The U.S. retail giant Walmart has said that it will need to raise prices for consumers in stores as it will not be able to absorb the costs brought about by the tariffs recently enacted by the Trump administration. U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the move on his Truth Social network, instead blaming the cost increases on U.S. companies and China and stating that Walmart should “eat the tariffs” rather than charge customers more.
Walmart is by far the biggest retailer in the U.S. and as such represents a significant voice and benchmark in the retail industry. According to retail analysts, this means other retailers in the country will likely be looking to Walmart when deciding how to respond to rising costs.
According to an annual ranking of the Top 100 Retailers by the National Retail Federation, Walmart pulled in an estimated $534 billion in U.S. retail sales in 2023 alone. Trailing some way behind, with under half the value of U.S. retail sales in 2023, comes Amazon.com at $250.1 billion, followed by Costco Wholesale at $175.4 billion.
The Top 100 Retailers list has been ranked by 52/53-week annual retail sales within the United States and excludes revenue made in other segments than retail. According to the NRF, this data has been calculated using a variety of estimation techniques which have been applied to publicly disclosed information and therefore the figures do not always match the companies’ official public filing reports.
