Comparing Walmart And Amazon

The opinion piece published by the Los Angeles Times, “Amazon.com Is a 21st Century Deal with the Devil,” by Amy Koss states her central argument that Amazon is destroying jobs, malls, and stores in the outside world. I strongly disagree with the statement that Amazon is destroying jobs and stores because I believe Amazon brings convenience by allowing people to sell things they might not need that others do. According to Koss,” I also think that it is at the convenience of consumers who have a difficult time going outside because of a medical issue or if they’re just lazy because of the fact that they can order something and have it delivered to them in less than a few days with an even cheaper price tag. Online shopping on Amazon allows others to earn jobs as well because they might work from home and work for Amazon or they might deliver items to the consumer. Some people may even start their own online selling business on Amazon. Amy Koss even states that it’s a cheaper way of buying products ”’Do you want it cheap? Less than anywhere

"We are not in business to make maximum profit for our shareholders. We are in business...to serve society. Profit is our reward for doing it well. If business does not serve society, society will not long tolerate our profits or even our existence."

Do you like shopping? Both Costco and Sam’s Club are very popular stores. They are both in the top ten biggest retailers in the world. They bring in a ton of money to the people that own them. They are both Warehouse Clubs, which means they are massive stores that require a membership to enter. They also opened at around the same time, not really that long ago compared to other stores. They are both very similar to each other, but have a few differences.

From shared operating and advertising costs to exposure to diverse customer demands. However, the ability to respond to changing consumer needs and a combination of wholesaling and retailing operations led to the biggest and most noticeable effect, lower prices to consumers. The heart of the Wal-Mart strategy was to aggressively plan, organize and outthink their competitors by providing the best products, values, and prices. The Wal-Mart mission and vision statement “Saving people money so that they can live better.” (Wal-Mart, Inc., 2017) The company’s primary goal “To be America’s one-stop shop.” (Wal-Mart, Inc., 2017) The organizational strategy of Wal-Mart is to keep costs low and make a profit on high turnover sales, which result in volume revenue. A plan designed to dominate the retail market by way of a push to pull production model, which allowed retailers to direct manufacturer what to make or produce and at what price point. As a result, this model gave Wal-Mart a competitive advantage to control the market and offer low prices to customers. In correlation to economist Peter Drucker’s S.M.A.R.T principles, Wal-Mart was (S) specific, (M) measurable, (A) achievable, (R) realistic and (T) time-bound in their decision-making, which gave them a competitive advantage over their competition aimed at

Save money, Live Better. This is a phrase we have heard for years on Television commercials while growing up. This is the famous key motto for Walmart, which is probably the biggest supermarket in the United States as of today. Everybody loves this supermarket, but fails to realize what goes on behind closed doors to make this company as big as it is. People don’t see the bad sacrifices and risk taking place to make Wal-Mart the place it is today. People fail to see Wal-Mart in a negative light! Wal-Mart is bad for America, because of how the employees are treated, customers aren’t cared for, and how it affects the city.

Amazon is purely an online sales portal. Based on premium web rating organizations Amazon has a position ranging from 4 to 10 on a global ranking of premium websites. The presence of Amazon in the virtual world of internet is unquestionable. Big Data is a technology area which is highly talked about during the last several years. During the last 18 months, companies in the retail sector, manufacturing, construction, and technology areas have realized the extreme potential of Big Data and are trying to gain maximum advantage from it. Amazon is no exception. Amazon uses big data services to analyze consumer trends, marketing strategies, planning the development of new products, and other insights related to marketing their products and offerings.

Walmart was founded in the summer of 1962 by Kingfisher, Oklahoma native Sam Walton. Although Walton’s original vision for the store was relatively modest, the half century since its founding has seen Walmart morph into one of the biggest companies in the world. Today headed by one Doug McMillon, Walmart boasts more than 5000 stores in the United States of America alone and employs more than 1.5 million people.

