A customer carries a basket while shopping for school supplies at a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location in Burbank, California, U.S.
It’s been widely reported this holiday season that Walmart [NYSE: WMT] is closing the pricing gap with Amazon [NASDAQ: AMZN], but is cheaper pricing enough? After decades of squeezing out local competition with the lowest prices and an “all under one roof” approach, are the online convenience of Amazon and the migration to online shopping giving Walmart a taste of its own medicine? Maybe.
With e-commerce sales growing three times faster than in-store sales, according to a recentstory, Walmart is certainly fighting the fight, and their online strategy seems to be working. While Amazon.com is still the king of holiday e-commerce spending (capturing as much as 50 percent), Walmart inched up to 10 percent of online spending between Black Friday and Cyber Monday according to research by GBH. While this seems like a sliver compared to Amazon, it represents a pretty sizable increase of 50 percent over last year.
However, as Walmart works to leverage its enormous physical footprint by offering lower prices in its local stores than on its website -- sometimes cheaper than Amazon -- one has to wonder whether Amazon’s displacement of Walmart has made the company a modern day version of the “mom-and-pop” shop in discount retail.
Regardless, the question remains whether the flex of Walmart’s physical muscle and its increasing online sales will be enough to compete long-term, particularly against a competitor that looks like a retailer, but is treated more like a startup. Here’s why.
Amazon Still Has an Unbelievably Unfair Tax Advantage over Walmart
As I’ve said in an earlier Women’s Wear Dailystory, Amazon’s online presence to date has brought it a significant, and ultimately unfair, tax advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers, including Walmart. Being online has meant that the retailer can avoid most state-based regulations and tax structures. According to a recent report by Bloomberg, since 2008 Walmart has paid $64B in corporate income tax, while Amazon has paid only $1.4B. This is despite the fact that, in the last 24 months, Amazon has added the value of Walmart to its market cap, according to Business Insider.
This has got to change if the entire retail sector has any chance of competing.
">A customer carries a basket while shopping for school supplies at a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location in Burbank, California, U.S.
It’s been widely reported this holiday season that Walmart [NYSE: WMT] is closing the pricing gap with Amazon [NASDAQ: AMZN], but is cheaper pricing enough? After decades of squeezing out local competition with the lowest prices and an “all under one roof” approach, are the online convenience of Amazon and the migration to online shopping giving Walmart a taste of its own medicine? Maybe.
With e-commerce sales growing three times faster than in-store sales, according to a recentstory, Walmart is certainly fighting the fight, and their online strategy seems to be working. While Amazon.com is still the king of holiday e-commerce spending (capturing as much as 50 percent), Walmart inched up to 10 percent of online spending between Black Friday and Cyber Monday according to research by GBH. While this seems like a sliver compared to Amazon, it represents a pretty sizable increase of 50 percent over last year.
However, as Walmart works to leverage its enormous physical footprint by offering lower prices in its local stores than on its website -- sometimes cheaper than Amazon -- one has to wonder whether Amazon’s displacement of Walmart has made the company a modern day version of the “mom-and-pop” shop in discount retail.
Regardless, the question remains whether the flex of Walmart’s physical muscle and its increasing online sales will be enough to compete long-term, particularly against a competitor that looks like a retailer, but is treated more like a startup. Here’s why.
Amazon Still Has an Unbelievably Unfair Tax Advantage over Walmart
As I’ve said in an earlier Women’s Wear Dailystory, Amazon’s online presence to date has brought it a significant, and ultimately unfair, tax advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers, including Walmart. Being online has meant that the retailer can avoid most state-based regulations and tax structures. According to a recent report by Bloomberg, since 2008 Walmart has paid $64B in corporate income tax, while Amazon has paid only $1.4B. This is despite the fact that, in the last 24 months, Amazon has added the value of Walmart to its market cap, according to Business Insider.
This has got to change if the entire retail sector has any chance of competing.
Read Again https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2017/12/20/is-amazon-making-walmart-the-new-mom-and-pop-shop/Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Is Amazon Making Walmart the New Mom-and-Pop Shop?"
Post a Comment