When Walmart said on Monday (Aug. 8) that it was buying Jet.com for over $3 billion, it was widely interpreted as the retail giant getting serious about competing with Amazon. That’s hardly what is happening. The technology from Jet is fascinating; that’s what is really behind this move.

Walmart.com has been serious about taking on Amazon for years. The problem has been that Walmart’s top brass has simply refused to shed its store-centric mentality, thereby forcing Walmart.com to have to have to be subordinate to physical stores at all times. If an effective Walmart.com strategy might rob some sales from its stores — even if it still makes more money overall for the company — that strategy wouldn’t be approved. Therefore, the real question is whether this acquisition indicates that Walmart senior brass are now willing to let online do what makes sense for online.

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