Amazon to face growing pressure over pricing practices, fmr. Walmart US CEO says
Amazon may face mounting regulatory pressure and lawsuits over its pricing practices, according to former Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon.
“[Amazon] is starting to come under scrutiny for some of their labor and hiring practices,†Simon told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney. "[You're] starting to see people complain about how the way they price and they scrape prices across the market.â€
On Monday, the ecommerce giant kicked off its Prime Day promotion by offering deals on more than 100,000 products. Its third annual Prime Day is a way for Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) to distance itself from its online retail competitors like Walmart (NYSE:WMT).
However, Simon noted Walmart is the best answer to Amazon as the retail company has aggressively enhanced its digital space and enacted a curbside pickup program to benefit consumers.
“[Walmart] has done a really, really good job taking the assets that they have, the physical assets and integrating them into the digital world and that’s really what they are doing with the pickup programs and the order online and scan for pay,†he said.
The former Walmart U.S. CEO said Amazon will continue in its current path because Wall Street has rewarded the company for boosting revenue, not generating profits.
“And the reason I think Amazon will continue in the path that is on is that [Wall Street] continues to reward the behavior that says I’m going to break even in retail, make a little money in web services and grow the top line at a phenomenal rate and that sort of leads them to the place where they might come under more scrutiny.â€
