My contrarian opinion: Walmart is going to create some hard times for Amazon.
Walmart ackuired jet.com just 4 months ago. Jet.com, a startup, has managed to create a logistics network being able to do 1-day delivery to 50% of the population(or at least they claimed so), reached $1B in sales rapidly. Walmart has recently started to offer free 2-day delivery($35 minimum), which means that now, even for Prime memebers. shopping comparison is a reasonable option.
Furthermore, Walmart has curbside pickup for groceries, a very convinient service to get your groceries on the way from work, is seeing a lot of sucsess according to Walmart, with availibility in 500 stores, and planning to be in 600 more soon.
And Walmart definetly has got a huge logistics chain, maybe less in areas where Amazon is strong at, but they're probably better at the china/usa logistics part, that's why Amazon is doing some of those moves.
And Walmart does have enough capital to compete.
And once this impacts Amazon, will Amazon be able to keep it's very high stock price ? and how will this affect talent and growth ?
In short: finally , we're in for some very interesting times.
I think Walmart has a good shot at competing effectively, and I hope it does so, because Amazon having a monopoly on online retail is not in my long-term best interests.
That said, I don't think they have any sort of clear advantage, for two particular reasons:
First, from a technical perspective, they have some serious catching up to do before they can provide the same service level at the same scale. It is not clear from available information that they actually have the required technical competence as an organization.
Second, they have to deal with a reputation that's going to keep them out of many consideration sets: from my perspective, at least, Walmart merchandise is universally cheap crap whose low utility and/or high failure rate will end up costing me more in the long run. I don't trust them to quickly and painlessly make things right if an order is broken, disappointing, or missing. In contrast, Amazon has spent years building trust (on the assumption that the short-term cost of this quality of experience is a profitable investment in securing future business).
I have yet to encounter an adequate answer to "Why should I bother looking at walmart.com?", which I suspect is true for many others, and which I think is a serious threat to Walmart.
As a frequent Walmart customer, let me offer a different perspective.
Brick & mortar: my fastest route home every day has me driving past a rural Walmart, so even though the selection is not that great, they've become my default grocery store purely through convenience.
Cheap shit that doesn't have to last long: I just bought my 7 year-old three long sleeved shirts for $6 total. He'll wear them through the Spring and by Fall will have outgrown them anyway.
Convenience: when the store is on my way home anyway, and there's tons of easy parking, it's far easier to shop Walmart than go online to look for something.
As a result of this convenience we're now more likely to shop at Walmart.com instead of Amazon.com, I can order online and get free in-store pickup without paying shipping or having a Prime subscription.
this will be a game changer for me. Big time. The day when I order online, check-in on my mobile app in the parking lot, pull up to the delivery dock, Johnny comes out with a box of my stuff and puts it in my trunk, and I drive off. That will be my nirvana.
I have mild social anxiety, but walmart, for some reason, amplifies it considerably. Grocery stores too. Partly because I dont do proper meal planning/shopping planning, but partly because it just feels so inefficient to wade around the store and just feeling...handicapped ? Like, I just want to get my things and go, but ther'es always something impeding me: forgetting items, people in the way, employees restocking shelves during busy hours, long lines, bottlenecks at the one exit, etc.
Drive-thru supermarkets/walmarts/amazon pickup is going to change the world.
> Drive-thru supermarkets/walmarts/amazon pickup is going to change the world.
you probably mean change the USA, in France for instance, drive-thru supermarkets exists since at least 5 years [1][2] They now even have some new 24/7 pick up locations, which is a big deal for France where there is no 24/7 stores. There, your food just waits for you in a refrigerated/freezer lock box [3].
I'm actually surprised this is not already a common thing in the USA, which invented drive-thru fast foods 70 years ago.
Drive-thu pickup exists, but it's not widespread. Where I grew up in Ohio there's a chain that has had grocery loading since at least the 80s. You drive up, give them a number and they put the groceries in your trunk.
We use to have drive through convenience stores in Florida called the Farm Store. They were useful, but impractical for any big shopping. I just can't see someone trying to hand over a gallon of milk, 4kg, through a car window. Beer, cigarettes and junk food were their forté.
Wouldn't it be even more game changer if stuff was just delivered to you at your doorstep :). I'm not sure if other people have seen this but these days I'm able to buy tons of stuff from Amazon delivered within 24 hours for free. And guess who is delivering these? Its not UPS or FedEx. I often see normal people in normal cars doing it. Amazon is essentially trying to turn all these people with cars in to delivery service so you don't have to stop at store and checking with mobile app and wait for Jonny to come out with box of your stuff.
That would be wonderful. I guess for some reason I just assumed it would be a luxury. If groceries for one guy for 3 days cost $45 purchased in-store, I'd definitely be comfortable paying $5 more to have someone pick and bag it for me. But I wouldn't pay much more than $10 for doorstep delivery, even though grocery shopping is a stressful experience for me.
I live in the 'burbs and I drive every day anyway. To me, the pain isn't the driving (though for some urban areas I'm sure it is), it's just the hassle of parking and shopping in a crowded, inefficient store (wasting my time), and hauling all my stuff back to the car.
I think theres a deeper psychological issue at play here too: delivered to your door makes you passive, at the "mercy" or whim of the company/person making the delivery. There's a subconscious anxiety associated with waiting in anticipation. Whereas, going out and picking up makes you the active one. Sure the store could make you wait, but if they design their system properly, "ready for pickup" should mean just that. But "out for delivery" could me 5m or 3 hours from now.
