Wal-Mart.com and Amazon Start a Price War

From yesterday's Publishers Marketplace:

Following the Amazon ebook pricing reset that publishers have cursed and feared, on Thursday Walmart.com dropped the price on their top 10 pre-orders titles (Palin, Crichton, Grisham, Crichton, Patterson, Koontz, etc.) to an even $10, with free shipping included. More broadly, they are offering their top 200 books at discounts of 50 percent or more in a program called America's Reading List.

Wal-Mart's action didn't go unnoticed by Amazon.com, which matched Wal-Mart's new prices.

Miguel Bustillo and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg have a story in this morning's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the Internet price war. They reported on this ". . . battle for low-price and e-commerce leadership heading into the crucial holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart soon fired back with a promise to drop its prices to $9 by Friday morning -- and made good on that vow by early evening Thursday."

This holiday showdown was inevitable when you consider that Amazon has been steadily moving into other products besides books, music and film.

And, according to the WSJ, Wal-Mart is now selling other retailers' merchandise on its website.

The Business Insider had this to say in its post on the subject here:

Who's going to win?

In our opinion, Amazon.

Why?

Because it's better at ecommerce. And because it can't afford to lose.

This is Amazon's core business. It's a sideline for Walmart.

The WSJ quoted Wal-Mart.com CEO Raul Vasquez:

"If there is going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web', it is going to be Walmart.com . . . Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site."

Go here to read the entire WSJ article.

Buckle your seatbelts . . .