November/December 2018

More articles in this issue:

• Rethinking Business Block by Block
• Car Smarts
• Tech: The Third Wheel in the Doctor Patient Relationship
• Advancing Autonomous Farming
• The Promise of 5G at Home

Ten days before Christmas on a busy Saturday, I went to shop for electronics at my local Walmart.

Millions of other Americans did too, but for me it was unique. That’s because when I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the nearest Walmart was 15 miles away, either in New Jersey or Long Island. The closest Walmart now is just a mile away from my new home in Ormond Beach, a northeast Floridian hotspot.

If one wants to shop at a brick-and-mortar store with a broad swath of consumer technology categories within my ZIP code, Walmart and Best Buy dominate. Walmart is third in consumer technology retail sales, according to the TWICE 2018 Top 100 CE Retailers Report, behind Amazon and perennial leader Best Buy. Because of tech’s importance to Walmart, for years the retailer has unveiled a “new and improved” electronics department to the media every spring. According to media reports this year’s changes are:

More space for the category;

More top brands at lower prices;

Bigger emphasis on laptops and TVs.

So, I found some surprises and some things that weren’t so surprising at my local Walmart. First, the parking lot was packed by mid-morning and busy with Christmas shoppers – not a surprise. The entertainment department was larger and more open than a couple of years ago, which was an improvement, along with four or five sales associates in or around the department who interacted in a friendly, informative manner with customers.

Just about every electronics category you could think of was on display, along with many top brands: Apple, Bose, Canon, Dell, Fitbit, Fuji, GoPro, Hisense, HP, LG, Microsoft, Nikon, Nintendo, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and TCL.

There was a wide variety of categories: all the major brands of video game hardware and software; soundbars; cameras and camcorders; SD cards; disposable cameras; kiosks to make prints of digital images; tablets; laptops (yes, there were several brands available); a wall of TVs (more on that later); drones; laptops and printers; and Nest and other smart home products. There were also displays of the Samsung Galaxy Tab A and Tab S4; Fitbits; Rokus; GoPros; a Fuji instax “instant photography” endcap; and deals on StraightTalk as well as Verizon Wireless.

Apple’s iPhone was displayed prominently, featuring “$100 savings on Verizon Installment Plans” for iPhone Xs, XR and 8 models, alongside separate displays of Apple Watch Series 4.

There were also accessories – traditionally the most profitable category for tech retailers – with items for almost every category Walmart carries in electronics.

As for the layout of the key electronics category of TVs, there was a massive wall of HD and some 4K TVs. That has been standard practice at electronics stores forever. For me what was special is that all of them were operational, which had not been the case at other locations I have visited over the years.

In TVs there was an enormous assortment, with LG and Samsung being well represented. In the “I can’t believe the price for a 4K” category this is a brief list of what I saw: 4K Vizio 65-inch E-Series HDR Smart TV; Sharp Aquos 4K 55-inch Smart TV with Android TV; Hisense 4K 65-inch HDR Smart TV with Roku; Element 4K 55-inch TV with Roku; and a TCL 4K 55-inch with Roku.

Featured prominently with all the HD and 4K TVs was a handy TV mounting service card that customers can take to the register to install their new TV to “schedule as soon as tomorrow.”

Harkening back to the days of legacy products, there was an Onn audio cassette recorder with “built-in microphone and one-touch recording” and a digital AM/FM clock radio from the same brand. And in the home security area: a “Decoy Dome Camera” with “flashing red light,” appropriately displayed on the bottom shelf.

Some things don’t change. Happy Holidays and hope to see many of you at CES 2019 in January.