[UGAF] new logo for Walmart

[rht at maylett.net]

You might be right, but it seems a little less obvious to me.

The advertisers aren't direct competitors, but they are competitors in the
sense that they're siphoning away eyeballs that might otherwise be looking
at merchandise on WalMart's site. The link is targeted to a new window,
but a click-through still diverts attention away from the products on the
WalMart site itself.

Also, the "few pennies on click-throughs" that you mentioned would need to
be weighed against the revenue lost by reallocating prime real estate on
the site away from selling WalMart merchandise. If the space is valuable
enough to be purchased by another company, wouldn't that space be even
more valuable to WalMart to sell and promote its own merchandise to the
highly targeted group who voluntarily came to the site in the first place
to look at their products?

Again, WalMart must have their reasons. They're experts at making money,
but their reasoning on this one escapes me. Then again, the mass appeal of
WalMart, in general, also escapes me. Maybe this lack of insight has
something to do with why I'm not rich like the Walton family. ;-)

C.

> I think it is pretty obvious.  First, remember WalMart's claim to fame is
> attracting customers (and, of course, squashing competitors) and offering
> just about any product you can think of.  If you look carefully at the
> banners, they are all for products that WalMart does not (yet) offer, such
> as banking and insurance.  So, getting a few pennies on click-throughs is
> consistent with their business model and a clever way to generate revenue
> with essentially no cost to them.
> Roi Agneta
> Kiska Dazyn