The Amazon and Walmart battle,

  Recently, while working on the mechanics of the web site I had an idea.  Yea, I know, (insert cliche here ;-).  Basically, I was thinking of product development for the web site and several things came to mind.  Without getting into the specifics, I also thought of other E-Comm venues and real world access/ distribution.  Front and center to that was Amazon and Walmart.  It has been interesting to see the paths chosen by both corporations these past 20 or so years into what they saw as the potential future of retail.  Amazon of course went hard on technology.  Walmart of course wasn't to concerned about Amazon, at first, because they were relegated to the online-o-sphere.  Walmart in turn had a global foot print of brick and mortor stores,,,  and there was no way anyone could catch up; Right!
  Whelp, when Amazon's sales started to dip into Walmarts bottom line, ( they couldn't call Bubba for a little of that Mena Arkansas money. )  So they spent millions playing catch-up.  Keep in mind, front office had zero tech experience.  They knew nothing about building software.  Amazon, on the otherhand, diversified into automated systems while deploying a cloud system that they built their distribution network on.  Walmart, at the same time, still had human resources doing those tasks and Amazon capitolized on the increased efficiency gained by utilizing mechanized distribution networks and delivery services.  Walmart's still playing catch-up; but they're right behind Amazon as of now...
  So how'd they do it.  They bought Jet.com for $3.3_Billion.  Subsequently,  Jet.com and its founder Marc Lore, who now runs Walmart's own e-commerce division, fueled Walmart's own e-commerce growth, making the company No. 2 in e-commerce sales market share, behind only Amazon.  As of this year, they have discontinued Jet.com and rolled it all into the Walmart.com site.
  Not to be outdone in the catch-up through acquisition strategy, Amazon bought Whole Foods once they perfected their Grab-N-Go technology.  Amazon Go is the convergience of the 2 initiatives.  Recently,  Amazon opened a larger Go Grocery Store in Seattle.

Hey gotta go myself, the above refered to links are all interesting reads on topic.  Look for updates soooon,,,