In the UK most supermarket chains have delivery, with charges in the ~5 pound region ($6 or so), but most also have Prime like subscriptions. E.g. I pay about $110/year to get my shopping delivered from Ocado - this includes unlimited "free" deliveries of orders above $50. Since we take delivery once a week, it adds up to just a bit above $2/delivery.
Best part is the convenience: We've set it up to deliver once a week, and so every week the day after the previous delivery they create a new order and we can edit it in their app or on their website, and optionally you can set it to auto-populate your order based on your shopping history, and they get it "close enough" that often we don't bother even checking the order (this week, for example, I didn't) and we know we'll get something that's "close enough" that worst case we'll pick up the odd thing extra when we're out anyway sometime during the week.
They deliver within the same 1 hour slot every week (unless we change it; if we do, they will show us when they have a car in the area if we want to try to be more eco-friendly, but won't put any restrictions on us if they have capacity), and it's very rare or them to miss it - when they do, the driver will call and explain why and give us updates. If they're able to deliver early, they'll call and ask, and if necessary (if we're out etc.) they'll do other deliveries first if they can or worst case sit and wait to deliver within the agreed time slot.
They'll carry everything into your kitchen if you wish, or wherever you want them to, and everything comes in colour-coded bags for freezer, fridge, and cabinets. The receipt list everything by minimum guaranteed use-by dates.
The precision in delivery makes all the difference. I rarely go into grocery stores any more, and I don't miss it.
Amazon fresh is the bomb for groceries. $15/mo for unlimited free deliveries, and the groceries are same price or cheaper than Safeway. They package it up very well too - frozen stuff stays frozen and even eggs arrive undamaged.
I actively try and avoid delivery where possible because to me it's less convenient (within reason, eg i wouldn't drive too far or pay too much more):
1. The delivery guy may assume I'm not home, and hence leave a missed delivery card without knocking (way too common...)
2. If i know i won't be home: all the " permission to leave" forms are different (or sometimes not possible; and are a hassle)
3. Sometimes there's no good place to leave the item, so leaving isn't possible ( often the postie refuses even though I gave the permission, because we disagree about what's okay)
4. If i need it now, I'm in control if i go get it. (Added perk of physically comparing in some cases.)
5. _usually_ resolution time for issues with pickups is faster than deliveries (eg i notice in store (eg wrong item or size - which i've had a few times online), or can quickly go back).
6. When i'm shopping for a delivered item i don't yet know what the full cost will be (assuming no free prime-like option) and it often varies stupidly.
(At present all my deliveries actually go to a family member's house cause I know they'll be home, so no signing or leaving issues...)
I feel like my life setup must be a bit different to others :-) But I find it interesting how different my perception is to the others in this thread :-)
Part of the challenge with this is that Amazon Logistics is the only carrier that has "lost" items I've ordered. Several times.
But with respect to delivery times: In the UK they have rolled out increasing number of regional warehouses to support same day delivery for many goods (e.g. London has at least two Amazon warehouses). Being able to order in the morning and gets things delivered in the afternoon certainly stops me from going to the shops for a lot of things where even 24 hour delivery feels "too long".
He said rural, though. As someone living in southern Maine, which isn't even exactly rural, I have to pay extra for 1 day from Amazon - and it's not available on every item. On the other hand, I drive right past a Walmart strip mall on the way home every day.
The bigger issue I have with Walmart is the quality. The only stuff I buy there is consumable.
In major Indian cities, there are already small players who provides home delivery groceries(including vegetables and fruits). The delivery charge of order of any size is rs 30-50 which is very reasonable.
I combat shopping anxiety by not making any plans what to buy and just strolling through the shop looking at the items and putting things that look tasty in my cart. Sometimes I forget important items, but usually it works out well. Treating shopping more like exploring the offers and less like checking things off a mental list makes it less stressful for me.
Unfortunately this doesn't work when I actually need a specific item like a pair of jeans or something like that.
I've found that going on my lunch break helps. I buy stuff for lunch, sometimes stuff for dinner, while I'm already in "work mode" and energized, vs going after work when I'm tired. The stores aren't that crowded at lunch time either.
I see it more as a secondary option. The primary reason being, if everything's in stock, I should be able to get it today, with maybe a 1-2 hr waiting time. If I want shrimp pasta tonight, I can order the ingredients at lunch break, and pick up on my way home.
Other reasons could be people have poor delivery from their UPS driver, stolen packages, some people prefer not having people come to their door, some people feel empowered by going out and getting what they want, when they want to get it.
The biggest reason could be that it's ultimately a lower price for everyone, assuming its cheaper to hire junior employees to walk the store and pick my groceries vs hiring a driver and a truck to take the stuff to everyones door (plus someone to do all the picking).
All of these seem like solvable problems. E.g. in Manhattan Prime Now can already deliver within 1-2 hours. Stolen packages can be catered by drop-off safeboxes in houses/buildings. Job specialization should win in the end - a delivery person with an efficient route is going to be cheaper than the sum of everyone picking their stuff up.
The Kroger grocery chain by my house just started offering this and it is super popular.
Folks can come by after picking up their kids and get their groceries dropped in their car off the side of the building without leaving the car. All for a flat 4.95$
the paradoxical thing about this is it would actually make me want to watch commercials! if I dont step foot in the store anymore, how will I know what they have ? I will want (!) marketers to give me information about their products. This will be a marketing wet-dream.
say I never walk through the aisles anymore (not saying the store wouldn't allow it, but it's so convenient to pickup that people like me might never do it). I'd no longer get inspiration for meals, or learn about a new brand of cereal, or see that the competitor's eggs are $1 off, or that the bakery just got fresh salmon from Alaska. I would actually want to keep abreast of what products are available in my store.
