Company / division: Jet
Wal-Mart Unveils ‘Store No. 8’ Tech Incubator in Silicon Valley – Bloomberg (Mar 21, 2017)
It’s interesting to see Walmart dialing this kind of thing up, while Target recently discontinued several efforts along similar lines. Walmart’s approach certainly makes a lot more sense – retailers absolutely have to be innovating around the in-store experience if they’re to preserve and build whatever advantages physical retail has, and technology is going to be central to that effort. That’s not to say Walmart will succeed – arguably most of its past innovations have been about merchandizing rather than technology, but it’s certainly got the resources to invest significantly in figuring things out.
via Bloomberg
Walmart has acquired a Zappos competitor to boost Jet.com’s shoe business – Recode (Jan 5, 2017)
Walmart has been hard hit by Amazon’s success and dominance of e-commerce, but has lately been taking more proactive steps to fill gaps in its own e-commerce portfolio, using its Jet acquisition to make further buys. Given the sheer number of small- to medium-sized e-commerce plays out there, Walmart can easily snap up these focused providers and roll them up into its broader e-commerce offering, accelerating its efforts to become more competitive with Amazon.
via Walmart has acquired a Zappos competitor to boost Jet.com’s shoe business – Recode