Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) aims to learn from Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a company which studied it when it was still starting out, Shelly Banjo of the Wall Street Journal said in a recent discussion.
The comment from Banjo comes after her story on the Wall Street Journal where she wrote that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) will be focusing on smaller stores in order to grow.
Newshub host Simon Constable said at the start of the discussion that the retail giant is trying to get its mojo back by copying Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a company that copied it. Simon said that originally, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, learned from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) until his company became brilliant in its own right. Now, it’s the giant retailer that wants to learn from Bezos and company. Constable noted that it’s like a back and forth between the two companies and Banjo agreed. According to Banjo:
“Yes, back and forth but it points to the point that you can’t rest on your laurels. [It points to the fact] that you have to continue to iterate [and] continue to change as a retailer.”
The discussion then went on to point out how difficult it is for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) to increase sales in its stores. The duo also pointed out how hard it is for the company to increase sales by just 1%. According to Banjo, traffic and sales have been negative for six and five quarters in a row respectively when seen in a same-store basis.
Furthermore, to get just 1% growth for a year, Wal-Mart has to increase sales by $4.7 billion. Compare this to an increase of just $1.7 billion for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to post 1% growth. For The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) to post 1% growth, it needs a relatively small increase of $933.8 million while for The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), it is just $841.7 million, the discussion revealed.
Watch the discussion below where Walmart.com and other topics were also discussed.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) shareholders includes Richard Chilton’s Chilton Investment Company which reported, by the end of March, 982,906 shares in the company. Another shareholder is Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management which reported 729,015 shares also in the same period.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) investors includes hedge fund Matrix Capital Management managed by David Goel and Paul Ferri which reported 158,100 shares by the end of the first quarter. Another Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) investor is Daniel Benton’s Andor Capital Management which had 150,000 shares in the electronic commerce giant also by the end of March.
Disclosure: None
