Wal-Mart to test new in-store locker service, following in Amazon’s footsteps

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Wal-Mart is looking to turn its huge brick-and-mortar retail footprint into a beneficial asset as it continues to battle against Amazon.com. And it’s latest effort to do so is an area where Amazon has already innovated: physical lockers. Wal-Mart announced at an event in San Bruno, California today that it plans to begin testing a… Read More…

Target wants to eliminate showrooming by matching Amazon prices

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Target Corp. introduced an online price-matching program just for the holiday season, but now it looks like it’s permanent. The Minneapolis-based retailer announced today that it will allow customers to use Amazon prices for its products on year-round basis. The company will do the same for prices from Best Buy, Walmart and Toys R Us, but Amazon… Read More…

Sweet deal: Wal-Mart offering iPhone 5 for $127, third-gen iPad for $399

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Both my colleague John Cook and I are in the market for a new smartphone, and Wal-Mart’s latest deals certainly just caught our eye. The retailer is now selling the iPhone5 for just $127 on contract and the 4S for $47 on contract. Wal-Mart is also selling the 16GB third-gen iPad with WiFi for $399, along with… Read More…

U.S. Postal Service to test same-day delivery service Metro Post

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It seems everyone is now experimenting with the concept of same-day package delivery — even The U.S. Postal Service. Today, it filed documents with the Postal Regulatory Commission for a new program called Metro Post which is designed to deliver packages on the same day the orders are placed from online retailing partners. To kick… Read More…

Wal-Mart takes direct aim at Amazon, promises same-day delivery in 10 cities

Walmart is trying to roll onto Amazon's turf

In July, Amazon.com CFO Thomas Szutak seemed to douse reports that the online retailer would go big with same-day shipping, with the tech executive noting that “we don’t really see a way to do same-day delivery on a broad-scale economically.” But Wal-Mart is tinkering with the concept, and it is pushing ahead aggressively with a… Read More…

Study of Seattle consumers shows how weather influences online shopping

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One particularly bleak January day, while staring at my computer screen for what seemed the 17th hour on an incredibly tedious, time-consuming freelance project, I did what many would do — I turned to Zappos. Two days later, more than $800 in Frye boots landed at my doorstep. It was then that I realized that… Read More…

Chart: The most visited retail sites on Thanksgiving Day

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Americans not only chowed down on turkey and dressing on Thanksgiving Day. They also visited their favorite online retailers. According to a new study by Hitwise, total visits to the top 500 retail Web sites increased by nine percent on Thanksgiving Day to 176 million visits. Walmart received 24.8 million visits, making it the most… Read More…

Are Wal-Mart and Amazon on a collision course?

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Two developments this past week signal that Wal-Mart is getting more serious about the online world, and could very well have Amazon.com in its crosshairs. On Saturday, Wal-Mart began testing a new home grocery delivery service in San Jose, California called Walmart to Go. As many Seattleites already know, Amazon.com has been developing its own… Read More…