Bonus if the "updates" (ads) were targeted to me. If I were vegetarian, it should know not to show me about prime rib, for instance. If it sees I only buy granola or mainly health foods, don't give me ads about lucky charms. and not 30 second commercials either, just quick intros, with video/pictures, and a few facts about relevant products.
when I order, maybe (at most) 25% of the screen that clearly says "Browse our store". Then I see a menu: dairy/produce/breakfast/butcher/bakery. I pick a category, and select a product, then a short, embedded video plays (that is easy to mute/cancel). (The kind of video is where you hover over the thumbnail and it plays, not click a youtube link). Then it says "Today we've got Choice Sirloin for $4.99/lb, farm raised, corn-fed from Johnny's out in Arkansas (quick clip of Johnnys farm). Also consider pairing with this recipe of beets (cue link to purchase beets and all ingredients for sauce ).
Actually, that just occurred to me, if you included recipes with the advertising, that wouldn't bother me at all. Just like reddit's DIY, start with the finished "product", then say " to make this, buy these things" (of course with a shortcut to just add them all to your cart) "and do this:" (cue to video of person making the dish).
but back to advertising, just quick (15s) videos with simple information and price. maybe with sideways scrolling so if I'm looking at margarine, it also has quick links to butter and vegetable oil. Don't skimp on video: each product has the same demo video/advertisement so I can compare them.
That's what Walmart Grocery is. It's really neat. You order online and schedule a pickup for a day or two later. You pull up, call, and they bring it out to your car and load it up. It doesn't cost anything extra. I actually don't live in that big of a town, and yet it's available. I was surprised.
If you'd like to use my referral link we each get $10 off the next order. http://r.wmt.co/e0nUh
Those shirts cost way more than $6. Walmart gets corporate welfare from the government and your tax dollars. They are allowed to pay such low wages that employees are basically required to get government handouts and welfare to survive, which you pay for.
Not to mention they destroy local and small businesses, which is/was the biggest driver of middle class wealth. They are anti-union and anti-workers rights. They are everything wrong with the USA. Sell out your neighbors and fellow citizens, give an already far overreaching government more reasons to tax you, and to boot, prop up a communist government thousands of miles away that is completely destroying the environment.
Seems worth it for a $2 shirt to me. Maybe your child can grow up to be a factory worker making $2 shirts for other people in a polluted city and then they can reflect on the choices of their parents, such as yourselves.
This is why I get many of my computer parts at Frys because it's on my way home. I still do my research online before going though because they often don't have what I need when it's more esoteric.
Their "promo code" deals are often excellent. Heck, I just bought TurboTax H&B at Costco yesterday, and today Fry's has it $6 cheaper.
I may be biased given that I've shopped at Fry's Electronics since their very first store, in a long-since-demolished, tiny former Fry's Grocery store on Oakmead.
I hate to have to tell you this, but there isn't really such thing as a $2 shirt, please hear me out.
The monetary cost to you, acting as a consumer is an incredible $6 or, $2 a shirt; However, as a citizen of earth, the environmental and social costs of buying cheap garments from places like Walmart is absolutely, shockingly enormous. [1][2]
It's just currently impossible to produce clothing at that price in an even slightly responsible way. Unfortunately, buying super cheap garments is really taking out a loan out against the future and that bonded or forced labour is probably involved. [3] If you're a documentary person, "The True Cost" is really worth watching. [7]
There is a few apps that can help people make informed choices before a purchase [4][5] and of course, great brands like Patagonia [6] who make quality clothing in a responsible way.
There are also amazingly good quality items in second hand stores around the world too, I know there can be some stigma attached to second hand clothing, but it's only stigma, it wears off quickly and no one knows you have a second hand shirt on.
I have a friend who works at a second hand store, which is part of franchise, and there are a lot good quality, safe items in surplus around the world waiting to be worn again.
I usually buy my clothes at Uniqlo or Zara. As much as I'd like to do the right thing instead, I can't justify paying the massive premium for boutique and artisan stuff manufactured in western regions, except the occasional specific premium item, like a Rapha or Outlier jacket.
In OP's case those are clothes for a small child, that will outgrow them quickly, which makes the cheap option even more attractive.
What about relatives with older children, used clothes stores or flea markets? Childen's clothes are a very good fit for reuse since they are worn for a short time. Also I'd be suspicious about toxins or artificial hormones in cheap clothes. Would likely be safer to have high quality certified and checked and tested ones.
Jet is a joke. People use them only because they sell things at a loss through coupon codes. I only ever see someone talk about them on discount sites, explicitly saying to start a new account just to get the coupon code again. A lot of the things they "shipped" they literally just ordered from other stores that then shipped to the customer. I ordered two things from them, one was ordered and then shipped via New Egg, the other Home Depot.
Jet is way better than Amazon for me. So much so that I rarely use Amazon anymore. Prices on Amazon are often worse than local retail stores. I find many products I want to buy are Prime only, Fresh only, or Add-ons. The last two packages I bought took an entire week to leave the warehouse even though they were fulfilled by Amazon. And Amazon has a horrible spam problem. It's difficult to sort out real products from knock-offs sold by a scam seller like SUPER DEAL PRODUCT WORLD or something.
Jet, on the other hand, has no spam problem, prices usually better than local stores, and very reliable free two day shipping. Hopefully they can scale up.
It's hard to overstate how easy it is to have better prices when you are operating at a loss. They're still in the "fake it till you make it stage" as is evident by their buying from other stores to then ship to consumers.
I would think that Walmart probably has a competitive advantage in most logistical areas. They've been moving goods across the country (and world) for longer than Amazon has been a company. They even have their own airline for moving freight (and employees) so they've already solved the 'UPS problem' that Amazon is working on now.
