Word of Mouth

The #1 Off-line Retail slowly taking over the Online.

For the past week, one of the hottest topics was Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of Facebook’s own “Search” in direct competition with Google. The result would certainly fill a need and could actually be a change that would be welcomed by its users – for once.  The news has received with hope and criticism, and the hype certainly helped Facebook’s stock. However, at the end of the day, I do not see a tremendous change in people’s lives other than the fact that they might spend 7 hours on Fb then instead of 6.

But another Search engine caught my eye: Solaris.  Powered by Kosmix, a small tech firm that has recently been acquired by Walmart. The new and improved search has already increased the #1 retail giant’s online sales by 10-15% since its launch a few months ago.

Of all the innovative and tech-savy companies, Walmart would have never came in my head as even a consideration. However, @WalmartLabs is their new creation, a sort of small venture within a big company. They have also ventured into social media and mobile quite successfully now.

The result has been great for them. I think given time, this could really hurt Amazon. And once it gets into Canada, purely online retailers such as well.ca will be an unavoidable vistim.