Open 130 stores in the 2017 fiscal year ending in February and 55 in the 2018 fiscal year ending in February 2018.
For a company with nearly 4,600 stores nationwide, those projections reflect relatively inconsequential growth. In the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years, the company added 198 and 316 stores, respectively, according to a securities filing.
The planned small-format openings in the U.S. include 70 in 2017 and 20 in 2018, reflecting a sharp decline after opening 161 in 2016.
These stores are onramps to the company’s online grocery service, Amazon Fresh, which delivers stuff to your door. And they’re giant advertisements for Amazon Fresh. But they can also double as distribution centers. They additional outposts in the vast Amazonian distribution network that is slowly stretching across the planet. You need places that can move all the fresh eggs and milk from week to week, and they might as well double as stores. It’s the same logic that keeps your local grocery store open all night long as employees restock the place: if someone is there, they might as well stay open.
Amazon is not the only e-commerce company planning retail real-estate investments.
And Walmart is not the only grocer exploring various strategies to defend market share from Amazon. Over the last year Kroger has used stores in the Indianapolis area to test and refine its ClickList program by which customers can order online and pick-up at stores. The program is now being rolled out beyond the test-market (and here). Online competition for grocery buying is likely to intensify, even while some warn that technology and marketing may be getting too far ahead of customer demand.
The battle between Walmart and Amazon promises to set consumer expectations and, one way or another, shape how we shop for groceries in 2026.
[Excellent extended piece on the Walmart online grocery strategy from the Washington Post. Related piece from the Wall Street Journal.]
And Walmart is not the only grocer exploring various strategies to defend market share from Amazon. Over the last year Kroger has used stores in the Indianapolis area to test and refine its ClickList program by which customers can order online and pick-up at stores. The program is now being rolled out beyond the test-market (and here). Online competition for grocery buying is likely to intensify, even while some warn that technology and marketing may be getting too far ahead of customer demand.
The battle between Walmart and Amazon promises to set consumer expectations and, one way or another, shape how we shop for groceries in 2026.
[Excellent extended piece on the Walmart online grocery strategy from the Washington Post. Related piece from the Wall Street Journal.]
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