With all that, it would be completely unsurprising to find out that Amazon runs their warehouse and goods movement more efficiently than Walmart does, but they still don't own the entire stack like Walmart does.
On top of that, Walmart gets companies to produce entire product lines at prices that they themselves pretty much set. Amazon is just going to take a cut of a lot of sales while Walmart is getting the margin they want.
Technology wise I'd say it's a safe bet that Amazon is light years ahead, but don't sleep on Walmart Labs and their ability to innovate. Just don't expect it to be as useful to us as AWS.
I know everyone likes to bag on Walmart for being 'cheap' and/or 'shit' but at least if I buy a brand from Walmart I can be extremely confident in it being the real thing. Which has been getting to be (at least personally) a huge issue with me for Amazon and has started moving me to buy more things at other stores (including Walmart).
There are tradeoffs between the two, but I think they both run tight ships and are in the best position to be each other's biggest competitor.
Walmart Labs just laid off their entire remote staff. What they had in "Well, it's not Walmart, it's Walmart Labs!" is basically gone now. I don't foresee any talented engineers heading that direction.
>I would think that Walmart probably has a competitive advantage in most logistical areas. They've been moving goods across the country (and world) for longer than Amazon has been a company.
Walmart does not have a competitive advantage in logistical areas. Have a look at a youtube video of what happens in an Amazon FC. Amazon does not simply box packages and ship them.
I would say Amazon is implementing the physical manifestation of algorithms onto physical goods, but that only scratches the surface of the complexity required to optimize the entire chain from customer desire to fulfillment.
If Amazon had the physical real estate that Wal-Mart does it wouldn't be long before they could service most of north America with sub-1 hour delivery for most products. In that regard, it seems that if Wal-mart was committed, they could totally steal Amazon's thunder. I must be overlooking something fundamental.
I think the fundamental thing you're overlooking is Amazon's wide selection. There's a long tail of relatively low-demand items that a company like Walmart would just remove from their shelves. Looking over my recent Amazon orders, I'd guess that around half of it is made up of this sort of item.
I do a lot of doodling boxes-and-arrows stuff, pseudo-UML, half-assed flow-charts, etc., when working on ideas. For some strange (and largely irrelevant) reason, I'm really picky about the pencils I use. And my favorite ones have apparently gone out of production. So last week, I order two new high-end mechanical drafting pencils from Amazon. They show up, I like them right away, so I order 5 more.
The package arrives, and there are only 3 pencils. From what I can tell, they were loosely slopped in along with the book that in the same order and the packaging was loose enough that I'm guessing the other 2 actually fell out.
I login to Amazon.com (this was on Friday), report the 2 missing pencils, and wait to see what happens.
A few hours later I get a notice that a replacement package is 5 pencils is being overnighted to me. Note that only two were lost from the original package.
For all the grief Amazon gets, at times their customer service can be pretty damn good.
Wal-Mart, OTOH, to me, just "feels" like a place to get mostly cheap crap, sold by underpaid employees with surly attitudes. I don't even think of walmart.com as a place to shop online. They're so far off my radar that they might as well not have e-commerce.
The question then, to me, is how many people have a world view like mine? And if the answer is a large number, how does Wal-Mart get people to consider them at all? Leveraging the hybrid "click and mortar" thing sounds like a good start, but I'm wondering if it will be enough.
On the other hand, I don't really trust amazon much these days because of fake reviews, and the ability for suppliers to switch out items for those of lower quality.
Walmart at least gives the appearance of curation for quality - It's at least easy to go see the quality of the things walmart is carrying. Amazon seems to be more of a crap shoot.
> My contrarian opinion: Walmart is going to create some hard times for Amazon.
That's not going to happen anytime soon. Walmart is trying to offer service like Amazon, but they don't have their shit together enough to succeed at that level.
Recently I wanted to buy a new Roku, and the Walmart site said it was available for pickup today nearby store. Great! I can order it and pick it up on my way home. But wait, when I select it and go to checkout, the site now tells me it will be available for pickup in 5 days. WTF Walmart?!!
Their site was being stupid, so I decided to just stop at Walmart on my way home and buy it. When I get there I have to spend time to track down an employee, and they have to track down someone with keys to get it out of the glass case. Then I realize their in-store price is $10 higher than online, so I have to wait while they track down a manager. After all that bullshit, the the manager tells me they can't match the price on their own fucking website.
I took out my phone and ordered it from Amazon in front of the Walmart manager.
Weird. My brother in law and I recently went to Walmart to pick up a PS4 controller. He saw a price online and similar to your experience he realized the in store price was hiring. He showed the manager and they gave it to him for the online price. He told me he did a similar thing the week before and now he always check online for Walmart purchases above $20 or so because they may be cheaper. I don't know why you weren't price matched.
Each Walmart store manager sets the prices at their individual store. You can see a noticeable variation even between nearby locations.
Consequently, the online channel is managed separately from brick and mortar and will set its own prices.
Walmart recently picked up Dan Makoski of Google/Moto/MSFT fame (and most recently at Cap1), so I've got my eyes keenly pointed at what they may end up putting out.
Walmart's literally the Fortune One. I wouldn't necessarily count them out quite yet.
> Then I realize their in-store price is $10 higher than online
Isn't that normal? People who use Internet can easily compare prices in different shops so the price for them is more competitive. And people who have already spent their time to get to the shop are not so picky so they can pay more.
That may be so, but I understood the main issues to be on one side the inconvenience of the whole chain of events, and on the other side the fact that they were unable to price-match their own website.
