Wal-Mart's Latest E-Commerce Strategy Is a Big Risk

Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) has been an aggressive player in the e-commerce market over the past 18 months. Since acquiring Jet.com last year and installing Marc Lore as head of U.S. e-commerce, Wal-Mart has seen online sales surge. Wal-Mart's various online stores saw sales increase 60% year over year in the second quarter.

But its latest move is a bit curious. Wal-Mart is raising online prices for certain items, mostly groceries, in an effort to improve profitability and draw more customers into its stores, where they'll potentially do more shopping than they would online.

The move isn't exactly unprecedented. Costco Wholesale typically charges more for online orders than it does in stores for similar reasons. But making the move in the fourth quarter -- peak shopping season -- and following Amazon.com's (NASDAQ: AMZN) big push into brick-and-mortar with its Whole Foods acquisition makes the timing quite risky.

Source: Fool.com