Wal-Mart is in talks with retail manager giant Lord & Taylor (L&T), the oldest high-end luxury department store in the United States, to try and boost their online traffic. This deal could be beneficial to both Wal-Mart and L&T as both stores have seen a decline in actual business and traffic in their physical locations. This deal would be in effort by Wal-Mart to try and be a larger competitor to online shopping tycoon Amazon.com by offering more brands than itself available on Wal-Mart’s own website.
This is in contrast to Amazon itself expanding into more physical locations, as can be seen through their purchase and acquisition of grocery store Whole Foods. Will the joint deal with L&T be enough to boost Wal-Mart’s online presence to be of bigger competition to that of Amazon? I am not sure if it will be.
For what I see, Wal-Mart is going to have a difficult road ahead of it as it is competing directly with their own market position, or how customers view Wal-Mart itself. When thinking of the company Wal-Mart the thing that jumps to mind is not online shopping or luxury, but rather inexpensive, price matching and the place to go when you are on a budget. The deal being made with L&T was to unify the sites together, but it made no mention as to the specifics and whether or not L&T would redirect their own site traffic to Wal-Mart. Amazon on the other hand has an easier time with it’s market position. It is easier to buy a brand like Whole Foods and take over their business and locations than it would be to redirect how people shop online. Also, Amazon has been making deals themselves with higher end lines such as Nike and Kate Spade to enhance their already wide and rather diverse selection.
Peter J. Rinaldi
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-nears-web-deal-with-lord-taylor-1508410801
It's interesting to see how some companies battle each other, while others partner up and they both win. In this case we'll see if laziness takes over making Amazon the dominant retail store.
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