I have repeatedly had poor experiences with Wal-Mart and Target online. The first time was when I found that the website "inventory" had nothing to do with the in-store inventory, so the "in stock" item was not only completely out of stock, but there was no incoming stock for weeks. The guy in electronics showed me his inventory computer.
The second time I ordered a camera lens, also "in stock" for in-store pickup. It was supposed to be available in a week, but after I waited a week they cancelled the order, no reason given. I've had Amazon cancel maybe 1% of my orders.
The third time Target refused to sell me a gift card online, even though I was using the same credit card I've used multiple times in the store. (Ironically, I was able to buy it at Wal-Mart, which I believe is the first time I successfully purchased something electronically from them.)
I did buy a couple sleds from Wal-Mart for delivery, and that was good; They came from a local store so it was fast and not nearly as expensive as mailing something. I hope they improve.
They don't have their shit together because the stock has barely moved in a decade. If you think Wal-Mart has their shit together, you've either been living under a rock for the past 10 years or you're not very intelligent.
Here's a fun chart from Google Finance: 10-Year Wal-Mart vs Amazon stock performance:
Here's a chart showing WMT growing annual revenue by $400B from 1995 to 2015 (from $80B to $480B) while AMZN grew from $0 to $100B. Over the same time period WMT made $217B in net income over the 21 years while AMZN made $2.6B.
Amazon needs to grow 5x the size it is today to reach Wal-Mart scale. They can get there and they're growing more quickly which is why the market has AMZN worth $388B market cap vs. $205B for WMT.
Amazon has a long way to go, I believe they can become the first trillion dollar revenue company but it won't be without a fight from Wal-Mart, FedEx/UPS, regional groceriers, Alibaba (I expect to see them in the US market in 2017), etc.
For Amazon to reach WMT revenue, assume WMT stays flat now and AMZN continues to grow at 27% Y/Y it'd be 2022 before the pass WMT in scale. If they average half of their current growth rate over the full period to reach WMT's current scale it won't happen until 2026 -- basically another full decade.
I see going from an incredibly valuable brick-and-mortar retailer to exactly the same valuation over 5 years during the rise of mobile, streaming, Prime, etc. as quite a success relatively speaking.
They could have been better, sure, but that's hardly a disaster.
You assume I'm either uninformed or dumb because I disagree with your conclusions drawn from a facking stock price. That's amazingly narrow-minded. As you can see by the other responses to your comment, there are many valid points to disagree with you. I suggest you tone it down.
I think he/she meant that it was listed for a lower price on Walmart.com than in-store at Walmart, and that Walmart couldn't pricematch to Walmart.com...
I'll add some anecdotal evidence as to why I don't think Walmart isn't capable of giving Amazon any hard times.
When I got my first iPhone I was recommended a Zagg screen protector. I found that Walmart online had the best deal so I ordered it for in-store pickup. I was notified the day it arrived and headed back to the Layaway area. Nobody was there, but there was a little kiosk where I could enter my info and someone would fetch my item for me. Seemed like a very efficient setup. Walk in, get my thing, and leave.
After putting my info into the kiosk and being told my item was on its way, I waited. And waited. And waited. About 15 minutes in, after entering the info into the kiosk again and not getting a response, I called the store and asked for a manager. It took me a minute to get them to understand that I was calling from inside their store to get my item. But finally, they got it and assured me that someone would be bringing out my item shortly.
Another 15 minutes of waiting and I HAD TO CALL THEM AGAIN! And explain, again, that, "Yes, I'm standing inside your store, waiting for the thing I purchased. We talked about this already."
All told, I was probably there for 45 minutes before I got my item. That was the last time I bought something from Walmart.
Now, I'll concede that this was almost 10 years ago and maybe they've changed. But Walmart has never been known for the best customer service, and Amazon is always fantastic when I have to deal with them. So I'm placing my bet on Amazon in this particular race.
Same thing happened to me only two years ago. Bought an Xbox controller on their website for in-store pickup. Go down to the store to pick it up and they say it's actually out of stock. But then I see one sitting right there so I ask to buy it. They say that one is reserved and there's a glitch in their system. So I ask to just buy that right there but the in-store price was $15 more than online price. The employee says to me "supply and demand, how bad do you want it". Weird interaction. Just bought it and left. Definitely logistics problems still.
I know staples / office max show lower prices online than in store. If you ask for a price match they will price match against themselves and give you the good price.
A synchronous, blocking logistics system (you going to a store waiting for a person or a conveyer belt) will never be as cost efficient as an asynchronous one (amazon dead-dropping your package on your front porch).
Tho there are other tradeoffs (mainly expected latency).
> "I don't think Walmart isn't capable of giving Amazon any hard times"
I had to read this intro 3 times to wrap my brain around the 2.5 negations, just to find out you DO think Walmart is not capable of competing with Amazon :)
I think you read that backwards (not at all surprisingly): It's not the case that Walmart can't give Amazon hard times. Therefore, it is the case that Walmart can give Amazon hard times.
> "I don't think Walmart isn't capable of giving Amazon any hard times"
Actually, thinking Walmart is capable does not follow from not thinking they aren't capable. The subject doesn't think they are incapable of giving any hard times. Overall this is perhaps the weakest vote of confidence in Walmart possible, I would read this: "There exists the possibility that Walmart is capable of giving Amazon one or more hard times."
That's the best I can do.
edit:
On reflection the word 'thinking' is crucial, because is suggests a level of uncertainty. Without that uncertainty: !(not walmart is not capable) <-> walmart is capable.
