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How can walmart compete without the ecosystem tie-in that amazon prime has? Amazon prime has movies, music, twitch, etc. What does walmart plus offer? It's inc

by disown 6y ago

How can walmart compete without the ecosystem tie-in that amazon prime has? Amazon prime has movies, music, twitch, etc. What does walmart plus offer? It's incredible that amazon's market cap is now 4X walmart's. Amazon is well on its way to becoming the 2nd 2 trillion dollar company after Apple. Bezos and his ex-wife's shares are now worth $260 billion. Bezos is the world's wealthiest person and his wife is the world's wealthiest woman. Of course it's mostly all on paper at the moment, but the run the big tech companies had in the past 5 years is breathtaking. Is it substantive or a gigantic bubble? What's interesting is that it took AAPL and AMZN decades to become a trillion dollar company. It took AAPL a few months to add another trillion to their market cap. AMZN is on track to do the same.

pythonaut_16 6y ago
> Is it substantive or a gigantic bubble? It's both IMO. The whole market is in a giant bubble due to various fiscal policies and decisions, but the big tech companies have substantive/reasonably solid businesses within the bubble.
kube-system 6y ago
How much gravity does their ecosystem really have? I know some people clearly use it, but anecdotally, most people I know bought prime for the shipping.
- bombledmonk 6y ago
  It's all anecdotal on my end to, but video seems to be the biggest sticking point in my circle of people. I don't really keep Prime for free shipping, especially when you can still get free shipping on $25+ orders, and their performance during covid has made it even less appealing. I keep Prime for Video mostly (kids titles), but We use the free Prime music (not unlimited) quite a bit. I recently discovered Prime books with kids titles which end up being convenient for car rides or times when carrying many books is inconvenient, but libraries have plenty of assortment for kids ebooks these days so that's not really a selling point.
grillvogel 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue#List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... Walmart is a behemoth. Also Walmart has the advantage of local stores to deal with returns etc
- laluser 6y ago
  That's a pretty weak advantage. My closest walmart is much further than my local ups/usps/amazon drop off. Also, don't forget that Amazon grew 30-40% last quarter y/y.
  - grillvogel 6y ago
    walmart is the only retailer in some areas
- Spivak 6y ago
  I'm lucky to live near one of those Amazon locker stores and the process has been pretty good. Just show up with the item, print out your return label at the koisk, put it into one of their bags, and drop it in the slot. Very little hassle.
NDizzle 6y ago
I don't really use movies, music, or twitch, yet I've been on this site for a long time. Amazon's prime movie/TV content hasn't ever been anything that I've felt the need to click on. I've enjoyed the shipping and the ease of purchases. I'll most likely switch.
x87678r 6y ago
Amazon movies and music are junk. You can use twitch without prime. Photo storage is probably good but I dont trust them enough to spend the effort. I'm regularly surprised how many people pay the Amazon Prime tax. Its easy to live without.
- Spivak 6y ago
  I mean $100/yr to get faster shipping and not have to batch orders in groups of $25 for an entire household is pretty okay value.
- vamsipk 6y ago
  I don't listen to music but Amazon Prime video is not junk. They make high quality tv shows and have good international content. It's comparable to Netflix.
  - tssva 6y ago
    We must somehow have completely different Amazon Prime video services because the one I have only has 1 or 2 ok original programming shows and a limited selection of mostly at best B tier movies.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > We must somehow have completely different Amazon Prime video services Or different tastes.
      - x87678r 6y ago
        Hey I like B grade movies, but most of the ones on Prime dont make that cut. :)
    - dllthomas 6y ago
      The service I have has a couple highly enjoyable original series, a pile of random stuff arguably worth watching, and an unfathomably endless tail of truly surprising garbage.
jrott 6y ago
I don't think they can compete on ecosystem. However they can win on not having a problem with fakes and actually handling all of the orders themselves instead of being a marketplace for third party sellers.
- Spivak 6y ago
  I hate to disappoint but Walmart.com has the same 3rd party seller problem.
  - zhobbs 6y ago
    Walmart+ only applies to in store items as far as I can tell.
- doktorhladnjak 6y ago
  If I want to buy items where the origin or authenticity doesn't matter and pay rock bottom prices, I can go to eBay which makes no pretense about what they have to offer. Amazon continues to pay lip service to the fakes problem but it's a major reason I only buy items there when there aren't other good options now.

