure, Amazon is leading on price for a wide variety of items found in typical grocery carts. For example: At $7 for a 12-pack of Coca-Cola, Amazon beats Aldi’s $7.94 and Walmart’s $8.12. Store-brand items like spaghetti, peanut butter, ice cream and frozen vegetables? Advantage Amazon. Even for a staple like 80-20 ground beef, Amazon just barely slipped out of first place in April to runner-up in May, with $4.87 a pound, compared to Aldi’s $4.76 — but way ahead of Walmart’s $7.74.
Amazon has long struggled to crack grocery, and undercutting Walmart and Aldi is something none of the traditional players have been able to do consistently. Once Amazon gets it right, it’ll be well positioned to scale fast and further disrupt the landscape.
Why is this important to you as a retailer?
Amazon’s dominance in pricing, even regionally, puts pressure on traditional grocers to adjust their SuperKVI pricing if they want to maintain value perception.
Retailers can look to RDSolutions’ data to benchmark their regional competitiveness, identify gaps in the pricing strategies compared to discount leaders, and inform their pricing and promotional adjustments by geography.
Using RDSolutions’ Market Intelligence Platform, this report analyzes pricing trends across nine U.S. geographic divisions, spotlighting areas of opportunity, gaps in value perception, and alignment with regional price expectations. From national retailers to discount and club formats, RDSolutions’ insights help retailers make informed decisions that protect margin, preserve customer trust and stay ahead of market shifts, especially as tariffs and inflation begin to impact basket costs.
