Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 22 posts

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#11

Post by coffeevradar »

dharmon wrote: post #6

I think jet.com was a foolish acquisition (at a foolish price), and will be written off in 5 years. Having said that, I think amazon has left a glaring gap in their armor: you cannot trust your purchases from them anymore, and more and more people are figuring it out. I have known for a few years to save my high-dollar purchases for more reputable retailers. I bought an all-clad pan from amazon that I am convinced is…

I think to the extent there's a bigger game it's that Amazon wants to present to its customers a minimally curated selection of products (and sellers) that includes the full gamut of what is available in the wider world.

If they are seen to offer this selection, shoppers will at least begin their product searches on Amazon. Even if many customers opt to eventually buy elsewhere, Amazon will end up with a substantial share of the purchases that result from the initial searches.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#12

Post by sudojudo »

ben_jones wrote: post #3
ouid wrote: post #2

no

Yes. All they need to do is 1) not become perforated by fake products and 2) have quick shipping.

3) Lose the reputation of being a scummy company (or just stop being scummy).

After seeing what Walmart does to small town economies, and knowing that my taxes help compensate for them not paying a livable wage, and reading about their awful lobbying, and their abusive purchase practices, and on, and on, I want nothing to do with them.

Being in a rural area, I have to go well out of my way to avoid physically shopping at Walmart; avoiding them online is easy.

All of that said, the vast majority of consumers don't care about ethics in business, and even if they did, Walmart has their propaganda game down pretty well at this point. They'll do fine.

Oh yeah, and screw Amazon too. My last two orders have been Chinese knock-offs of the products I actually ordered. You know they're in the shitter when you need to reference a third-party website [1] to help avoid forgeries.

[1] http://fakespot.com/

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#13

Post by thirdsun »

dharmon wrote: post #6

I think jet.com was a foolish acquisition (at a foolish price), and will be written off in 5 years. Having said that, I think amazon has left a glaring gap in their armor: you cannot trust your purchases from them anymore, and more and more people are figuring it out. I have known for a few years to save my high-dollar purchases for more reputable retailers. I bought an all-clad pan from amazon that I am convinced is…

I never liked the way Amazon has been opening up its platform to thirdparty sellers and used goods. If I was fine with a wild west ecommerce experience and used goods for a better deal (and in some cases I am), I'd use eBay. When shopping with Amazon I expect to find nothing but quality products from solid to remarkable brands for a reasonable price. More important than the lowest price is the certainty that I'll receive the product the next day with Prime.

The necessity to filter results based on who's selling them and which shipping options they offer has no place on Amazon.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#14

Post by thirdsun »

tryitnow wrote: post #5

Yes. I've already switched some of my purchases to Jet.com because: 1) I don't want the bother of trying to figure out that products are "real" and not knock-offs 2) For some items (most recently under bed storage containers) I need to know the exact dimensions and I could easily find that on Jet but not on Amazon However, I still default to Amazon for other items. So I think Wal-Mart can compete, but I seriously dou…

> I've already switched some of my purchases to Jet.com

As a european I wasn't familiar with Jet.com, but color me impressed - this looks and feels like a way better shopping experience than Amazon's cluttered layout and varying seller quality. If the execution, including fast shipping and great customer support, is at Amazon-level, I'd definitely prefer shopping at jet.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#15

Post by devoply »

_m8fo wrote: post #9

To this day I am still shocked Wal-Mart didn't (and still doesn't) run same day shipping of all of its items in store at prices that beat Amazon's. Not only would this crush Amazon, but would simultaneously restore Walmart's reputation as the storefront itself could be more minimalist as more of its space would be used mainly for warehousing. Seriously. Why aren't they doing this? Does it cost a few orders of magnitu…

Would be trivial for Wal-Mart to do too considering the number of stores they have everywhere. All you need is a few delivery vans, drivers, and software.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#16

Post by thatwebdude »

dharmon wrote: post #6

I think jet.com was a foolish acquisition (at a foolish price), and will be written off in 5 years. Having said that, I think amazon has left a glaring gap in their armor: you cannot trust your purchases from them anymore, and more and more people are figuring it out. I have known for a few years to save my high-dollar purchases for more reputable retailers. I bought an all-clad pan from amazon that I am convinced is…

> wanted to buy some frosting tips. After half an hour on Amazon, reading reviews accusing products of being shoddy knock-offs that rust, warp, etc., I realized it's much faster to just drive to a store and buy them. That's what I did, drove to Michael's and bought a set for close to the same price.

