A holly jolly war of retailers

By Courtney Godfrey on Nov 24, 2009 in Beats, Economy

As the most popular shopping day of the year rapidly approaches, two big-name retailers are competing for your business during this economically crunched season.

Mega retailers Wal-Mart and Amazon are slashing prices in a battle to get every dollar they can during this holiday spending season.

Holiday sales are not expected to drop as much as they did last year, but the National Retail Federation predicts that they will decline 1 percent, to $437.6 billion.

The news was on the cover of the New York Times Tuesday, only days before the shopping madness begins.

The article pointed out the economy’s negative effects on retail, and how it has caused this price war. It also pointed out that although Amazon and Wal-mart are two very different companies, rapid expansion by each company and profound shifts in technology make confrontation inevitable.

On CNBC Monday, Jim Cramer called Amazon on of the “most misunderstood and underestimated” stocks, saying its not like an online Borders as many may think but more like an online Wal-Mart.

As this war is presented by the media, this is more than a battle over shoppers, it is a prediction of where these companies are going and how their stocks might fare in the future.

*Photo source: Flickr, Harlem Photography Inc.