Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) was early to the video download service, beginning to offer movies over a year ago. Now that service has been shut down, according to Reuters. The company says that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) is no longer offering the technology needed to run the operation, but that seems pretty thin.
Wal-Mart probably figured out that having a lot of customers online does not translate into successfully offering them new services. Most online research numbers show walmart.com as one of the top two or three e-commerce sites. But Wal-Mart customers are often not affluent and may not be ideal targets for a video download operation.
There is also the question of competition. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has its iTunes service, which is growing. Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) has another, similar operation, and there are a dozen others.
People may buy clothes and household goods from a retail website, but that does not mean that the customers can be moved to digital downloads. "Would you like a movie with that shirt?" does not necessarily work.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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