Amazon doesn't have much to worry about in the short term. Ordering online from walmart.com was so horrible that I'd never return. It's still pretty horrible, the people that's packaging the items do not give a shit whatsoever. I had a tv that had burn spots. I ordered groceries that somehow thought it was more efficient to ship from Ottawa when the nearest one was 10 minutes away.
Brand and impressions are critical when switching cost is nil. Amazon is not perfect but it's not due to their fault, it's always the carrier delivering items late.
Similar experience. I ordered twice from Walmart.Com with store pickup twice in 2 years. Both times it took 20 plus minutes to get my item. One of those times I had to dig through the pile of boxes to find mine myself... I suspect the core problem is they pay so little they can't attract anyone to work there that gives a crap.
I've had that experience (and worse) with all store pickup options: Target, Home Depot, WalMart, etc. I just don't do store pickup for online orders anymore. I either have it shipped or go find it in the store myself.
This was also my experience when I lived in the U.S., but in the U.K. my experience with in-store pickup (usually called "click and collect") has been pretty good. Not sure why. Virtually everyone does it in the U.K., both higher-end places (John Lewis, Marks and Spencer) and lower-end places (Argos, Wilko), and all seem to be pretty efficient at it.
Argos especially is much better than anything I've seen in the U.S. in that regard. They have a subset of more commonly ordered items labeled "FastTrack" items, meaning you can typically pick up within 1 hour at any location (you can check ahead of time whether the item is in stock for 1-hour pickup at your desired location, but it usually is). Other items are typically available the next day, with the exception of some larger stuff (furniture, etc.) that might take longer. And if you don't want in-store pickup, you can get home delivery within a chosen 3-hour window the next day, which I find a lot more convenient than even Amazon Prime, where you can't specify which time of day you want the delivery.
Argos is the original, pre-Internet version of this, in operation since 1973.
In the 1990s, everyone I knew (as a child) had an Argos catalogue at home. It was simple to write down product numbers, give them to the cashier, pay, then wait at the counter for the goods to be handed to you. Depending how busy the shop was, the waiting time would be 2-5 minutes.
The website says "FastTrack" means collection within 60 seconds of ordering. That's the slight change since I lived in Britain.
jet.com reached their 1B revenue target by losing money on every transaction: rather than have inventory, they relist competitor's inventory at lower prices. Which is why your jet.com purchase may bear the name of some Other online retailer when it arrives. Presumably Wal-Mart will correct both the inventory and the prices in the near future. And when the subsidies dissapear, so will the competition.
Besides which, isn't Amazon a cloud tech company with a vestigial retailing arm?
> Besides which, isn't Amazon a cloud tech company with a vestigial retailing arm?
That's sort of like trying to pin down General Electric. At some point, you have to give up with the "they are a $foo company" thinking and accept that they've grown past the boundaries and limitations imposed by a single market.
AWS provides much better margins than some of their other businesses though, to the point where AWS profit can actually be more than the overall company profit (it allows them to run other divisions at a loss strategically). That doesn't seem to be that case in the most recent filing[1], but it did beat out the North American division.
Walmart's revenues are $500b a year. It's pocket change to them. And the list of old economy stalwarts overspending on tech startups is practically infinite. Few of these acquisitions ever lead to anything. Amazon must have been cracking up that they scared Walmart into doing this.
FWIW, this is definitely not what I hear from my network. Amazon has a reputation as a high-variance but usually bad place to be as a tech worker, while people love Walmart Labs.
I interviewed there a year ago, at least to me it looked like they were absorbed (or at least parts of the Labs team I spoke to) into Walmart e-commerce. Five excruciating 1-hour rounds where we ran out of anything to talk about because they refused to ask me any coding or architecture or CS fundamental-related questions.
Well it's not like I asked them and they refused to ask me any questions. 3/5 people asked me "what happens when you boot a VM in openstack", which was a kind-of-shitty question because I can know the answer from just looking at a picture in the docs. More than that, I went in expecting a grilling interview (because Walmart Labs) and it was a huge anti-climax. I wasn't hugely impressed by the people that interviewed me too, except for one guy who has now left.
As to discerning a reason, no clue. At least 2 of them were competent coders, so no idea why they never asked me anything.
> Unless Amazon really fucks something up, Walmart will never be able to attract the tech talent that Amazon does. Nobody wants to work for Walmart.
Disclaimer: I am probably biased because I used to work for Amazon
I'm not sure I agree with that. Amazon already has such a poor reputation but they don't seem to have any trouble attracting people to work there. Considering the turnover* there, the fact they are able to grow this quickly must mean there are ways to get people to join despite having a poor reputation.
Walmart Labs on the other hand has a good reputation so you could even argue that if Walmart plays its cards right, it actually has an advantage in that aspect of attracting tech talent. I mean they even use Clojure..
* I admit this is anecdotal but I live in Seattle and used to work there and the average tenure is fairly low from what I've seen.
They're doing some interesting things on the front-end web front. Electrode in particular and some surrounding libraries look pretty cool. https://github.com/walmartlabs/electrode I had the same reaction when I had heard of Walmart Labs. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss.
Why not? Amazon is fairly widely known to treat its employees, on average, poorly. While much smaller, I haven't heard many bad things about Walmart Labs.
Most Don't distinguish walmart labs from walmart and walmart treats its employees pretty terribly.
It wasn't that long ago that a regional manager forced people to work off the clock and walmart lost a major suit against minimum wage employees. Even though other store managers and walmart executives scrambled to tighten rules, enforce already present rules and denounce that one manager, their image was already tainted. Stuff like that sticks with the public consciousness for decades.
While there are still a reasonable number of very talented engineers at Labs, having talent is sort of meaningless if you stifle their ability to actually ship (which Walmart at large does very well).
