Macy’s Tries to Compete With Amazon

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) is the latest brick-and-mortar retailer to take a swing at Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). Its attempt at competition is through same-day delivery service. However, the program is geographically limited, and Macy’s has very modest sales online, even to the extent that it does not mention them prominently in its financial disclosures.

Macy’s management describes its new effort:

Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s this fall will begin piloting same-day delivery of products purchased online at macys.com, bloomingdales.com and on both brands’ mobile-enabled websites. Macy’s will offer same-day delivery to customers in eight major U.S. markets — Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New Jersey, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Bloomingdale’s will offer same-day delivery to customers in four major markets – Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose. Deliveries to customers will be powered by Deliv, a rapidly growing crowdsourced same day delivery provider, in collaboration with major mall owners, including General Growth Properties, Macerich, Simon and Westfield Corporation.

It is not clear what “crowdsourcing” has to do with creating a first-class service.

Despite the efforts of retailers with large online presences, led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), there is nearly no evidence that e-commerce can make a difference in the revenue of brick-and-mortar retailers. Among the primary reasons for this are limited inventory displayed at their e-commerce sites. Another is a lack of products and services beyond those offered in stores. Part of Amazon’s success is based on its consumer electronics products, like the Kindle Fire, and widely demanded services, like its video streaming operation.

Macy’s may boast that it can change the experience of its shoppers. Unfortunately, it does not have enough shoppers online for the new program to do anything positive for the company.

READ ALSO: Sears Borrowing $400 Million From Affiliates of Eddie Lampert’s ESL

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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