Ask HN: Looking for book recommendations on Walmart

[ansh0l]

Hey folks! I'm looking for some good books that are good reading material for current day walmart culture and strategy.

I came across Walmart Effect by Charles Fishman (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/74915.The_Wal_Mart_Effect), but much of the world has changed since that book came out 13 years ago - There has been an economic recession, a protectionist regime is now present in US, and Amazon has taken over as the giant killer.

Would really appreciate any inciteful comments from the community here.

Context: Walmart recently acquired majority stake in Indian ecom leader Flipkart for $16-19bn, and as someone from the Indian startup ecosystem, I want to gather a better understanding of the Walmart culture.

[brudgers]

My take is to read about the history of Walmart because I think its basic strategy remains the same...a Mao like approach of controlling the countryside before worrying about the cities...and I don't mean this in a negative way. When I travel in the less populated parts of the US, I can go into a Walmart and buy the same goods as in any other. The price and quality tend to be reasonable in the way that businesses that are too busy to gouge can be. The service is acceptable to good with normal variance for the fact that it is subject to human fallibility (nothing is malicious).

I guess that's the big difference I see between Walmart and Amazon. In general, I trust Walmart to be unambiguous and treat me the same as everyone else. Amazon, I feel, shows me products and prices computed on the fly to maximize its revenue. For example and without getting into the reasons I don't have Prime, a recent Amazon purchase automatically added shipping despite free shipping being an option and the difference between seven days delivery and seven to nine days. The cost of paid shipping added 10% to the transaction...and because both shipping methods were the same, the free shipping was already baked into the price. The only difference between the two, other than cost was that Amazon would simply delay pulling and shipping the item unless I paid and defaulted to adding the charge.

That's not to bash on Amazon so much as to point out the differences between the way startups operate and the way Walmart seems to operate. Walmart tends to operate in a way that is more consistent with face to face consumer transactions and is more focused on maximizing value from the supply chain. Amazon is more consistent with a caveat emptor marketplace for any supplier: e.g. growth from affiliate accounts.

It's worth considering that Walmart has been in India for about a decade working within the old and current retail regulations. My take on the news is that the Flipkart deal was a sound decision for Walmart even at the price...consider it is about what Amazon paid for 432 Whole Foods stores in the US: a small corner of the US grocery business compared to the top Indian eCommerce company. Walmart has a supply chain and logistics infrastructure on the ground in India.

That's not to say success is guaranteed or anything like that. But it looks like a reasonably sound move to me. In terms of the Indian startup ecosystem, I don't think it will have much effect because the eCommerce space was already mature: Flipkart did 95% of all the possible disruption just as Amazon did in the US.

[ansh0l]

That is a really insightful comment. I will keep the anecdata in mind.