Amazon.com taking on big box retailers... starting with office supply
Big box retailers are facing stiff competition from the online giants in a relatively new way. Smart consumers are using the convenient and flashy showrooms of big retailers to peruse and get a hands-on shopping experience but then going home to actually make the purchase from Amazon or eBay. I've done it myself. Why? To save money.Tools like thetracktor.com or camelcamelcamel.com can give you price updates, history and alerts. For high markup, luxury, electronics or hard goods purchases you can save considerably. This trend has some retailers fighting back.
See here:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/09/.../la-fi-amazon-app-20111210
here:
http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2012/01/25/can-target-discourage-price-comparison-shopping
or here:
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2012/01/target-battling-amazon-showrooming.html
But will Amazon ever eventually put a dent in Home Depot or Lowe's as Forbes speculates here? http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2012/04/29/amazonsupply-will-aggressively-compete-with-staples-office-depot-costco-and-others/?partner=yahootix
Probably not, because mulch is too heavy to ship. And as absurd as that sounds, remember the sock-puppet online pet store of the early 90's? Yeah, the one that went under once people decided that it just didn't make sense to pay $10-$20 for shipping and handling fees for dog food!
Amazon will continue to innovate and encroach on big box retailers and while I wouldn't expect to order 2X4's or Quickcrete - I would expect to see Amazon sell more home goods such as fans, lights, lamps, grills, patio furniture and seasonal outdoor items.
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