Walmart to accelerate its growth in e-commerce to compete with Amazon

Wal-Mart has been pushing hard to catch up with Amazon to sustain its position in the e-commerce battle among leading retailers. This American multinational retail corporation, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, has already been taking baby steps to combat with the e-commerce market giant, Amazon.

Walmart, a retail outlet that operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores, and discount department stores, was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton and has now gotten aggressive in its battle with many e-commerce behemoths, Amazon being on the top of the list.

Keeping up with the latest trends in the digital world, Amazon has been swiftly improving its delivery options and online portfolios. However, Walmart and other top notch retailers are still tackling problems to catch up with the online leader. Nevertheless, though Amazon has long dominated e-commerce, Walmart, in an equivalent way, has ruled the brick-and-mortar retail.

Amazon was not the first online company, but has been the most innovative amongst others. A part of Amazon’s success can be attributed to its wide range of product offerings. As per reports, its first steps to success can be credited to a meager product category - books. With the introduction of Kindle, the company achieved popularity and maintained its position by coming up with several new innovative products and services. Now, the firm has been doing great by penetrating its services into their consumers’ everyday lives.

As per the bank Macquarie, more than half of the funds spent online in the U.S. are being credited to Amazon. Offerings such as Prime service and Kindle have paved the path for this company’s success, according to a leading report focusing on the success of e-commerce.

On the other hand, Walmart being world’s largest company by revenue and the largest private employer in the world, with over 2.2 million employees, is somehow struggling to connect with its consumers and woo them over exclusive deals.

In the meantime, this company has been signing agreements to enhance its business. The firm bought Jet.com for USD 3.3 billion and marked it as its strongest bid to compete with e-commerce leader Amazon. Walmart has also invested billions in expanding its online operation and has established two offices in Silicon Valley to strengthen its distribution networks.

The company has also started a similar subscription service like Amazon Prime, at half of the price. The acquisition of Jet.com has been touted as Walmart’s largest ever deal in U.S. and is deemed as its biggest attempt till date to chase down Amazon.

It is yet to be seen from the Walmart’s quarterly reports in 2017, whether these numerous efforts will pay off for the retail giant.