The change, of course, is that traffic has shifted from physical stores to online stores. In fact, a startling 50% of Walmart’s customers now shop on Amazon.com, versus just 25% five years ago.
Walmart revolutionized consumers’ lives for decades. It built a successful retail empire across the country, powered by its low prices.
But Walmart has failed to keep up with the innovation, and now other companies are successfully changing consumers’ behaviors in a way that is slowly killing the world’s most famous retailer.
Want proof?
Look no further than its most recent quarterly earnings report. Although it marked its second full quarter of positive same-store sales growth (albeit a measly 1.5%) after nine consecutive quarters of declining same-store sales, overall earnings still declined 13%.
So what’s happening?
It’s Not Them, It’s You
Shopping behavior has changed. And even though the recession forced many Americans to “trade down” to cheaper items like the ones Walmart is famous for, consumers sought out new ways to do so. In many cases they traded even further down and headed right for the Dollar Generals (DG) of the world.
More frightening for the company is that even Walmart’s core customer base of low-income households is now a significant part of this epic shift in shopping behavior.
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