A Reuters
report in September last year (which we reported in this
column) said, "Wal-Mart Stores Inc will no longer sell
Amazon.com Inc's Kindle eReaders and tablets, severing its
relationship with a major competitor." We predicted Walmart would
introduce their own gadget and give it away free to replace that
trojan horse. What's happening now is that they have developed an
app for the iPhone as a free download.While Walmart is almost a half-trillion dollar company with annual revenues of $466 billion for its fiscal year 2013, which ended January 31, its online sales revenue is only 9 billion dollars compared to 61 billion for Amazon. Walmart want's to compete and win.
"Walmart is a technology company. Let’s just put that out there right now. The company has crushed all competitors through its mastery of supply-chain logistics and inventory management, which above all are engineering problems," says a recent Wired report.
In August last year, Reuters reported that Wal-Mart Stores Inc was testing a system at a Walmart supercenter in Rogers, Arkansas, near the company's headquarters that would allow shoppers to scan items using their iPhones and then pay at a self-checkout counter, a move to trim checkout times and costs for retailers.
The latest news is that Walmart's app-based self-checkout is available in more than 200 stores in the US, Wired says, "When you open Walmart’s location-aware main app in a store that has iPhone self-checkout, the so-called “Scan & Go” option becomes available. You scan the barcodes on items as you put them in your (physical) shopping cart, and the app keeps a running total. When you’re done, you go to a standard self-checkout station and choose the “mobile” option on the terminal next to the card swiper. A QR code appears on the screen. Scan the code with your phone, and the app transfers over the contents of your (virtual) shopping cart. Pay as usual, and you’re done." (Watch the Walmart video.)
Yes, anyone who gives Amazon some competition deserves our support.