Would you feel the same way if the rating system was right there in-store on a tag?

I understand taking the ratings as a deciding factor; but when I buy odd-things I'm no expert on; I tend to go with gut and middle-of-the-road and I'm hardly disappointed. But that's something I learned from shopping at brick-and-mortar.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#17

Post by maxerickson »

thatwebdude wrote: post #16
dharmon wrote: post #6

I think jet.com was a foolish acquisition (at a foolish price), and will be written off in 5 years. Having said that, I think amazon has left a glaring gap in their armor: you cannot trust your purchases from them anymore, and more and more people are figuring it out. I have known for a few years to save my high-dollar purchases for more reputable retailers. I bought an all-clad pan from amazon that I am convinced is…

> wanted to buy some frosting tips. After half an hour on Amazon, reading reviews accusing products of being shoddy knock-offs that rust, warp, etc., I realized it's much faster to just drive to a store and buy them. That's what I did, drove to Michael's and bought a set for close to the same price. Would you feel the same way if the rating system was right there in-store on a tag? I understand taking the ratings as…

They are saying that Michael's brand reputation (as compared to Amazon) was the deciding factor.

The reviews are just evidence that Amazon isn't protecting their reputation very well.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#18

Post by maxerickson »

_m8fo wrote: post #9

To this day I am still shocked Wal-Mart didn't (and still doesn't) run same day shipping of all of its items in store at prices that beat Amazon's. Not only would this crush Amazon, but would simultaneously restore Walmart's reputation as the storefront itself could be more minimalist as more of its space would be used mainly for warehousing. Seriously. Why aren't they doing this? Does it cost a few orders of magnitu…

They ran an experiment where they tried to pay people to make deliveries.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-walmart-delivery-id...

They also do offer delivery in some markets:

https://grocery.walmart.com/help

Here a local grocery partners with some national backend provider to do deliveries; they estimated demand to be fairly low so there are fairly tight windows on when a particular area will receive deliveries. I imagine the economics are comparable for Walmart. Not a lot of money to make demand delivering a toothbrush, but probably worthwhile to schedule delivery of larger batch orders.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#19

Post by thatwebdude »

I've moved more and more away from shopping locally at catch-all stores like WalMart/Target. When I can, I try to just buy online, I like the convenience.

They could immediately compete if they offered same-day deliveries ala what Amazon does in certain premium (read: not yours) markets; except for most of America. Branded cars delivering groceries and goods same-day to 90+% of America would be a slam-dunk; and something that would take Amazon years to compete with. Considering all the cash these kinds of companies swim in, it seems like a no-brainer to me. Easy enough for the pizza companies, anyway.

In fact, there's already one local grocery chain offering delivery (and free even, when you spend > $X). To my knowledge, this is becoming more and more popular across the US.

Re: Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete with Amazon?

#20

Post by thatwebdude »

maxerickson wrote: post #17
thatwebdude wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wanted to buy some frosting tips. After half an hour on Amazon, reading reviews accusing products of being shoddy knock-offs that rust, warp, etc., I realized it's much faster to just drive to a store and buy them. That's what I did, drove to Michael's and bought a set for close to the same price. Would you feel the same way if the rating system was right there in-store on a tag? I understand taking the ratings as…

They are saying that Michael's brand reputation (as compared to Amazon) was the deciding factor. The reviews are just evidence that Amazon isn't protecting their reputation very well.

Gotcha, I tend to think of Amazon as another Walmart; specializing in nothing but maybe the online experience. I kinda feel the same about their software/devices. It's only really good at selling you more of their products; for a tablet, it's no iPad.

Perhaps the move will be towards specialty stores; as these may be the only competition Amazon may have.

Post reply on HN