Did you seriously just suggest that Amazon is generally regarded as a pleasant place to work? Amazon, the company that not 3 months ago, had an employee attempt to kill himself by jumping off of one of their buildings after being put on an "employee improvement plan" [1].
Same here. I've been looking at every other vendor that I can before Amazon.
So far I've had success with finding other vendors. I've been using Target, Walmart, third party retailers, the manufacturer, and AliExpress as an alternative. Heck I've been shopping locally more.
Walmart labs is may be a little more 'technical' than current Walmart IT. From what I see on their website, it is developing bunch of Javascript frameworks etc. Nothing wrong with that but it is not comparable to likes of Amazon.
Hapi's primary author and only maintainer left Walmart labs, took Hapi with him, severed ties to Walmart and has publicly proclaimed his dislike of the new CTO of Walmart.
Of course they will get people who fit in their pay scale. It is like on HN where European lifestyle is superior in every way but when it comes to money most people are like "Oh shit only 1/3-1/2 salary compared to US, so not moving there"
Walmart is basically Amazon without AWS. Which, IMHO, means they're going to be hopelessly behind from a engineering and innovation perspective. Amazon is playing a completely different kind of game and I highly doubt Walmart will be able compete long term.
The difference is that Walmart is a more sustainable business. Amazon is far more sensitive to interest rates and is 100% dependent on growth to hide the warts associated with the business.
At some point they'll need to spin off AWS.
Walmart did most of the innovation in the back office space 30 years ago.
The Walton family represents a lot of what I think is wrong with America. If Sam Walton knew that Walmart pays their employees so little that they have to claim social assistance just to survive, what would he say?
While Jeff Bezos isn't an angel, at least he's doing things with his money that I find noble, like Blue Origin and contributing millions to expand the computer science program at the University of Washington
I shudder to think of a future where Walmart dominates the tech logistics scene. Might there be a "Committee for a Third Term for Donald Trump" SuperPAC in the future?
They pay a 30% federal corporate income tax rate. Their federal income tax alone covers all the estimated ($6 billion) public subsidies.
Walmart has 0.03% net income margins. If you raise the hourly pay for the average Walmart employee, by $3 to $4 per hour, Walmart is bankrupt. Meanwhile Amazon is going to begin substantially digging in to Walmart's sales with their growth. As Walmart's sales begin to contract in the coming years, that will pressure their non-existent margins further. If Walmart raises prices to afford the pay hikes, Amazon will damage Walmart's business that much faster. In the near future, Amazon is likely to rupture Walmart's business in such a fashion as to cause financial losses that cause hundreds of thousands of low skill workers to lose their jobs (with no replacement jobs). Walmart's likely future is to tip over, bleed epic amounts of red ink (they don't even have a large enough cash balance to afford one year in that condition), close hundreds of stores, and fire a million workers.
You can either have Walmart employ far too many people as it does now, at low wages (which has the advantage of absorbing vast amounts of low value, low skilled labor). Or you can have Walmart employ far fewer people per dollar of sales, in the model of Costco, and have higher pay. You can't - and will never - have both.
> My contrarian opinion: Walmart is going to create some hard times for Amazon.
Not just Walmart.
In Germany, Amazon actually reduced their reliance on DHL, UPS and DPD... by contracting out almost their entire logistics to Hermes.
If you've never heard of it, Hermes Logistics belongs to the OTTO Group, Europe's largest online retailer group (you likely don't know them, but basically every store contracts out their online shops to OTTO, and OTTO also has their own shops)
It's interesting when even Amazon contracts out their entire logistics to a competitor.
No one uses Jet except to take advantage of their ridiculous coupons. Those coupons are just a way to move VC money to the people, so I'm cool with that but otherwise Jet is just rubbish.
Yup. Amazon's in uncurated listings are getting worse and worse, while Wal-Mart's online shopping offerings are getting better and better. Plus Wal-Mart can offer cheaper shipping with their in-store pickup lockers.
They're going to give Amazon a real competitor. Amazon may be getting better at a lot of things, but the actual experience of shopping online with them is getting worse. I search for an item and i get a hellscape of poorly categorized over-MSRP 3rd party sellers.
Doing 1-day delivery to the majority of your customers in U.S. is easier than you might think-- You just put fulfillment centers within 1 day of the east coast. There's a UPS hub in Louisville and a Fedex hub in Memphis. Those areas are also 1-day to east coast, the rent is cheap, and the locals will give you all sorts of concessions for bringing in jobs. I have seen one Amazon subsidiary that was capable of doing same-day deliver to a large portion of their customers 10 years ago. The trick is to make it cost effective. People pay for different classes of shipping from various vendors-- but getting the order to you as quickly as possible isnt the most profitable way to do business. There are sweat spots where they minimize the cost of shipping but its still "fast enough". Take for example shipments out of the continental U.S.. Every carrier has ways to pool packages in ways that make them cheaper to ship. The shipping still costs you the same, but it'll arrive later. Most of the time you'll be fine with waiting. The times you're not you'll complain and they'll upgrade shipping.
BTW, that was the original FedEx hub. Back in the early 1980s (at least), every FedEx overnight package went through Memphis, even if shipper and destination were on the same coast as each other.
Amazon just has such a huge head start in so many ways, it's difficult to imagine anyone catching up with them anytime soon.
For purchasing online, most people just immediately type "amazon" into their web browser. People will never have any reason to do anything differently, unless Amazon starts screwing up the user experience, or becomes significantly more expensive than other online sites. Neither of those things is likely to happen.
Suggesting that such things will happen is like suggesting that some other search engine is going to quickly replace Google.
