Walmart holds advantages in distribution, grocery over Amazon - BofA
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In a note outlining the bull and bear debate on both Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Bank of America analyst Robert Ohmes highlighted two key advantages for the Arkansas-based brick and mortar leader.
Namely, Ohmes said that the sheer number of locations for Walmart across the US and low-prices in key staple categories are key edges. 
â[About] 90% of the US population lives within 10 miles of a WMT store, incl. Its 3,500+ Supercenters that carry and can fulfill ~160k items across grocery & general merchandise (in addition to 39 eCommerce fulfillment centers) versus just 1,285 US distribution facilities for AMZN,â he noted. âWMT stores and their large parking lots are well-suited to handle trucks & order pickup/drive-up & same-day delivery vs. AMZNâs 512 Whole Foods stores, which are more constrained by smaller store size, narrow breadth of items (particularly in general merchandise) & less suitable locations for fulfilling eCommerce orders.â
Ohmes added that the preference of US consumers to do grocery shopping in person provides an advantage over Amazonâs reliance on delivery. Further, the retailer can maintain better control of inventory and freshness due to its high velocity grocery operations. 
That said, Ohmes remained optimistic overall about the trajectory of both stocks in 2023 as Amazonâs levers in overall eCommerce and AWS should provide upside. As such, both names remain Buy rated by Ohmesâ team. 
âAWS remains the Cloud market leader and is well positioned for a more constructive corporate investment cycle and with headcount growth at 5% in 3Q and more layoffs since then, there is a strong case for retail margin expansion if unit growth accelerates,â he concluded.
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