by disown 6y ago

pythonaut_16 6y ago

> Is it substantive or a gigantic bubble? It's both IMO. The whole market is in a giant bubble due to various fiscal policies and decisions, but the big tech companies have substantive/reasonably solid businesses within the bubble.

kube-system 6y ago

How much gravity does their ecosystem really have? I know some people clearly use it, but anecdotally, most people I know bought prime for the shipping.

bombledmonk 6y ago
It's all anecdotal on my end to, but video seems to be the biggest sticking point in my circle of people. I don't really keep Prime for free shipping, especially when you can still get free shipping on $25+ orders, and their performance during covid has made it even less appealing. I keep Prime for Video mostly (kids titles), but We use the free Prime music (not unlimited) quite a bit. I recently discovered Prime books with kids titles which end up being convenient for car rides or times when carrying many books is inconvenient, but libraries have plenty of assortment for kids ebooks these days so that's not really a selling point.

grillvogel 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue#List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... Walmart is a behemoth. Also Walmart has the advantage of local stores to deal with returns etc

laluser 6y ago
That's a pretty weak advantage. My closest walmart is much further than my local ups/usps/amazon drop off. Also, don't forget that Amazon grew 30-40% last quarter y/y.
- grillvogel 6y ago
  walmart is the only retailer in some areas
Spivak 6y ago
I'm lucky to live near one of those Amazon locker stores and the process has been pretty good. Just show up with the item, print out your return label at the koisk, put it into one of their bags, and drop it in the slot. Very little hassle.

NDizzle 6y ago

I don't really use movies, music, or twitch, yet I've been on this site for a long time. Amazon's prime movie/TV content hasn't ever been anything that I've felt the need to click on. I've enjoyed the shipping and the ease of purchases. I'll most likely switch.

x87678r 6y ago

Amazon movies and music are junk. You can use twitch without prime. Photo storage is probably good but I dont trust them enough to spend the effort. I'm regularly surprised how many people pay the Amazon Prime tax. Its easy to live without.

Spivak 6y ago
I mean $100/yr to get faster shipping and not have to batch orders in groups of $25 for an entire household is pretty okay value.
vamsipk 6y ago
I don't listen to music but Amazon Prime video is not junk. They make high quality tv shows and have good international content. It's comparable to Netflix.
- tssva 6y ago
  We must somehow have completely different Amazon Prime video services because the one I have only has 1 or 2 ok original programming shows and a limited selection of mostly at best B tier movies.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > We must somehow have completely different Amazon Prime video services Or different tastes.
    - x87678r 6y ago
      Hey I like B grade movies, but most of the ones on Prime dont make that cut. :)
  - dllthomas 6y ago
    The service I have has a couple highly enjoyable original series, a pile of random stuff arguably worth watching, and an unfathomably endless tail of truly surprising garbage.

jrott 6y ago

I don't think they can compete on ecosystem. However they can win on not having a problem with fakes and actually handling all of the orders themselves instead of being a marketplace for third party sellers.

Spivak 6y ago
I hate to disappoint but Walmart.com has the same 3rd party seller problem.
- zhobbs 6y ago
  Walmart+ only applies to in store items as far as I can tell.
doktorhladnjak 6y ago
If I want to buy items where the origin or authenticity doesn't matter and pay rock bottom prices, I can go to eBay which makes no pretense about what they have to offer. Amazon continues to pay lip service to the fakes problem but it's a major reason I only buy items there when there aren't other good options now.