Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by dkrich on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @11:31AM (#14604634)

I think concerns about Amazon becoming a monopoly are greatly exaggerated. They are getting attacked from all sides, by Microsoft in the cloud and Wal-Mart in ecommerce. As Microsoft grabs share from them in web services it'll reduce Amazon's ability to cross-subsidize its ecommerce business. As Wal-Mart and Costco continue to catch up in ecommerce and free two-day shipping becomes table stakes in ecommerce, Amazon's value proposition for Prime is going to diminish.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by randcraw on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @03:12PM (#14606987)

A few points in refutation. I see Amazon as far ahead of Walmart in all ways that promise growth:

1) Walmart may be the biggest retailer in the US, but they don't have half of the US homes as subscribers. Amazon Prime does. I doubt Walmart.com attracts any where near as many e-tail visitors as Amazon, and I suspect the gap is widening.

2) Amazon is decades ahead of Walmart in the online shopper experience. I grit my teeth each time I visit Walmart's website. It's slow and ugly and very clumsy to navigate or search. And it hasn't gotten better after years of this.

3) Walmart's products are mostly middle-to-down-market, even online, and that doesn't seem to have changed all that much even as they've grown their e-tail efforts. Try buying a nice watch or high-end stereo equipment there. No such ceiling applies to Amazon, probably because Amazon welcomes re-sellers (which can span all market niches), while Walmart doesn't.

So I think Walmart has a long way to go to compete equally with Amazon, and isn't a comparable threat as an all 'round monopoly.

And personally, I don't hate Amazon enough to object to a monopoly threat from them the way I do Walmart. I think ill-will does matter when it comes to federal action on anti-competition. If Microsoft were as despised as AT&T was in 1984, they would be in pieces today.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by dkrich on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @03:43PM (#14607210)

Try buying a nice watch or high-end stereo equipment there. No such ceiling applies to Amazon, probably because Amazon welcomes re-sellers (which can span all market niches), while Walmart doesn't.

Ha- as it happens I just bought a nice watch, today, and after perusing the options on Amazon I found the same watch I was about to buy direct from the retailer. However after considering the number of knock-off items I've received from Amazon, I simply refused to trust that the watch was authentic, and ended up paying more for the peace of mind that I got from buying it direct from the manufacturer.

Amazon's lack of quality control makes it impossible to trust them for expensive items that can be knocked off. It's funny that you say that Wal-Mart is middle-to-down market, because Amazon is where I buy my household staples and some consumer electronic items and cheap crap that I'm not overly concerned with the quality. Clothing, watches- pretty much anything of quality I look elsewhere.

That said, I do buy clothing from Zappos, and I think Wal-Mart made a smart move to acquire Bonobos to make a serious move into high-end apparel.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by ticviking on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @09:12PM (#14609404)

> 3) Walmart's products are mostly middle-to-down-market, even online, and that doesn't seem to have changed all that much even as they've grown their e-tail efforts. Try buying a nice watch or high-end stereo equipment there. No such ceiling applies to Amazon, probably because Amazon welcomes re-sellers (which can span all market niches), while Walmart doesn't.

Yes but I'm quite sure when I order something from walmart I'm getting the genuine article, not a knockoff dumped into the SKU bin by some shitty counterfitter

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by syshum on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @10:32PM (#14609723)

>> Amazon welcomes re-sellers (which can span all market niches), while Walmart doesn't.

This is false, You can sell things on walmart.com as a reseller

https://marketplace.walmart.com/

There are not many resellers doing it, no where near as many as Amazon but many large online shops are embracing the Amazon Model, Newegg does it now, Walmart, and a few others.

Amazon is also getting more aggressive with their resellers, putting in more restrictions, heavily favoring the Fulfilled by program where Amazon gets a larger cut, increase the number of blackout catagories, and increasing the number of items sold by Amazon directly which puts huge pricing pressure on Resellers that can not get the pricing amazon can.

Several Niche and some larger brand have pulled out of Amazon completely in the last couple of years for these (and the counterfeiting problem) issues

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by johnflan on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @05:55PM (#14608291)

Walmart also launched jet.com

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by mason55 on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @10:28PM (#14609707)

Walmart bought jet.com

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by bflesch on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @12:45PM (#14605429)

Valid point. I don't know why techies always like trying to fuck over (or over scrutinize) the tech companies they know/hear most about, while many offline-first companies never appear on our radar..

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by KirinDave on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @01:51PM (#14606205)

Valid point. I don't know why hacker neswies always like to try and extrapolate the entire universe of a poster's discourse from the focus of one specific post.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by throwaway2048 on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @01:25PM (#14605924)

calling criticism "fucking over" is laughable.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by elif on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @11:49AM (#14604809)

where is that pressure represented in this chart? AWS total revenue is less than a year's growth. Wal-Mart showing signs of desperation does not imply amazon's defeat.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56abe654c08a80431d8...

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by KirinDave on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @12:20PM (#14605139)

I agree. Conceptually Amazon has competitors in every field. They just don't seem to be denting Amazon's growing control.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by dkrich on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @12:39PM (#14605365)

Well, that chart only goes to 2015. But in any case, ecommerce and web services are growing businesses, so naturally the growth has been huge looking back. But looking forward, Azure is presenting itself as a greater challenge to AWS each day and all retailers are getting smarter about ecommerce, taking cues from Amazon. Amazon has a huge lead in ecommerce and web services, but it's going to diminish. Prime video is a sinkhole of money. I get that they're using that to attract people to Prime, but it's a massive investment and if profits in other businesses start shrinking, they will be screwed.

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Re:Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applicati... by zghst on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @02:50PM (#14606808)

That is also why Amazon is playing hard. The game is heating up, they're taking proactive action to not be at the mercy of these companies

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