Amazon is aggressively expanding same-day delivery capabilities after a major pullback in planned fulfillment facilities which overshot demand when the pandemic boom receded. Feeling the competitive heat, Amazon is redirecting its investments toward smaller hubs closer to customers, making fast delivery a higher priority in 2023.
Moosejaw Mountaineering, the outdoor lifestyle retailer acquired by Walmart as it was building up its stable of digital native brands in the last decade, has now been purchased by Dick’s Sporting Goods, a more natural home for its products and audience as Dick’s looks to expand its vendor base.
Walmart reported ecommerce growth of 17% in Q4 to $80 billion, representing 13% of total sales, and beat expectations overall, but warned of a challenging climate for the rest of the year based on consumer sentiment and macro signals, sending uneasiness through the industry and the markets.
ChatGPT, the generative AI tool based on Microsoft-backed OpenAI technology, is creating media buzz on a new level, with its much-touted ability to create human-seeming language, content and interactions for just about any business or private context. It’s also causing major disruption in retail, even as ethical and legal issues arise.
Instacart is launching a new service aimed at SMBs, including possibly smaller niche and specialty grocers as well as office supply firms, in a bid to increase revenue lost to major grocers that have taken back fulfillment, as it looks to boost a sagging valuation ahead of an expected IPO.
Amazon reported a mix bag of results for its fourth quarter and year, with ad revenue up but ecommerce sales down, and even the vaunted Amazon Web Services, the company’s profit driver for years, fell short of expectations in what executives repeatedly called an “uncertain economy.”
Walmart is starting to see demand pick up for its drone delivery service, as the giant retailer has expanded to 37 store-based deployment hubs in seven states and 26 municipalities, with 6,000 deliveries in 2022, an executive told attendees at NRF’s Big Show 2023 in New York.
Drawing parallels with Amazon’s expansion of Buy With Prime to all U.S. merchants — do they each have moles in the other’s operation? — Walmart and Salesforce have linked up to provide the former’s delivery and fulfillment services to a wider swath of merchants in the latter’s app store.
Amazon, facing a continued slowdown in its ecommerce business and under pressure to boost flagging sales, is looking to sell excess capacity on its commercial cargo jetliners used to move goods among its network of warehouses here and in Europe. Meanwhile, both Amazon and Walmart announced multi-state drone delivery.
While Amazon is the clear market leader in ecommerce sales, at $50.9 billion to $19.2 billion, arch-rival Walmart has been gaining in some respects in their ongoing retail industry cage match. Jungle Scout has developed a helpful infographic that details some key comparison metrics between the two behemoths. (image credit: Wharton/UPenn)