Walmart Inc. Takes on

Amazon.com

At the start of $2018,$ Walmart faced critical decisions about its future as e$-$commerce continued to explode. Walmart just lost its long$-$held crown as the most valuable retailer in the world to online leader Amazon. With Amazon's recent acquisition of Whole Foods for $$13$ billion, Amazon moved aggressively into the offline world to challenge Walmart in its biggest business, grocery. Walmart was not standing still, making moves like buying

Jet.com for $$3$ billion in $2016.$ While Walmart's U$.$S$.$ ecommerce revenues grew to $$11\mathrm{.}5$ billion in $2017,$ there was no debate in Bentonville, AR: Walmart remained far behind. The question for Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and

Walmart.com head Marc Lore was how to respond to its most aggressive competitor ever $($Exhibits $1$a and $1$b$).{?}^1$

Amazon