Amazon built a big business with tiny orders. Now Walmart is stealing the strategy.

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walmart delivery
Walmart's CFO says Walmart+ members are increasingly placing orders of just one or two items.

Courtesy of Walmart

3 big trends are working in Walmart's favor

Tech Insider
A woman pushes a cart full of items from diapers to eggs through the home goods section of a Walmart in Los Angeles.
"During inflationary periods, we want to try to be the last to go up," Walmart US CEO John Furner told investors. "We want to remain low price for the customer as long as we can."

Kevork Djansezian/Reuters

I visited Wayfair's first physical store and got major Ikea vibes — with a few surprises thrown in

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Dominick Reuter at Wayfair's first store in Chicago
I visited Wayfair's first store near Chicago.

Dominick Reuter/Business Insider

Gold bars and silver coins at Costco continue to be top sellers — and a cheat code for boosting its online sales

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Rand Refinery and PAMP bars of gold
Rand and PAMP gold bars sold by Costco.

Costco

Target comparable sales have dropped for 4 straight quarters, and it's scrambling to avoid a 5th

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Customers check out at a Target store in North Miami Beach, Fla.
Unfortunately for Target, the moves over the past several months haven't resulted in people shopping more often or buying bigger baskets.

Wilfredo Lee/AP

Walmart is finding its groove — and that should terrify Target

Tech Insider
Side-by-side images of the fresh produce sections at Walmart (left) and Target (right).
Fresh produce sections at Walmart (left) and Target (right).

Dominick Reuter/Business Insider

AI is helping Amazon send fewer small items in comically large boxes

Tech Insider
Three cardboard boxes with the Amazon logo are seen on a conveyor belt
Amazon uses an AI model that does a smarter job of selecting the right box, bag, or wrapper for each of the millions of unique items sold through the company's warehouses.

Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/picture alliance via Getty Images

The death of free shipping

Tech Insider : Economy, Economy
Stack of shipping boxes with a torn
Free shipping and no-cost returns have become a baseline expectation in the modern online shopping experience. That's coming to an end.

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

Temu's Super Bowl ad reveals we've been saying its name wrong

Tech Insider : Sports
A woman dressed in orange in an ad for Temu
Temu means "team up," but it isn't pronounced that way.

Temu

Read the email Wayfair's CEO sent to staff announcing that it's laying off 13% of its workforce

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Niraj Shah, chief executive officer of Wayfair, attends the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, July 10, 2019 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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