Posted on 08/03/2018 5:10:14 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Walmart’s ongoing battle with Amazon for the retail crown is expanding well beyond retail, and it’s forcing one of the largest companies in the world to reexamine its DNA. In the last six months alone, Walmart has partnered with scores of tech firms to better compete with Amazon and make progress in markets that may become pivotal years down the line. It’s also begun rethinking how it views itself: a traditional big-box retail giant that now hopes it can be nimble enough to compete with one of technology’s most powerful players.
Following its purchase of Jet.com to advance its e-commerce efforts in 2016, Walmart has starting accelerating its shift from retail giant to tech-focused partner. Those deals now include a partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo for rides to and from stores; Japan’s Rakuten for Kobo e-readers; and Uber, Lyft, and Postmates for grocery delivery.
In July, Walmart announced that it’s switched its entire cloud operation to Microsoft Azure and Office 365, in addition to working with the company on artificial intelligence projects in a new five-year deal. (Microsoft is Amazon’s primary competitor in the cloud computing industry.) That Microsoft partnership might include helping open a cashier-less, brick-and-mortar retail store to compete with Amazon Go, which the Windows maker is said to be working on as of June of this year, and it’s something Walmart reportedly started working on as earlier as last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
SOME things I buy online.
Most I prefer to do the actual shopping.
Stores are not going away.
In the future we will all have multi-purpose, multi-material 3D printers installed in all our homes. Then getting a new product would just involve purchasing/downloading the blueprints and waiting for the build to complete.
If the price is the same I buy from Walmart because if I decide to return the item I don’t have to ship it.
Both ways are good to have.
Next I hope to get them to deliver and help me put the groceries away.
When local retailers stop marking their stuff up from 100% to %10000 I’ll be happy to return to them.
My wife runs an online store that discounts clothing and she takes huge losses to be competitive. The same stuff that she gets for $1 and sells for $5 is sold in stores for $50.
I’ll pay a little extra understanding that people need to pay bills and employees, but most markups are just unreasonable.
The internet is not secure. I will not use it for commercial purposes until it is secure. I would buy more from Wal-Mart if I could order online items in store and pay for them in store. I recently ordered boat paint from builders square not from Wal-Mart just for that reason.
I ordered the online product at store and paid for it at the store. To bad they don’t sell more of the same products.
That’s why I RARELY buy anything at full price.
I wait for the sales or head over to the clearance section.
With my wife doing online sales, she’s become very astute at shopping.
Typically we are buying at 90% off sticker. And getting things new with tags.
extreme couponing is over, now it’s all about buying lots on facebook, ebay and wholesalers.
Amazon sucks. For selling and buying.
They still have Builders’ Square?
Yeah. The typical WalMart level of quality is “about average acceptable to the below average consumer needing below average tools and appliances and clothes and ...”
I went to Wal-Mart recently to buy an IPad with internet connection. They only had the ones that are tablets only, so I went to Best Buy where they had what I wanted and set me up with an internet account in the store.
How can you take huge losses to stay competitive and still be in business?
I know which is why I’m very selective about what I get from them.
We purchase quite a bit from both Amazon and Walmart. If we can find something at our local Walmart stores we do not purchase it from Amazon unless it is considerably less expensive. This is because we would prefer to add to Walmart’s profits rather than Jeff Bezo’s profits.
As well as counter-top food replicators using Soylent Green protein.
In my little world deep in a rural area, no one beats Amazon for ease and friendly online shopping. I buy from them two to three times per week. I shop at local Walmart at least once/wk. I probably spend more at Amazon.
Sears was in that same situation in the late 80s/early 90s. The Brennan Bros who ran the RNC into the ground also ran Sears and Montgomery Ward into the ground.
The board finally got rid of Brennan and brought in Martinez. Martinez and his people set out to be nimble enough to compete. He had the support of most of us at the bottom. But middle management fought for the 1950s business model and sabotaged everything Martinez and a chain of successors tried.
I do not know Walmart middle management. Can Walmart do what Sears had the opportunity to do but could not overcome opposition from within?
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