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evanjacobstoday at 6:49 PM2 repliesview on HN

> There is little market share left for them to win

Despite controlling about 40% of US online retail, Amazon only has about an 8% share of total US retail. There’s still plenty of room to grow here.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-will-surpass-40-of-...


Replies

KittenInABoxtoday at 8:06 PM

What is there for Amazon to grow? They're closing their physical fresh stores etc. Is the intention to compete with Walmart and Dollar General?

NoMoreNicksLefttoday at 7:31 PM

I'm down to about one Walmart trip per year. It may have been as many as 3 years since I've been inside Target. Kmart is a dusty memory. On my last Walmart trip, it is a shabby caricature of what I remember from the early 2000s (maybe even on up into 2011 or 2012. I can't be sure, but I believe aisles have been made wider so they could fit fewer shelves and keep those looking fuller. What fills them is the cheapest looking junk I have ever seen, and I had no favorable opinion of Walmart's goods to start with. Truly much of it looks like the sort of trinkety crap you would have found at flea markets and gas stations years ago. Target was (3 years ago) still worse, I think they do most of their ordering off of Temu.

If there is something I might prefer to not wait on Amazon for, I will not find it at Walmart even if I remember Walmart once carrying that product. This is without fail. Each new (rare) trip to Walmart reinforces the lesson.

I have never been fond of Walmart's grocery department. I suspect (long ago) that they were able to sell produce 1 cent cheaper than anyone else by buying the least-wanted, unsold inventory from agricultural distributors, and the quality always reflected that theory. I could buy strawberries from Walmart, buy them again from the local grocery chain 10 minutes later, put them in the fridge simultaneously. And the Walmart-bought produce was slimy the next day, the grocery store produce not (unless I stacked the Walmart clamshell on the grocery store one... cross-contamination).

Worse still, they have reduced their personnel to skeleton crews, all shifts. The stores tend to look like they were looted after hurricanes. I do not know how anyone shops at Walmart, and it scares me that if my circumstances were less agreeable I might be forced to shop there too. Walmart might aim for stealing marketshare from Dollar General as a growth strategy, the overlap must be nearly absolute.