> People are amazed Amazon sells pasta and batteries under their own brand? Sounds like Ikea to me.
There's absolutely nothing interesting about Amazon doing this, it merely makes for a story because it's Amazon. Walmart has been doing it for 25 years as - by far - the world's largest retailer. They have four times the retail scale of Amazon. The Great Value brand is all over their stores, they also have numerous others such as Sam's Choice (since 1991).
Amazon's traditional online retail sales are close to growing at single digits now, they've seen a persistent slowdown quarter after quarter. Walmart's comps are the best they've been in a decade and their online sales growth has been accelerating again, climbing 40% in Q2 and 43% in Q3 (this is after rolling past the Jet.com numbers year over year as well; contrasted to eg 8% type online growth in 2016). If Amazon isn't careful, they're about to get their ass kicked in online retail. Unthinkable just a few years ago.
The difference between Walmart and Amazon is that Walmart is a major employer in small towns across America whereas Amazon is present only in a few large metro areas. When Walmart gets pressured because of some real or perceived issue, each congress person representing those districts goes to bat for Walmart. Maybe not publicly, but real politics is done informally and out of the public eye. Defense contractors learned this lesson long ago as well.
I agree that it helps Walmart more than it hurts them at this point. That's a large shift from ~20 years ago when the fear was very widespread that Walmart would destroy all the small towns and wipe out local employers. Now that Walmart is entrenched nearly everywhere locally, politicians want to keep those local jobs.
Amazon has a lot of warehouses and call centers in small towns. Not nearly as many in walmart obviously, but definitely more than a few large metro areas.
A bigger difference is that Amazons brands are stealth brands. In every big shopping store, I know which brands are the store brands. Not so with amazon.
I'd recommend taking a look at Walmart's clothing section. It's full of stealth brands. (edit: Forgot about Walmart's electronics section. I'm typing this on a really good mechanical keyboard sold under Walmart's "Blackweb" brand.)
> Amazon's traditional online retail sales are close to growing at single digits now
Amazon reported a 35% YOY growth in the US 3rd quarter, and 15% overseas growth and you call that "close to single digits"? What you didn't mention is Walmarts "crazy" 40%/43% growth in online sales puts it squarely in 4th with a whopping 3.7% of online sales, compared to Amazon sitting at, what 49%?
There's a lot of interesting things to discuss about Amazon's market dominance without misleading numbers used to imply Amazon's outlook is poor. Amazon currently holds almost 50% of the online retail market, while the next 9 companies share 20% and you're talking doom and gloom.
There's absolutely nothing interesting about Amazon doing this, it merely makes for a story because it's Amazon. Walmart has been doing it for 25 years as - by far - the world's largest retailer. They have four times the retail scale of Amazon. The Great Value brand is all over their stores, they also have numerous others such as Sam's Choice (since 1991).
Amazon's traditional online retail sales are close to growing at single digits now, they've seen a persistent slowdown quarter after quarter. Walmart's comps are the best they've been in a decade and their online sales growth has been accelerating again, climbing 40% in Q2 and 43% in Q3 (this is after rolling past the Jet.com numbers year over year as well; contrasted to eg 8% type online growth in 2016). If Amazon isn't careful, they're about to get their ass kicked in online retail. Unthinkable just a few years ago.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-15/walmar...