Newsmakers

Kirthi Kalyanam, L.J. Skaggs Distinguished Professor, marketing department chair, and director of the Retail Management Institute, discusses in a Chicago Tribune article how Amazon continues to grow while jobs in the brick-and-mortar retail industry are being lost. Amazon’s expansion favors certain areas, limiting the opportunities for those outside of Amazon’s geographic area.

With regards to Amazon’s impact on the grocery industry, in The Seattle Times Kalyanam introduces the idea that Wal-Mart’s price model, marking organic and non-organic products at the same price, is a possible reason it’s customers are being drawn to shop at Whole Foods. Even though Wal-Mart is but one of the many grocery stores that have recently lost customers after Amazon cut Whole Food’s prices, recent research has shown that previously loyal Wal-Mart customers account for the majority of first time customers shopping at Whole Foods.

“The data is a striking indication of the latent demand that exists for quality organics," Kalyanam told the Seattle Times. "Wal-Mart is no doubt preparing to work extremely hard to overcome deep-set perceptions that its organics are of a lower quality than those found at Whole Foods.”

Learn more about Professor Kirthi Kalyanam »