Amazon is winning the annual toy price war in 2012, according to Bloomberg.  Based on a random sample of 125 toys, Amazon had lower prices than Walmart’s online store on 44% of the items, while Walmart had better prices on 13% (the rest were tied).  And Walmart was besting the rest of the brick and mortar mass merchants, with lower prices on over 80% of the toys than Target, Sears, Kmart, and Toys $ Us. 

Amazon was also beating Walmart in the in-stock wars, with 100% of the sample SKUs in stock.  Kmart and Toys R Us were also in stock on 100% of the toys, while Walmart was out of 3% of the items, and Target was out of 8%.  Those are higher out-of-stock levels than last year.