Word: marte
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Investors clearly think the game is over, rewarding pure-play e-tailers with market capitalizations that dwarf their off-line competitors--Amazon's $32 billion, vs. Sears' and K Mart's combined $17 billion; eToys' $4.5 billion, vs. Toys "R" Us' $3.6 billion; and, even more amazing, airline-ticket broker Priceline.com's $8.3 billion, vs. the combined $8.6 billion market cap of Continental Airlines, US Airways and United Airlines...
...tough to see why 100 million customers shop at Wal-Mart every week. The nation's top retailer sells everything from sweatpants to string beans, rakes to Ritalin. It keeps its prices low, its shelves stocked and its big, wide aisles peppered with blue-smocked clerks. The company will ring up about $160 billion in domestic sales by year's end, with profits on track to top $5 billion. With that kind of scratch--and a proven knack for giving people what they want--the House That Sam Built seems a shoo-in for success in cyberspace...
...Mart's website so crummy? Product selection has improved recently, but it's still puny. The design is underwhelming; search and navigation tools are weak. And don't try returning something bought online to a store. "It's the biggest toy seller in the country, and its toy site is terrible," says Forrester Research analyst David Cooperstein...
...fooled. Wal-Mart's website may be a disappointment now, but many suspect it's just the soup before the souffle--served to tide customers over while the company cooks up something better. Wal-Mart is doing what it has always done, notes DLJ analyst Gary Balter: watching, learning and biding its time before swooping in for the kill. "By no means should anyone assume that Wal-Mart's not going to be a major, major player in the longer term on the Internet," Balter says, "because it will...
...first strike is planned for New Year's Day, when Wal-Mart has said it will launch a redesign of the site, adding photo and travel services and expanding the menu to 600,000 items (superstores typically stock about 100,000). The company also promises to link the site to its 2,485 stores in 50 states, allowing online purchases to be returned off-line. "We'll even refund the shipping charges," says Glenn Habern, Wal-Mart's Web war chief...