Walmart ecommerce ops Essay examples -- essays research papers

What is Wal-Mart dong that seems to fit a definition of successful e-commerce operations? What cold they do better? How does shopping on-line comparing to your experience looking for a similar type of item at a bricks-and-mortar store? How does this site comp atomic number 18 to other experiences youve had with e-commerceWhen you talk about Wal-Mart the first thing that you experience to remember is that they are the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart employs more people in the United States than both other company and is second only to the federal government in the number of employees that they have on the payroll. These are important incidents to consider in that payable to their tremendous size, Wal-Mart has an enormous effect on the economy and the way that business is conducted. In many instances, if a company wants to continue to do business they have to either follow what Wal-Mart is doing or attempt to compete against Wal-Mart in some other fashion. It is not unrea sonable to state that Wal-Mart is the reason why many businesses are in business today. They were forced out by the sheer size of Wal-Mart.So, with this in mind it is interesting to note that Wal-Mart ranks only third on the e-commerce weighing machine behind Dell computers and Amazon. (Sullivan 2004) What is the reason for this? Its hard to say and point to one specific reason why Wal-Mart doesnt lead this total provided maybe looking at the criteria outlined in the background reading will help to answer this question. (Wollan 2003)In the background reading a list of criteria is given that outlines the advantages of e-commerce as it relates to operations management. The companies that are able to capitalize on these are the ones that will be successful. Wal-Mart is able to capitalize and continues to do so as it improves and expands into the e-commerce environment. Some of these advantages areBetter availability of serviceCost reduction in information processingBetter of timelin ess of serviceBetter memory access to customer marketsInitial cost of operations less expensiveOperating costs of operations less expensiveBet... ...Wal-Mart provides not only a Boolean search box but also some pretty tabs labeled with general names such as toys and electronics. But this is not special and is in fact pretty much the norm for companies that do business online. In other words, the Walmart.com website does not stand out from the crowd. As a matter of fact if you compare the Amazon.com websites to Walmart.com they look very similar. (Amazon 2005) I found the Dell website to be less friendly and almost irritating with the addition of pop-up ads that I had to close. (Dell, 2005) REFERENCESAmazon (2005) Company web-site. Retrieved June 19, 2005 from http//www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/ sign/home.html/103-3903465-0764615Dell Computers, (2005) Company web-site. Retrieved June 19, 2005 from http//www.dell.com/Sullivan, Laurie. (2004, November, 8). E-Commerce Promise Fulf illed. InformationWeek, 1013(3), 70.Wal-Mart. (2005). Company web-site. Retrieved on February 21, 2005, from http//www.walmart.comWollan, M. L. (2003). E-commerce operations management. PowerPoint presentation for OPM 500, Module 5. Zimmerman, A. (2003, Nov. 21). To sell goods to Wal-Mart, get on the net. Wall Street Journal, B.1.