Walmart, as one of the world’s largest company it’s corporation contains grocery shopping, pharmacy, electronic sales, an outside garden etc. It is very convenient for people all around the world and low income families who are unable to afford other expensive goods made in the United States. Since Walmart is considered a world wide’s supermarket, it has investments outside of the United States such as in China, United Kingdom, and south America. When the prices are less, people are able to afford these products and throughout the century, it’s easy to tell that Walmart has made a huge impact in the United States economy. However, Walmart

Hardworking American soldiers are being put in dangerous missions to help ship cargo for military technology corporations. Meanwhile, all of the tax payer's money that goes to the military goes straight to corporations that focus on improving military advancement in weaponry, instead of soldiers' hospital bills or survival needs. In addition to the immoral acts of corporations, companies like Parson's Corporation are given a significant amount of money to spend, only to produce low quality products to make more money for themselves. Yet, CEOs are still living luxurious lifestyles without having to worry about a single concern.

One of the major ways in which Walmart was able to grow and out compete its rivals was through its ability to provide retail goods to consumers at prices lower than competitors (Ferrell 407). Walmart ability to keep prices low is based on its ability to secure cheaply made goods from foreign manufacturers while also keeping the wages for its workforce low. The combination of cheaply made goods and a low paid retail staff means that Walmart can pass the savings to consumers which made it a popular retail shopping spot for lower to middle income Americans

Amazon’s competitive strategy is cost leadership. Amazon has achieved a lot on a great scale that it gets the best prices from its vendors so they can operate in very flexible and thin margins and sell their items easily at retail prices and make money. They also provide shipping products for a reasonable cheap price. They also have improved their warehouses by giving some space to other sellers who want to sell their items through Amazon. They differentiate and provide better quality than their competitors across the industry.

Walmart Stores, Inc. - the American corporation which was established in 1962, is well-know for the globe’s largest multinational retailer (Walmart 2016). Walmart owns a chain of grocery stores, discount department stores and hypermarkets with about 11,500 retail stores over 28 countries. In 1998, Walmart entered Germany with the acquisition of Wertkauf and Interspar chain (Louisa 2006). Despite having the strongest economy in Europe and the third largest retail market in the world, Germany was not an ideal place for Walmart to achieve its ambition (Knorr and Andt 2003). After nearly a decade struggling to grow, Walmart decided to pull out of German market in 2006 with the loss of one billion dollars (Mark 2006).

Amazon has achieved many milestones from starting in the founder’s garage in 1994 to the growth in revenue to US$147.8 million in 1997 and then to the revenue growth of US$177.866 billion in 2017 (Amazon, 2018a, Amazon, 2018b and Jurevicius, 2018). These milestones were achieved through tenacious focused strategies of meeting their customers’ needs and wants. These strategies have maintained and expanded their customer base locally and internationally and have increased its market shares and profit over the last two decades. In addition, projection for the company’s growth and expansion for the next three to five years looks positive as it predicted to grow at the same rate with its expansion internationally and continued focused in satisfying consumers’ wants (Amazon, 2018a). Although, some factors such as governmental policies, legal issues and natural disasters could pose a threat to Amazon’s growth plans, the management team led by the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) are working on mitigating the risk (Amazon, 2018a). Some of these efforts are the planned building of its disaster recovery data farm in Canada and construction of more fulfillment centres in Asia, Europe and the rest of the world (Amazon, 2018a). Diversification is another strategy that Amazon has employed in improving its market stocks and money earned. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a good example of diversification strategy employed by Amazon in order to increase its revenue and market shares.

The value chain model of Amazon in itself is internally and operationally the best that adds value and maintains competitive advantage. The primary activities include Inbound logistics for example quality control, receiving, raw materials, control and supply schedules; Operations for example packaging , maintenance, quality control; Outbound Logistics for example finishing goods, order handling, delivery, dispatch, invoicing; Sales & Marketing for example customer management, order taking, promotion, market research, sales analysis; Servicing for example warranty, maintenance, education and training. Support activities of Amazon include administrative and finance infrastructure; human resources management; product & technology development and procurement. This leads to less cost and more profit margins.

The company must also decide based on the market what is the best strategy in order to reach the customer and not just the strategy that will help it enter the country. The author Cunningham (1986) identified five strategies in order to enter a new market: