From Pymnts.com, January 14:
AMZN vs WMT Weekly: Rivals Aim to Deliver Groceries That Many Consumers Can’t Find
Just 345 days to go until Christmas (!) but the nation’s retail leaders were able to find time to focus on a different problem this week. Specifically, procuring the hard-to-get grocery and COVID-linked items that consumers want at a time when shelves are looking increasingly bare.
They got through Black Friday. Managed Cyber Monday. Pushed hard through Christmas and hung tough amid omicron. And while Amazon and Walmart have continued to find a way to navigate an endless stream of supply chain-related headwinds, the new year has brought with it a new set of challenges, albeit with more than a little dose of deja vu.
While the two retail titans have not said much about the current bout of shortages that are causing growing gaps in grocery store shelves across the country, they are certainly not immune from the problem.
“We are seeing pockets of lower than normal availability in some communities on some items, depending on what’s happening in the local area,” Walmart Global Communications Director Lauren Willis told KENS TV in San Antonio earlier this week. “We will continue to keep a close eye on product availability and work with our supply chain to help meet customer demand.”
To that point, Walmart and Amazon’s size, buying power, warehousing, logistical capabilities and clout with manufacturers and suppliers will clearly give them procurement advantages that would not be available to smaller players. And yet, no amount of money can make pallets of cat food or cream cheese, or home test kits magically appear.
As much as the first round of consumer goods shortages in the early days of the pandemic eventually subsided, it took months for the supply of things like toilet paper, cleaning wipes and hand sanitizer to normalize to the point where in-store rationing rules could be lifted.
But unlike the first or second span of grocery disruptions, this time — not unlike the virus variant itself — things feel different, more widespread and harder to predict who and where the supply crunch will strike next.
In addition, the fact that this is happening at the very time Amazon and Walmart are both looking to dial up their grocery delivery offerings, could turn those efforts into a make or break issue for whichever player is able to actually deliver the goods … or cat food, as the case may be....
....MUCH MORE
StockCats has been on top of the unfolding cat food disaster for a while, putting it in terms even humans can understand:
Economics 101: no Friskies available at Walmart for $.60 a can, but Publix has a nice selection if you’re willing to pay 28% more pic.twitter.com/zlHKae6UtO
— StockCats (@StockCats) January 12, 2022
