Amazon's One Big Weakness Represents A Huge Opportunity For Walmart

The retail sector can be characterized in two categories, CNBC's Jim Cramer said during his daily "Mad Money" show.

First are the retailers that Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN can "crush." The second group consists of retailers that Amazon should at the very least admire — if not fear.

At the top of the list of companies that Amazon should fear is Wal-Mart Stores Inc WMT, since the online giant has a major "achilles heel" that the world's biggest retailer can capitalize on, Cramer said. Specifically, the biggest consumer product companies around may one day face a choice between doing business with Amazon's AWS cloud segment or having their products featured in Walmart's stores.

This is already happening. Amazon accused Walmart back in June of bullying its cloud clients.

"If I'm the chief technology officer of any supplier, I'm going to green-light shifting away from Amazon Web Services to the ultra-competitive Microsoft Azure or Google Web Services," Cramer said. "That way, my CEO can go to Walmart's headquarters and say, 'Hey, we know the score. We're not trading with the enemy anymore.'"

Walmart has one other major advantage over Amazon, Cramer said: Its more than 4,000 physical stores. This massive network makes it much easier for shoppers to pick up their goods in-store. Also, Walmart's footprint should be viewed as a network of "distribution centers" which will dwarf the 400 or so physical locations Amazon will take over in the Whole Foods acquisition.

Related Links:

Is Target 'Amazon-Proof'?

Steve Madden Working On A Deal With Amazon? This Analyst Thinks So

Image: Sven (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Comments
Loading...
Posted In: Jim CramerMediaAmazonAWSecommerceretailretailersWalmart
Benzinga simplifies the market for smarter investing

Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.

Join Now: Free!