From Nasdaq:
Walmart’s Mexico unit has penalized food companies supplying groceries to rival Amazon, pressure that has forced some to pull their products from the world’s largest online retailer, four people familiar with the matter said.
The tough tactics come as the two giants battle for supremacy in one of their most important foreign markets, one that Walmart currently dominates.
Two suppliers told Reuters they moved swiftly to pull their brands from Amazon, wary of jeopardizing their relationship with Walmart de Mexico. The companies, both of which sell common pantry goods, said Walmart accounts for more than half their supermarket sales in Mexico.
. . . .
“We could never tell anybody that they can’t sell to someone else,” Ignacio Caride, Walmart Mexico’s e-commerce head, told Reuters.
“If we think there’s an opportunity to lower our prices, because we see better prices at other retailers, we’re going to negotiate for that access,” he said.
. . . .
Amazon declined to comment.
Walmart is Mexico’s largest retailer, commanding nearly 60 percent of the country’s supermarket sales through more than 2,400 Walmart, Superama, Sam’s Club and Bodega Aurrera stores. Its online business in Mexico is growing fast, but it represented just 1.4 percent of revenue last year.
. . . .
Amazon launched its Mexican website in 2015 and is now one of the country’s biggest online retailers. It began selling groceries here in August.
Supermarket analyst Bill Bishop said Walmart wants to avoid a repeat of its experience in the United States, where Amazon quickly took the lead in online grocery sales. Walmart Inc’sMexico unit is its second-largest overseas market by sales after the United Kingdom, on par with Canada.
Link to the rest at Nasdaq
PG says it appears Walmart may have stopped sleepwalking.