In: Economics
Each side is formidable in its own right. Walmart dominates offline retailing. It’s price-driven positioning has made it far and away the world’s biggest retailer. In turn, Amazon is the “Walmart of the Web”—our online general store. By one estimate, Amazon captures a full one-third of all U.S. online buying. If Amazon’s expansion continues and online sales spurt as predicted, the digital merchant will eat further and further into Walmart’s bread-and-butter store sales. Amazon’s online assortment outstrips even Walmart’s, and the online and mobile shopping wizard is now moving into groceries, an area that currently accounts for 55 percent of Walmart’s sales.
What is the position of both Amazon and Walmart in the mind of the customer?
Position of two firms in the mind of customer is something that could be discerned through customer surveys. This however could also be dealt conceptually by taking Amazon representing online shopping (as it covers 1/3rd of US online share) and Walmart, the offline retailing giant, representing offline shopping. Different researches have shown how the online shopping trend is increasing. People are shifting and adopting online over offline not wholly but increasingly. However, despite of competitors Amazon's huge individual share in online market is indicative of it's strong preferred liking among the online customers. This is indicative of online retailers like Amazon's increasing influence and customer faith representative of positive image in customer's mind owing to the easy, user-friendly, time saving, reinvented shopping option.
Walmart acquired the largest share of offline retail market in times when online shopping revolution was yet to come. This provides it with a trusting user base that could be retained subject to Walmart's adaptations to changing environment. The offline buyers however, still prefer Walmart but their minds are susceptible to an inclination towards Amazon if they are to choose online shopping. Walmart's endeavours into online shopping have now spurred in time when Amazon already captures the largest share. On online platform, Walmart struggles to beat Amazon's popularity among customers despite a trusted offline retail market's customer base.
So the deal lies in the online-offline wind and Amazon's popularity, strategy for market penetration, options, trust building is surely driving the wind in it's favour.