More Online Stores Might Give Amazon a Run for Its Money

This post on retailwire highlights how Walmart.com might soon surpass Amazon.com's online retail success with its new launch. Kerry Cooper, Walmart.com's CMO recently mentioned:

"We've added nearly one million new items to our online assortment with the introduction of Walmart Marketplace, making it even easier for customers to find more of what they want when shopping Walmart.com. Working with select retailers, known for their strong customer service and large online assortments of new merchandise, gives our customer more reasons to choose Walmart.com when shopping online."

Walmart is expanding its product offering through product merchants, but they are not alone as well. Sears.com, Overstock, and Buy.com are among others that also do this.

Kmart is Coming Back to Town

This latest article in retailwire highlights how Kmart, even though down 2% in sales this quarter,
has outperformed rivals Target and Wal-Mart which are down by a higher number. One of the reasons why Kmart might be bouncing back through the recession is because it offers its customers a layaway program so they have an opportunity to save for gifts, and this program is not available at Target or Wal-Mart. Kmart is also working with hundreds of designers to run a print campaign in Vogue, Glamour, and Lucky. It will be interesting to see how the Target and Wal-Mart will react to Kmart's recent success.

Target Mirrors Wal-Mart, Recession Relief in the Grocery Aisle

According to the Wall Street Journal, Target is set to add more mini-groceries to its stores in an effort to compete with Wal-Mart during the economic downturn. Known for skewing up market, the Minneapolis based retailer now needs to compete with many upwardly mobile shoppers who find themselves heading to Wal-Mart to save money.

According to the article, Target has tried to emphasize food previously. In 1995, it opened the first of 245 SuperTargets, which include a full array of groceries. But it has been reluctant to rapidly add to those 175,000-square-foot stores, unable to find enough profitable locations. Its sales last year of groceries, including pharmacy and beauty products, accounted for 37% of revenue compared with 59% of Wal-Mart's U.S. department-store sales.

The new minigroceries inside existing discount department stores have increased food sales 50% at test stores, and lifted sales of other items as well, Mr. Steinhafel said during a tour of a Target store in Sun Prairie, Wis., late last month. The grocery section there sported signs proclaiming, "Eat Well. Pay Less." in a nod to its "Expect More. Pay Less." marketing slogan.

Will there be an upswing in profits as Target expands their grocery offerings? We'd like to hear your thoughts.