Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT): Who Will Have Online Success?

A smaller play

Almost every clothing store has an online marketplace, some more successful than others.  One of the first of these companies to form an online presence was Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN) through the releasing of their app.  Recently Nordstrom has announced they will invest nearly $1 billion over the next five years on their e-commerce capacity.  As a web designer I am impressed by their sites navigation and layout. It’s very clean and easily magnifies their products.  They also proudly display their “Free Shipping. Free Returns” motto.

Nordstrom has also seen that America’s younger audience is not willing to pay the high luxury prices for a lot of their products, and in turn have introduced Nordstrom Rack which offers similar products for 60% of the price.  Nordstrom Rack is expanding through their online presence and also adding physical stores.  This year Nordstrom also improved their Fashion Rewards program, in a attempt to make it more customer friendly. It paid off as sales from Fashion Rewards members increased over 23% as cardholders increased spending.  With a healthy 7.67% profit margin in their last quarter I feel Nordstrom will have success in the years to come as they continue to improve many areas of their company.

Personally I feel Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has been bought into a little to much at the moment, and find the current valuations of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and Nordstrom to be more appealing.  Others will argue that Amazon is going to the moon and there is no stopping them.  Either way these three companies are all a part of the fast-growing online marketplace, and even it is not one of these stocks all investors should find a spot in their portfolio to make a play on e-commerce.

The article Who Will Have Online Success? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Grant Hosticka.

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