Same-day shipping became the big retailer craze this holiday season. Why? As the New York Times points out, retailers are living in fear of Amazon.com and trying to match what the online retailer offers.
The fear factor — Wal-Mart once had a trance on retail. Now it’s Amazon.com. But it’s not just retail that has begun to show deeper anxiety about Amazon. Its’ the enterprise giants, too, that… → Read More
Wal-Mart this morning announced that it intends to acquire a minority stake in the holding company of Yihaodian, a massive B2C ecommerce company based in China. The transaction is expected to close within 60 days, the retail giant says.
Launched in July 2008, Yihaodian offers more than 75,000 products ranging from clothing to grocery to consumer electronics. Less than 3 years after launch, the… → Read More
You can now find the Kobo Wireless e-reader on walmart.com. You can also find it in brick-and-mortar Wal-Mart stores, so it all works out. → Read More
Solar City, a company that designs, installs, and leases out solar power systems to home and business owners, announced that it will bring renewable electricity to some 30 Wal-Mart stores in California and Arizona.
Chief executive and founder of Solar City, Lyndon Rive [pronounced like “five”] spoke with TechCrunch about helping Wal-Mart go greener, what his company looks for in solar… → Read More
Wal-Mart has the 16GB Zune HD available for $162.54 plus free shipping (and tax, if applicable). It usually retails for $199, so you’re saving quite a bit. Well, provided you were in the market for a Zune HD to begin with. Incidentally, that’s where I bought my Zune HD from, the local Wal-Mart. Fascinating, yes. → Read More
When it was announced that retailer Walmart would buy streaming movie startup Vudu a couple days ago, a number of sites wondered what it would mean for Vudu’s adult content. Here’s what it means: bye bye.
An email is currently being sent out by Vudu letting its After Dark (the adult portion of its service run with adult publication AVN) partners that the section will be discontinued in the… → Read More
It’s so, so easy to hate on Wal-Mart, what with destroying this country’s mom and pop culture, importing cheap junk from China, and freaking out whenever employees mention the word “union.” But if you’re a gamer, you really ought to cast aside your prejudices, brave the crowds, and find the games you’ve always wanted for a good $10 less than what you’ll find elsewhere. That’s right: we’re… → Read More
American exceptionalism! Don’t scenes like this make you proud of your country? Then again, maybe these people really wanted that copy of Guitar Hero World Tour? ::shoulder shrug:: → Read More
Books, books, books! The American Booksellers Association, a trade group that represents small bookstores (not Barnes and Noble and the other big guys), has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether or not Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target have “[devalued] the very concept of the book” with their ongoing price war. Well, they’re actually asking for an investigation into their selling… → Read More
Hey, lookin’ good there Mr. Man. I like your protective booties. They look like slippers!
Wal-Mart has contracted with service provider N.E.W. to offer tech support services, seemingly in an attempt to compete with Best Buy’s Geek Squad and similar outfits. → Read More
Well this is the dumbest story I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of them! Once upon a time, there was a fugitive in Lee County in Florida. His criminal background—his FourSquare achievements, if you will—included armed robbery and kidnapping. He’s thrown in jail in early September, but then breaks out using a fake ID. But then, only a little while later, he’s arrested again. Guess… → Read More
Father’s Day is coming up, I guess, and Wal Mart is having a fire sale on gadgets and doodad’s to fill dad’s “man cave.” The savings start on June 14th and run till June 20th. Here are a few notable items that will be on sale during that time: $128 Blu-ray player, $697 42-inch LCD HDTV, $199 Palm Pre sans MIR, and a ton of other goods. Hit the jump to see the full list. → Read More
Trading in your used video games could get even less personal (not that it needs to be personal in the first place) the next time you’re at Wal-Mart. The company is apparently testing out kiosks for buying, renting, and even trading in movies and games. → Read More
By adding higher-end, interactive displays, Wal-Mart intents to grab big box shoppers who might have once gone to dedicated electronics stores but are now looking for something a bit more interesting. That’s right: Wal-Mart looking to take over where Circuit City left off – offering high-priced electronics in a physical environment reminiscent of the canteen on a prison planet staffed by the… → Read More
Has anyone else seen or purchased a white DualShock 3 controller for the PS3 in the US? A chap by the name of Henry sent in a few photos of a white PS3 DualShock3 controller that he purchased at a Wal Mart in Florida on Monday. → Read More
I’ve worked plenty of thankless retail jobs so I can sympathize with the grind but please, customer service people, check the boxes of stuff that gets returned to your store. A Nintendo DS box filled with rocks and newspaper was apparently returned to a Wal Mart store in Florida, then put back on the floor TWICE, and sold to a mother who gave it to her son as a birthday present. → Read More
Looking to build on US sales of its notebooks and netbooks, word on the street is that “ASUS is expected to start marketing its notebooks through Wal-Mart in the second half of 2009,” according to a DigiTimes report. → Read More
Online holiday sales deflated 3 percent this year. ComScore estimates that holiday sales in the U.S. totaled $25.5 billion between November 1 and December 23, the last day orders could be delivered in time for Christmas. The comparable total in 2007 was $26.3 billion.
