> 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...
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.