December 17, 2009
Op Ed By the ZippyCart Shopping Carts Content Team
Wal-Mart really wants to win the war against Amazon, who has been experiencing greater growth and is on pace to exceed the yearly revenues of Wal-Mart in the future if the current sales trends continue. This battle is not only important to consumers, but also to investors and the overall health of the economy. This holiday was heated between the two retailers as Amazon and Wal-Mart both went head to head before Black Friday touting their top deals for consumers. Now as the holiday shopping season is dying down, Wal-Mart announced that they were planning on adding a drive-thru option for those consumers who want to shop online for their products and then pick them up at a retail store. It is reported that there will also be new service desks at the front of some stores which will make it easier for shoppers to retrieve their merchandise. The logic behind this new shipping option is that it gives them an advantage over Amazon and the delays some consumers face in the shipping process.
It is unclear if this is really a green move since they are encouraging more people to get into their cars to come pick up what they already ordered online. Since prices on many items are quite similar, it seems that consumers would prefer free shipping even if it takes a few days, because it give the consumer more time and freedom to get back to their life. While the plan does not have a huge potential to hurt Wal-Mart, it is suspected by most that this new shipping option will not be very successful among consumers. As more people are becoming accustomed to how easy it is to save time and money by shopping, they will want to spend less time in retail stores so they can spend more time with family or pursuing other interests. Amazon.com and Walmart.com will continue to battle for sales into next year as everyone rushes to get post holiday deals, and then many will flock to buy big screen TV’s in January for the Superbowl.
Nick was born and raised in California, but has been working the dot com scene in Seattle for many years. He co-founded ZippyCart back in 2009, and now works here full-time. Nick wears many hats at ZippyCart, including producing content for our Ecommerce News blog. Nick loves photography and the outdoors, so when not working on ZippyCart you can find him out and about in Seattle.
