Walmart versus Amazon

The lines between on-line retailers and brick and mortar have become blurred even further today as Walmart announces same day delivery in several launch cities. In competing with Amazon (AMZN) and their push to deliver products the same day to meet consumer’s requirement for instant gratification, Walmart has conveniently launched their same day delivery service jut in time for Christmas.

For a flat $10.00 you can have all of your items delivered the same day, Walmart intends to utilize their large quantity of store locations to act as warehouses versus Amazon’s methodology of using strategically place warehouses to support the same day shipping. In reality Walmart has the distinct advantage since you can find them virtually everywhere – this expands their product availability and allows them far more flexibility in the shipping process.

Just like all things, the old become new – if you remember it was predicted that on-line retailers would make the old brick and mortar stores obsolete, and to a large degree we saw many icons collapse as on-line retailers were able to offer lower cost for the same products (does anyone remember Circuit City or Comp USA?). But in the end we have seen a integration of on-line and brick and mortar, in rare instances the exclusive on-line or brick and mortar store has been able to thrive, but the most successful ones had to become more than just a one trick pony.

\It will be interesting to see who ends up winning the holiday season, Walmart or Amazon.  What I can predict is that one of them will see their stock price soar while the other will see it decline dramatically. Investors will be watching this battle closely to see which power house retailer comes out on top.

Frank Toscano is a 15+ year specialist in cloud based services focusing on Product Management, Marketing and Security within the Cloud. He has worked for EasyLink Services and Premiere Global Services in a global role providing hosted services to Fortune 1000 clients. He is currently seeking employment with a cloud based provider in a senior level Product/Marketing role.