Wal-Mart Declares Price Cut War against Amazon

Wal-Mart, the largest retail store chain in the United States, on Thursday has launched a “price cut” war against its biggest online competitor, Amazon.com over prices of highly-anticipated hardbound book titles.

According to experts, Wal-Mart is doing, again, what it did to merchants two decades ago; lowering prices to struggle competition. But experts said that this may also affect large bookstores in the country.

US retail store giant Wal-Mart Inc. has declared on Thursday a “price cut” war against online retail giant Amazon.com following a series of price reduction in some of the most anticipated titles in their respective stores in the Internet.

It will be recalled that Wal-Mart has launched on Thursday discounted offers on hardbound titles like Stephen King's "Under the Dome" and Dean Koontz' "Breathless". The books were only $10 at that time.But Amazon.com, sensing the competition, has slashed down the prices of the said books to $9.50, which was followed by another price but by Wal-Mart. To date, the books were being sold at $9 per title.

According to experts, the recent price reduction scheme was part of Wal-Mart’s overall online maneuvers aimed to acquire more customers to its newly launched online store. The experts also cited that it is exactly what the retailer did to other local merchants a couple of decades ago.

“They are not the dominant force in the online retail industry. They may be in retailer stores in the US but not in the Internet. The recent actions appears to be an attempt by Wal-Mart to further increase its market shares and hold a position in the online space,” Fordham University marketing professor Albert Greco said.

However, Greco said that price cuts may not only affect competition among online retailers but also large bookstore chains in the country like Borders Group Inc. and Barnes and Noble Inc.

Recently, bookstore chains suffered huge losses due to squeezing price cuts implemented by Amazon.com.

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