I guess all bets are off when one tries to look ten years out–the entire world can change radically in ten years–but personally, I'd bet good money that Amazon and Google will still be the largest players by far for their markets.
The more interesting question, I think, is for how long will Amazon maintain its lead in cloud computing. Cloud computing is something of a commodity, so companies will have a great deal of incentive to go with whoever can do it most cheaply. As long as they do it well, that is. I'd still put my money on Amazon.
Wal-Mart only competes with the retail portion of Amazon. My prediction is that by the time Wal-Mart grows large enough to be a competitor (in online sales), Amazon's cloud and devices business will be larger (and more profitable) portions of the company. Amazon could then subsidize retail. Good luck to any retailer wanting to compete with that. :)
Walmart had enough capital to compete fifteen years ago too, and they chose not to seriously compete then as they are now.
Walmart is a perfect example of the difficulty of a business not disrupting itself. They could have caught up perhaps five years ago, but not now.
Here's the thing: the family still controls it. They are billionaires many times over. To seriously compete with AMZN would take many billions a year, many years in a row, and frankly, you need a guy like Bezos who just doesn't care about anything besides winning. Walmart has had nothing of the sort and the focus on their physical store base was a major distraction during the time they could have caught up. There's obviously TONS of tech involved in AMZN's retail operations, and WMT will simply never be able to hire as many or the same caliber as AMZN can (despite AMZN's poor employer reputation)
Not to mention the fact that their CEOs are concerned about the stock price a few years from now from their RSUs or stock options, and massive e-commerce investments would certainly drive EPS and/or the dividend down which is basically how Walmart is valued in the public market.
The culture, just everything is different and superior at AMZN.
My impression of Walmart is forever tainted by the few recent store experiences I've had. They have no idea where or if inventory is in the store and no one wants to help you find it if so. The last few Walmarts I've been to have had rusty shopping carts that barely roll. And that was in Palo Alto, which has to have much higher incomes than average.
Amazon now has the advantage that the freight train that is FBA has started rolling and just won't stop for a very long time. AWS operating income and FBA fees subsidize their own retail gross margins, which would make it even hard for WMT to compete.
And good luck getting your marketplace partners to deliver as on-time and reliably as AMZN already has gotten theirs to.
Walmart has mid single-digit operating profit margins (profit before taxes and interest). That makes every 1% price reduction (if they were to seriously compete on price) reduce their profit by 15-20%!
Otoh Walmart is much more subjected to the whims of the stock market and their stock price than amazon is. As such they can't afford to take the same risks with capital.
I don't see that as contrary at all. The only real question is whether Walmart can learn how to be a tech company (and innovate as fast as Amazon) better than Amazon can learn to be a full-stack logistics company (and beat Walmart to meet the customers needs).
I doubt this - Walmart have scale, experience and infrastructure over Amazon but what they're lacking for in these areas, Amazon more than makes up for it in engineering culture.
Amazon is first a foremost a data-driven company. Companies say this so much that it's now a cliche, but you better believe it with Amazon.
As an exclusively online (until recently) retailer, every single sale goes through their data warehouse. Every single product, price, clicks are all stored - think of the analytical capability of that consolidated store of data. Amazon is probably the singly largest reserve of economics data.
Moreover, I am fully certain every one of their products, cars, trucks, planes and even people are hooked up into real-time tracking. When you have that much data all centralised, and the scale of Amazon, real life problems start to resemble CS problems and Fulfillment Centers and logistics start resembling CDNs.
If only Amazon has extensive knowledge of the workings of CDNs... oh wait.
>Amazon is probably the singly largest reserve of economics data.
Walmart had 4 times the annual sales revenue of Amazon and they store every single transaction as well. They don't have the click data, but they certainly have far more actual purchasing data.
Yes, but click data and search history is all integrated for Amazon and the combination of search, purchase and click is the true value. Not to mention every purchase and visit is linked to an account.
[EDIT]not to mention that as an online store Amazon can do all kinds of automated A/B testing in real-time.
At best with Walmart, in stores can capture some of this with a loyalty card and credit card.
> will Amazon be able to keep it's very high stock price
People have been asking this question about Amazon for many years now. I am not saying it wont go down but its a bit tiring hearing the sky is about to fall for Amazon.
One of the most overlooked aspects to Walmart competing with Amazon is branding. Walmart is "gross". Amazon is hip. I don't see how they fix this in the short term. Long term there are strategies.
I sell on all three. Walmart is a threat to Amazon, but they dont appear to be thinking the same way as Amazon does. I think it's a company culture thing.
Considering how there are a lot more Amazon employees here on HN as opposed to Walmart employees, I doubt your contrarian opinion will be particularly well received. Regardless of its merit. Personally, I agree with you, but having a discussion about it here on HN is probably a waste of time.
Walmart ackuired jet.com just 4 months ago. Jet.com, a startup, has managed to create a logistics network being able to do 1-day delivery to 50% of the population(or at least they claimed so), reached $1B in sales rapidly. Walmart has recently started to offer free 2-day delivery($35 minimum), which means that now, even for Prime memebers. shopping comparison is a reasonable option.
Furthermore, Walmart has curbside pickup for groceries, a very convinient service to get your groceries on the way from work, is seeing a lot of sucsess according to Walmart, with availibility in 500 stores, and planning to be in 600 more soon.
And Walmart definetly has got a huge logistics chain, maybe less in areas where Amazon is strong at, but they're probably better at the china/usa logistics part, that's why Amazon is doing some of those moves.
And Walmart does have enough capital to compete.
And once this impacts Amazon, will Amazon be able to keep it's very high stock price ? and how will this affect talent and growth ?
In short: finally , we're in for some very interesting times.