There was a big price correction last year which was fairly clearly attributable to competition, especially Google. There will never be quite the cutthroat competition that retail brings, but Amazon is positioning itself as a logistics provider not a retailer.

The competition for cloud will be more like Intel vs. AMD. There will never be half a million different cloud providers, like there were book stores. A cloud is a huge capital asset that few can afford to build.

Agreed, but Amazon as a retail operation is so well run with such excellent customer service it's hard to imagine Walmart outcompeting them.

Walmart is cheaper. Significantly cheaper. You don't have to pay $100-$300 per year plus Amazon's typical 10-20% price premium* in exchange for "free" 2-day shipping. If you live in the right place you can pick up the goods same-day from Walmart, maybe even on your commute, so for some people it's more convenient too.

* The usual caveat about everything varying with geography applies here too, I'm sure.

Is "in-store pickup" really that popular?

When I need something in a few days (or later), I'll order it from Amazon when I think about it. If I need something "now" or today, I'll just drive to the store and go get it. I, personally, don't really see the point of the "in-store pickup" -- why order it online if I have to go there to get it anyways?

Two things: the range offered for instore pickup is far larger than the range held in stock. You don't have to pay delivery costs either. If something is the same price on Amazon as in Tesco [my local supermarket] then I'll order at Tesco and not pay delivery as I know I'll be there in the next few days.

Sometimes I'll "click and collect" just to be sure that the item is in stock. For example I did a price comparison recently to buy a bike saddle, it was cheaper (including postage) from Halfords and I can add stopping there to my journey for very close to zero cost (except time). If I'd ordered it from Amazon then I'd probably be out and end up having to travel to my local postal distribution office, less convenient and more expensive.

Here in the UK "in-store pickup" is known as "click and collect" and it's becoming very popular. In addition the on line price is often lower than the in store price.

> Is "in-store pickup" really that popular?

Yeah.

> I'll just drive to the store and go get it.

Its faster if you know what is stocked at your local Walmart. Order on your lunch break, pick it up on the way home without running around the store for 30min.

I use in-store pickup at Best Buy almost any time I buy something there. I don't have to worry about it being out of stock, and even better, I don't have to go find it in the store.

There is one advantage to ordering online for local store pickup that is worth considering. The online price can be - from my experience - cheaper than than the in-store price. I was surprised to find this on a number of different products recently.