Amazon and Walmart are preparing for an epic battle of summer e-retail war, the likes of which we’ve never e-seen before (or, at least they hope we haven’t). Amazon’s Prime Day is scheduled for July 15, 2015, and promises to reward Amazon Prime members with steep discounts and unbeatable deals as a midyear Black Friday for online shoppers, while offering 30-day Prime membership trials to those who are not current Prime members. Who doesn’t like cheap online merchandise shipped directly from the Amazon warehouse to your doorstep, right? The answer, obviously, is megabox king, Walmart. With spoilers on their minds, Walmart decided to respond by taking a bit of thunder from the Amazon Prime Day storm by announcing their own July 15, 2015 sale, albeit not named also “Amazon Prime Day”. Outside of holiday sales, we have yet to see such a confluence of markdowns, discounts, and sales on a particular day like this before. Big box chains can get by with these discounts simply on volume alone. Without going into the gory details of Walmart business purchasing practices, it’s fair to say that small independent retailers are left to sit back and watch the carnage occur while possibly even getting in on the fun and doing some personal shopping. However, even independent specialty retailers can benefit from the White Wednesday sales event (I just made that name up…not sure if they are actually using it or not). That may seem counter-intuitive, however what this one day sale does is strengthen the concept of the OmniChannel in the retail world as it exists in present day. E-Commerce, mobile commerce, and web shopping all fall into this catch-all net of OmniChannel sales. By strict definition, OmniChannel is using all available means of procuring sales in any given sales cycle by using all of the above. Walmart has something that Amazon doesn’t have nor could they ever have, which is a brick-and-mortar store in just about every substantial city in the US. What they also have that Amazon doesn’t have is the capital investment and operational expenses to burden them with having to track such things as departmental sales for future stocking. However, both of them have a BIG footprint into the OmniChannel world, combining as many different avenues to sell their wares as possible. Independent retailers can have a footprint in that space as well, and it can be substantial. Do you have a brick-and-mortar store, but haven’t walked down the investment track to E-Commerce? If not, you are getting left behind by those who do. Have you incorporated mobile sales into your brick-and-mortar store? If not, you aren’t keeping up with the guys down the street. Do you have a web store with the ability to order and pick up at the store? If not…well, you get the picture. What indie stores have that those big boxes can never have, though, is a one-on-one sales experience. They’ll always have the volume, but as an independent retailer you can always trump that with a personal sales experience. A worldwide sales battle between two heavyweights only brings about more online retail and causes more online shoppers to go looking for more deals out on the internet. Is your store positioned to take advantage of the increased traffic?