Posted on 12/07/2018 1:38:54 PM PST by Red Badger
Walmart’s Doug McMillon keeps a list of the top 10 retailers over the decades to remind him you have to innovate and adapt constantly. Becky Quick | CNBC
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Walmart CEO Doug McMillon keeps a photo on his phone that lists the top 10 retailers in the U.S. over the past few decades to remind him how so many companies come and go. Walmart wants to keep its No. 1 spot, which it’s held since the 1990s when it overtook Sears.
“After learning from so many people ... we know that retailers come and go,” McMillon told CNBC’s Becky Quick Thursday, after he spoke in Washington, D.C., at the Business Roundtable CEO Innovation Summit. “Businesses grow and they don’t change enough and they decline over time. Retailers do that on a bit of a faster cycle.”
McMillon added Walmart has a “healthy paranoia” to stay ahead of rivals. Today, the retailer is seen as neck and neck with Amazon, which is starting to invest more in real estate and open stores while building out a bigger platform for food and apparel online. In fact, the e-commerce giant is expected to overtake Walmart as the No. 1 apparel retailer in the U.S. by the end of this year, according to Morgan Stanley.
Walmart, in turn, is fighting back by acquiring digital brands and remodeling its stores — two key parts of its growth strategy. Thursday it announced its plans to acquire Art.com to bolster its home decor business, following recent acquisitions of lingerie brand Bare Necessities and plus-size clothing retailer Eloquii. It’s said it could one day own as many as 40 e-commerce businesses, while Amazon has taken a different approach to growth. Instead, it continues to partner with established brands like Nike and J.Crew to sell their merchandise on Amazon.
“You see the rise and fall of Sears and others,” McMillon said. “It’s just a reminder that this can happen to us too.”
And if a return is required, I don't have to mail it back, I just take it to a local Walmart.............Amazon can't match that.
amazon has third party sellers. You probably paid more for those paper towels from Walmart through amazon.
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Costco has had a store within 2 miles of the airport in every country I have flown to in the last 15 years.
Sears got rid of their catalog one year before Amazon opened for business....
I think Costco beats both Walmart and Amazon. Costco does online and physical both pretty well.
Walmart already lost this race....about 10 years ago.
It’s simple, really. Don’t hire misogamist, mad cows and drunken philanderers into management.
I like Walmart. I hope they succeed. As you remember, Walmart was in a perfect position 15-20 years ago to be Amazon. They are far behind the future which is online, not physical stores, but you make good points about what they offer, but I don’t think the public thinks Walmart when they think online shopping these days.
And you are full of ignorance. You might want someone to teach you about Google.
Worldwide list for 2017
https://ceoworld.biz/2017/01/24/giants-retail-worlds-25-largest-retailers-revenue-2017/
Kroger is 3rd - behind Walmart and Costco. Amazon is 10th worldwide, 6th in the US (with an asterisk - behind Walgreens, but that includes the European Boots operation.
This site
https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2017/
shows a US listing that does have Kroger 2nd and Amazon 7th (also showing it behind the Walgreens Boots combo.)
I like how I can preorder a blu ray disc at 40% msrp at amazon and get it at my doorstep first day of release for no delivery fee.
Yes...Amazon is ingrained in the buying habits of Americans. Walmart has a tall hill to climb to break into that space.
I remember Mom bought off-brand blue jeans at Topps when we were growing up. Family of 6 living off of a corrugated box salesman’s salary. We whined, but Mom sure could stretch a dollar.
“Walmart pays as little as they feel they can get away with.”
I hate to break this to you, but every company does that.
I still cannot see the value of Amazon. Not for shopping and not as an investment.
I can always, ALWAYS!!!, find whatever I need or want, at a lower price at Walmart stores or Walmart online. I haven’t had anything that I can buy at lower prices on Amazon. The only thing Amazon offers is convenience, but not lower prices. And, the convenience part is also now being offered at Walmart stores or Walmart online.
And, it’s not just Walmart that has Amazon beat for best prices and wider selections. Target too has Amazon beat on hundreds of items. Amazon just gets the headlines, which to a lot of people translates to lower prices.
I haven’t bought anything form Amazon in more than 5 years. The only association I have with Amazon is the Firestick I use for watching TV and movies. I use the firestick but I don’t pay for any of Amazon’s movie or TV offerings; I go for the free stuff, including Netflix which I get included with my cellphone plan.
Nope! Can’t see the hype. Yeah, I see the Amazon growth, but, their growth doesn’t mean that they are the better of the options out there.
invest develop their own delivery system
That is what did Sears in. Sears had massive investment in warehousing and inventory and semis.
When Martinez took over from Brennan and sought to push the softer side of Sears suppliers like LEE and LEVI wanted to ship UPS direct from the Container off the boat to the retail store, bypassing the Sears warehousing monster.
Martinez and the tops, and us programmers writing replenishment code at the bottom were all for it. But many layers of middle management in the middle fought it and won. They didn’t understand real time replenishment. They insisted everything had to be ordered from the quarterly reports and shipped in large quantities to the monster warehouses. Then shipped from the large warehouses to the small warehouses and from the small warehouses to the retail stores.
I like how I can preorder a blu ray disc at 40% msrp at amazon and get it at my doorstep first day of release for no delivery fee.
How much did you pay in annual fees to get that free delivery from Amazon? Wal-Mart.com gives me free shipping without any fees.
As you remember, Walmart was in a perfect position 15-20 years ago to be Amazon.
In any case Walmart is responding in a way that Sears (bless their heart) couldn’t/wouldn’t.
“but Walmart dropped the ball a long time ago.”
Bzzzzt! Wrong answer. Walmart is beating your Washington Post fascist buddy Amazon in both price and shipping charge.
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” You got a problem with that? “
Actually, it kind of inspired me to visit the Topps website; I was pleased to discover they’re issuing limited-edition cards of contemporary players in the 1954 baseball card style. And what I really liked about that (besides that it’s a really neat idea) is the 1954 series includes the very first cards I remembered owning.
And like 99% of the rest of the baseball-card-collecting world, those cards all got tossed by my mom once I moved out of our house.
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