Wouldn’t this state of affairs scream out for simple, off-the-shelf ecommerce? Ecommerce platforms have been around as long as the web, but they are enterprisey behemoths (last I looked, a long time ago).
Maybe the limiting factor is the ability to integrate with backend inventory, etc. I suspect there is no lightweight (read: inexpensive developer) way to do this.
(Which makes me wonder if there is a Wordpress for ERP.)
The other way to look at it is that for the 2-3 top players in a sector, there can never be off-the-shelf. WalMart’s differentiation is incredible supply chain, which they had to invent. Being a big guy means you are doing something different, almost by definition.
Walmart is also pushing hard into R&D, see http://www.walmartlabs.com/ . Of all the traditional retailers, I'd say Wallyworld is the most invested in 21st century retail tactics and actually doing a decent job of it.
Except you're working for a corporation that is actively evil. Walmart has a long history of discriminating against women [1]; has an extremely high percentage of employees who are on welfare (it's at minimum unseemly for an employed person to be paid so poorly they still need welfare) (examples from ohio[2]; general [3]; arkansas [4]; washington [5]); works hard to avoid giving health insurance to their employees -- as of 2005 they only covered 44% [6]; etc etc etc. There are far more reasons than the type of work to avoid working for a corporation with such a refined sense of ethics.
Yeah I have to agree with you there, it would be hard for me to believe that Walmart would not cut high pay developers at the first opportunity. I remember AT&T forcing my paraplegic developer buddy to train his Indian replacement or face instant termination. To me Walmart seems like the same kind of, eternal quest for profit type organization.
Not trying to take away from your comment, I think there's definitely a place for a "Wordpress for retail" and would be surprised if it doesn't exist (though it's not something I've really looked into). But I'm not sure something like that would easily scale to what Target would need.
BigCommerce, Shopify, Volusion are probably the closest to 'Wordpress for retail', but they seem to be mostly focused towards small businesses. Not that big businesses can't use them, but yea.
The companies you mention are all fine shopping cart providers, but someone who's selling more then a few products (not even the size of Target) needs much more then a simple shopping cart.
* Integration into their inventory systems and multiple warehouses. Do you want to be able to buy on the site, pickup in store? That means you need to tie your ecommerce site to your brick and mortar systems.
* Do you have vendors that dropship on your behalf? You need a way to import their catalog data and send them their orders. Did they mess up and not have inventory by the time your order arrives, better have a way for them to notify you, so you can notify customers.
* Gift cards that work online and in stores.
* Customer service systems that tie to your e-commerce so staff can help customers.
* Syncing all sales data to your finance, ERP, business intelligence and other back-end systems.
* Returns? A system for RMA, tracking returns, issuing refunds and exchanges. Want to buy online/return to store? better tie your store systems to your e-commerce again.
* Marketing? Have to tie your online store your e-mail software.
Building a full fledged e-commerce solution is much harder than many realize. There are great tools that solve parts of what retailers need but there is no all-in-one tool to get a large retailer online and just working out of the box.
There certainly is a "WordPress for retail" - you just have never heard of them because they're very good at marketing only to Big Brands... GSI Commerce (http://gsicommerce.com/)
GSI operates the ecommerce sites for Adidas, Calvin Klein, Marc Ecko, Levis, ToyRUs, RadioShack and many many more significant retailers (http://gsicommerce.com/clients/).
In addition to the e-commerce side of things they also look after warehouse and fulfillment which is why they also are able to setup and run Amazon Prime rival ShopRunner for the sites they maintain.
They're certainly "WordPress for retail" because if you look at most of the sites they run, they all look the same and have similar look/feel. It's all v cookie cutter - just set up the template, create an inventory, ship them the goods, and you're away.
Most interesting fact of all: EBay bought them in March for $2.2bn.
Oh wow that's pretty cool. I used to work on a lot of BigCommerce stores, and while they have an enterprise version which bigger companies can buy (http://www.interspire.com/customers/), I had never heard of GSI Commerce, who seems to have taken the cake for that market.
Where is the Wordpress for retail?