Walmart Labs acquires Inkiru as Amazon rivalry heats up

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Thanks to an acquisition, Walmart’s online store is getting smarter. In a post Monday on the official Walmart Labs blog, the company announced the acquisition of Inkiru, a predictive analytics company based in Palo Alto, Calif. Inkiru is the latest in a series of acquisitions by the big box retailer designed to augment its e-commerce… Read More…

Placed Insights reveals where people shop most; McDonald’s, Walmart, Subway lead the way

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After two years of hard work, a name-change and an incredible amount of data crunching, Placed has become the first company to offer a ratings service to help understand where people are going in the physical world.  “This is everything that Placed has been working on these past two years,” CEO David Shim said. The Seattle location analytics… Read More…

Wal-Mart may reward in-store shoppers for delivering packages to online customers

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Could the Wal-Mart shopper become the next-generation UPS guy or gal? The giant retailer, looking to compete more aggressively with Amazon.com in online retail, is considering a plan in which in-store shoppers could pick up online orders and then deliver them to the nearby homes of those customers who purchased online. The concept, first reported… Read More…

Turkey, stuffing and online shopping: Amazon.com leads the way on Thanksgiving Day

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Americans just didn’t chow down on turkey and cranberry relish on Thanksgiving Day. They also took some time to do some shopping. Experian Hitwise found that retail traffic increased 71 percent this past Thursday when compared to Thanksgiving last year. All told, the top 500 retail Web sites attracted 181 million visits. Amazon.com led the… Read More…

Walmart follows Target, stops selling Amazon Kindles

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Seeing the online retailer as a threat to profits, Walmart has decided to follow Target in removing the Amazon Kindle lineup from its offerings of tablets and e-readers in stores. With Amazon tablets selling at reduced prices to increase online digital sales, Walmart will phase out Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle e-books until current inventory is… Read More…

Study: Walmart stores are 20% cheaper than Amazon

Walmart is trying to roll onto Amazon's turf

We’ve been closely watching the online retail battle unfold between Amazon.com and Walmart. But there’s one place where Walmart is still winning the price war: brick-and-mortar retail. A study out from Kantar Retail found that Walmart Supercenters were far cheaper than both Amazon.com and Walmart.com when comparing 36 items in the categories of edible grocery;… Read More…

As battle with Amazon rages, Walmart nominates Google vet Marissa Mayer to board

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Walmart’s intensifying rivalry with Amazon.com has been well documented. And Walmart’s desires to become an even bigger presence in the online worldis no secret, with the company gobbling up startup companies and hiring top technical talent in an all-out effort to knock Amazon off its perch. Today, the giant Arkansas retailer took a big step… Read More…

Walmart versus Amazon: The next great tech battle?

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One of the most fascinating rivalries going on in tech right now isn’t between Apple and Microsoft. Or Google and Facebook. It’s actually the battle for online retail dollars between Walmart and Amazon.com, a fight for the hearts and minds of the world’s shoppers. Through its Walmart Labs unit, the giant Arkansas retailer is investing… Read More…

Walmart scoops up mobile dev shop that built iPhone apps for Starbucks, Zipcar and others

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Small Society, a tiny Portland mobile application development firm which in the past has developed apps for Starbucks, Amazon.com, Zipcar and the Democratic National Committee, has been acquired for an undisclosed price by Walmart. The acquisition follows news that we broke last week that Ubermind — a Seattle mobile app developer — had been acquired… Read More…

T-Mobile’s discount strategy now includes a $30 plan at Walmart

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T-Mobile plans to begin selling a $30 wireless plan at Walmart, one of the latest moves by the Bellevue carrier to sell phones and services at discount retailers across the country. In August, T-Mobile inked deals to sell a prepaid T-Mobile phone, the LG GS170, for $30 in 7-Eleven and Family Dollar discount stores. Customers… Read More…