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Comment by djohnston | Hacker News Reader

Idk if that's fair to Walmart, they are definitely trying to compete with Amazon via new efforts.

Before Amazon took the crown of using technology for ruthless efficiency, Walmart was king.

I remember reading articles 10-15 years ago about how the minute someone scanned an item at the cash register, Walmart's inventory systems, which knew what product was on what shelf and in what quantity, would automatically order refills from the supplier.

They have always been highly innovative and tech savvy when it comes to the supply chain, at least for physical retail.

>the minute someone scanned an item at the cash register, Walmart's inventory systems, which knew what product was on what shelf and in what quantity

I wish this were the case, but anyone thats tried to do online grocery shopping at walmart knows that a lot of stuff shows out of stock, but is actually there in real life.

The online ordering is not tied into the realtime supplychain. The inventory mgmt that walmart developed is now ubiquitous among the largest retailers. Walmart is mow on or behind the innovation curve.

Walmart Labs is a really solid workplace from everything I've heard about it.

You are correct; Walmart actually does have some nice innovation labs around the country doing some great work.

Forgot about that and Walmart is an easy target for a lot of things :)

I don’t disagree that Walmart is making strides on the online shopping front but I also think they are only fighting for survival/relevance and would not produce anything new or interesting without this pressure. In contrast, companies like Amazon relentlessly develop new products and new technologies (see AWS). It’s not a response to external pressure — they don’t need to innovate to stay alive. They really embody the disruptive ambition / anything is possible mentality that fuels Silicon Valley. I sound like an Amazon fan boy but I’m the opposite haha just pointing out a difference in the DNA of these two companies.

I didn’t know about Walmart’s innovation labs til recently. Might not be as innovative as I think, but it certainly changed the way I view them.

Walmart had the largest corporate database in the world at one point in time (about a decade and a half ago), and used it to build a brutally efficient supply chain.

Innovation in process engineering and operations isn't really discussed much here, but it's almost assuredly had a much greater impact on keeping inflation at bay (helping the median American's salary stretch a little farther) than anything Amazon has ever done.

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