Walmart ramps up June deals, intensifying value pressure on Big Lots

Walmart is flooding late June with thousands of discounts across electronics, fashion, toys, collectibles, furniture, skincare and early back-to-school essentials, and that matters far beyond Bentonville. For Big Lots, the message is clear: value season is getting louder, earlier and more crowded, just as shoppers start looking for summer clearance and school-year basics.

Walmart Deals runs from June 22 through June 28, with online offers beginning at 12:01 a.m. ET on June 22 and store shopping opening at 6 a.m. local time. Walmart+ members get early access to select hot deal drops during the first 24 hours, and the promotion ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on June 28, with in-store deals wrapping at regular closing times. The retailer said the event will span thousands of offers across top brands and popular categories, not just one isolated department.

The timing adds pressure because Walmart moved the sale up from its 2025 slot, when Walmart Deals ran July 8 through July 13. Target’s Circle Deal Days now runs June 23 through June 26, overlapping the same compressed stretch, while Amazon Prime Day remains part of the same promotional fight. That crowding means Big Lots stores will not be competing against a single splashy event. They will be competing against a retail calendar that is training customers to expect constant urgency, fast-turn markdowns and a broad mix of categories on sale at once.

For store teams, that translates into very practical demands. Pricing has to be obvious. Promotional cadence has to be tight enough that customers can see the next deal without walking past dead space. Seasonal and back-to-school features need to be built quickly and kept legible on the floor, while in-stock discipline becomes even more important because shoppers can leave the aisle and compare offers elsewhere in seconds. Frontline associates will be the ones answering the value question first, and the store that cannot explain its best bargain quickly will lose the sale just as quickly.

The pressure lands on a company still rebuilding after filing for Chapter 11 on September 9, 2024, then closing its sale to Gordon Brothers Retail Partners on January 3, 2025. Variety Wholesalers took over 219 Big Lots stores and two distribution centers, and by June 2025, those 219 stores had reopened under new ownership. Variety Wholesalers said the reopenings pushed it to explore more Big Lots locations, and president and CEO Lisa Seigies praised associates’ “grit and resilience.” Gordon Brothers’ Rick Edwards said the deal would help Big Lots continue serving customers with “extreme bargains” and an “outstanding shopping experience.”