Benzinga | Aug 19, 2021 02:09PM EDT

Amazon Eyes Brick And Mortar Retail As Walmart Jumps Into E-Commerce

* Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is looking forward to launching multiple prominent physical retail locations, including Ohio, California, to operate like department stores, the Wall Street Journal reported.

* Amazon attempts to sink its teeth deeper into sales of clothing, household items, electronics, and other areas via bricks-and-mortar retail, an industry the e-commerce retailer had disrupted with its online presence.

* Amazon aims to tap the return of consumers to the stores post-vaccination, which led to the weaker e-commerce revenue, something that the pandemic had reversed entirely.

* Earlier this year, Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT) announced a $14 billion investment to drive its e-commerce business. It began offering subscriptions to its proprietary e-commerce technologies and capabilities to small and midsized businesses.

* Walmart's Q2 revenue rose 2.4% Y/Y to $141 billion, beating the consensus of $136.9 billion, marking its highest quarterly revenue ever outside of the holiday season. In contrast, Amazon's e-commerce slowdown led to Q2 revenue of $113.1 billion, up 27% Y/Y missing the consensus of $115.1 billion.

* Amazon's new retail spaces of 30,000 square feet, smaller than the 100,000 square feet department stores, will stock items from top consumer brands.

* It aims to take on the format adopted by Bloomingdale's Inc, Nordstrom Inc (NYSE:JWN), and other department-store chains.

* Price Action: AMZN shares traded lower by 0.14% at $3,196, and WMT shares traded higher by 0.47% at $149.82 in the market session on the last check Thursday.