The competition between Walmart and Amazon appears to be heating up. Walmart beat revenue expectations, but fell short of estimates for profit in the holiday quarter and reported a slowdown in online sales. Greg Alvo, CEO of OrderGroove and Chris Versace, Chief Investment Officer at Tematica Research join The Long and The Short to discuss the future of America's largest retailer.
Alvo reminds us that Walmart is growing its omnichannel approach. Just because e-commerce sales slowed down doesn't mean its overall business is slowing down. Versace says online demand exceeded expectations this year and Walmart is trying to navigate this new trend. He also says the pullback in e-commerce investments could be a long-term play for Walmart as it fights to compete with Amazon.
Plus, how will Walmart expand its offerings to be equal to Amazon? Versace says continuing to focus on selling fresh foods and finding partners that will continue to help expand products on Jet.com are key. He also suggests that Walmart thinks about expanding its private label brands and bumping up quality to compete with Amazon.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