Sales were struggling to keep up with last year’s totals all holiday season. In the end, they fell short. (Hitwise comes to… → Read More
BGR is reporting that some parts of AT&T’s network were failing just as the phones bought at Wal-Mart stores this weekend were getting online. → Read More
Yahoo is reporting that Wal-Mart is now selling the 8GB iPhone 3G for $197, $103 more than the $99 we were hoping last week. Not much else to report on this one but it is interesting to see the iPhone visit the hinterlands where AT&T and Apple stores are scarce. → Read More
The Wal-Mart/iP3G rumor has been swirling for months now and the latest tid-bit states that Wal-Mart will indeed sell an iPhone3G, but it’s going to be a 4GB version for $99 with a two-year agreement. Plausible? Sure. → Read More
After a tepid start, online holiday sales seem to be picking up a bit. Online sales on Cyber Monday as measured by comScore were a healthy $846 million, up 15 percent from last year’s Cyber Monday. Online sales since Thanksgiving are up 12 percent to $2.4 billion. But overall online sales in November of $12 billion are still down 2 percent.
Can sales make up the difference over the next five… → Read More
No story has ever annoyed me as much as the Black Friday death that occurred at a Long Island Wal-Mart last week. What’s worse is that, right now, it doesn’t look like the police will be able to identify the perpetrators. They’ll walk away scot-free, content with having bought some piece of garbage widget for $5 less than they would have paid on any other day. That, and having… → Read More
How were the crowds at your local Best Buy, Circuit City and PC Richards yesterday? Good? Great? Grim? (My local Best Buy was pretty crowded yesterday, to say nothing of the mall itself; parking space was at a premium.) To be sure, if there’s one item these retailers hope to sell this holiday season it’s HDTVs. Lots of them, preferably. Like it or not, but HDTVs have become the great… → Read More
The theme this holiday shopping season is frugality. J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan expects online sales to be flat this year. In a survey of U.S. consumers conducted by J.P. Morgan, nearly 30 percent of online shoppers say they plan on spending less this year during the holidays than last year.
Nevertheless, online retailers should do better than offline ones. In total, including offline… → Read More
Big bad Wal-Mart, which supplies Main Street with the cheap goods it needs to survive, today officially released its Black Friday ad. Whoop-dee-do. Wal-Mart wants you to input your zip code in order to view your local Black Friday ad, so your mileage may vary. My zip code popped up a Magnavox Blu-ray player (the NB500MG9) for $128; a $798 50-inch 1080i/720p Samsung LCD TV; $15 Blu-ray movies… → Read More
Lady and gentlemen (get it, one lady?) I give you Walmart’s Black Friday ad, home of the $128 Blu-ray player and the $798 50-inch plasma TV. Notable deals include: → Read More
In the ultimate test to see whether or not Blu-ray is ready for mainstream adoption, Wal-Mart will be selling a Magnavox player for $128. If it creates stampedes like Wal-Mart’s $29 DVD player from 2003, we’ll know Blu-ray is here to stay. If people casually mosey over to the electronics department, glance at the tag, and head elsewhere, we’ll know that the high-definition downloading… → Read More
What’s wrong with Wal-Mart? Low prices, friendly old people greeting you as you enter. It’s this close to Heaven. NOT TO SOME PEOPLE. Channel Web, for instance. They have come up with five reasons why Wal-Mart selling the G1 at a discount is evil, evil, evil. You can read the list for yourself—it’s hilarious!—but I wanted to point this one out: It’s Wal-Mart. → Read More
Shipping delays have left Wal-Mart shelves bare of the first Android handset, the T-Mobile G1. It was originally reported that the mega-retailer would begin selling the G1 at a discounted price of $148.88 this week, but BetaNews has learned that this is not the case. “We’ve experienced a few shipping issues, but we’re working with T-Mobile on that,” said Wal-Mart’s… → Read More
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