(Nancy Marshall-Genzer — Marketplace) So, you’re at Walmart, getting ready to pay. The cashier says, ‘Wait! You can get a few bucks off if you deliver some stuff your neighbor ordered.’
Walmart is definitely thinking outside the big box on this one. Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics, says Walmart may be thinking customer couriers would be faster than Amazon, which Walmart sees as enemy number one — for good reason.
“The whole retail industry is shifting toward mobile and online purchases and probably felt like they’ve gotten a late start to it,” Perkins says.
So they have to get creative. Walmart and other big-box stores have also experimented with matching Amazon’s prices. Other retailers are offering free apps that tell them when you’re in their store. They can track your progress through the aisles and text you with special offers.
“Let’s say you’re in a grocery store and you’re in the ice cream aisle,” explains Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at the NPD Group. “They can tell you that Haagen-Dazs ice cream is on sale today.”
Other retailers are closing brick-and-mortar stores and customizing the ones they keep. Alden Lury, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, says for example, a Target in a city might not stock bargain sizes.
“You might not find the 12-pack of Bounty,” he says. “You might find the six pack of Bounty. It might be hard to get on the subway with a 12-pack of Bounty.”
Lury says if retailers can get to know their customers that well, and tailor themselves to what savvy shoppers want, they might just have a chance against Amazon.
