Posted on 11/24/2009 7:25:35 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
November 24, 2009
Price War Brews Between Amazon and Wal-Mart
By BRAD STONE and STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM Ali had Frazier. Coke has Pepsi. The Yankees have the Red Sox.
Now Wal-Mart, the mightiest retail giant in history, may have met its own worthy adversary: Amazon.com.
In what is emerging as one of the main story lines of the 2009 post-recession shopping season, the two heavyweight retailers are waging an online price war that is spreading through product areas like books, movies, toys and electronics.
The tussle began last month as a relatively trivial but highly public back-and-forth over which company had the lowest prices on the most anticipated new books and DVDs this fall. By last week, it had spread to select video game consoles, mobile phones, even to the humble Easy-Bake Oven, a 45-year-old toy from Hasbro that usually heats up small cakes, not tensions between billion-dollar corporations.
Last Wednesday, Wal-Mart dropped the price of the oven to $17, from $28, as part of its “Black Friday” deals. Later the same day, Amazon cut its price, which had also been $28, to $18.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
Tough choice. I actually like both.
Walmart will win.
They are a capitalistic company and don’t play political favorites as Amazon does. Amazon is selective on what reivew is allowed and what review is not allowed.
Walmart doesn’t charge shipping and handling. Otherwise, Amazon is more convenient.
But I do wonder how their shennanigans will impact the wider picture of retail in America.
I buy a lot of photo gear through Amazon, great prices and fast delivery. They have a lot of items you don’t find in the average camera retail store.
Amazon does not charge shipping and handling either, if the purchase is over $25 (unless it is from a third-party vendor). I pay about $90 a year for Amazon Prime, and get everything shipped 2nd day air. I get almost every DVD, Blu-ray, CD or book from Amazon. Also, my 7.1 HDMI Surround Receiver, a SACD player and a Blu-ray player.
I almost never have to set foot into China Mart.
They both have warehouses, shipping centers, datacenters and administration. But Amazon doesn't have the overhead of thousands of retail stores and their employees.
The great part of this is that either way, the consumer wins, and that is a big plus in this dicey economy.
Post-recession?
Gotta move that cheap stuff, just like we moved people’s jobs out of the country to make cheap stuff so that the average American can only afford cheap stuff.
I agree with you..just bought a lens for my new Canon.
Also, my pressure washer gave up the ghost a couple of weekends ago. Had a new gas model from Amazon in my driveway two days later.
I disagree. My mother placed an order from Walmart on the web. She received totally the wrong items. The packing slip with the merchandise indicated that she could take it to any WalMart and they would address the problem for her. I told her, I'd do it on her behalf.
TWO HOURS later, she finally got the credit she deserved. The biggest problem was the Point of Sales system in the stores only understood a 9 digit barcode, whereas the code in the packing list was a 12 digit barcode.
WalMart doesn't have the technological background to handle a giant like Amazon. I've been inside their IT department. They are predominately using Perl scripts, and COBOL. Only a couple months ago, they upgraded some of their systems to the obsolete Windows NT.
Mr Peel orders from Amazon all the time. Very rarely, is there a problem. Solving the problem is as simple as filling out a form, clicking a box watching a return label print out on the printer while a replacement item is in the queue to you. An Amazon problem is solved within minutes.
FIRST, does anybody need to order anything online from either of these vendors, LOL - cause evidentally, NOW is the time for some fantastic prices.
And SECONDLY....
>>>> "My gut feeling is that Amazon makes most of their money from commission of the small time dealers that sell stuff new or use through them. These small time dealers pick up the used books, etc that was sold at Walmart through garage sales and thrift stores and resell them on Amazon, theoritically a book could be resold several times, as used, over the years on Amazon through these small dealers." <<<<
Does anyone know if there are any MBA studies done on this?? Is it true, as I have read online, and as posited by freeper Reformedbeckite, that Jeff Bezo's fortune is made upon the commission sales of the people who list goods on his site for sale?
Is there THAT much money to be made for simply hosting the sales of others??
IF so, then why doesn't the US Post Office set up a sales site for US citizens to list their garage sale goods, their artwork, their homemade products, miscellaneous goods & services?
They could assign email addresses to specific street addresses, they could verify the residents by I.D., they could ship all the merchandise, and the fraud associated with online sales would plummet.
Wouldn't the USPS start to turn a profit if it did something like this, and at the same time make it infinitely safer to buy & sell online???
“I almost never have to set foot into China Mart.”
I’m not sure that Amazon does not get it’s products from China.
Meh, $90 a year wouldn’t be worth it for me. I don’t order that often.
Technically speaking Walmart, like all brick and mortar retailers, does charge shipping and handling. It’s just built into the regular price so it’s invisible, while mail order places like Amazon put it as a line item so they can list a lower base price.
The nearest dedicated camera stores to me are in Jacksonville, 40+ miles and the selection isn’t good. Last time I was up there the kid behind the counter seemed to be offended when I asked to look at things in the display case. I probably don’t look like the average photographer but I probably spend more than the average on gear. The kid lost a good sale that day!
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