Walmart

Amazon.com Inc. is about to test whether consumers who have taken to online shopping in huge numbers during the pandemic will spend even more for deals during the company’s Prime Day sales event.

The months-long saga of Bytedance’s forced sale of TikTok in the U.S. is finally close to the finish line, and Walmart stands to gain new social tools and youthful consumers in its battle with Amazon and other brick and mortar chains.

The Trump administration has barred the use of TikTok and WeChat inside the U.S., including a direct ban on WeChat Pay, setting up potential retaliation against U.S. companies that could interrupt international payment flows.

Walmart is entering the drone delivery wars, its latest move to counter Amazon.com Inc.’s dominance in e-commerce as more Americans choose to shop from home.

For the dozens of technology companies trying to enable shopping without point of sale terminals, making it work in a full-sized store is the path to disruption. But the coronavirus pandemic flipped the script, bringing disruption well before the technology was ready.

Walmart’s membership service undercuts Amazon Prime on price and offers myriad perks, including access to streamlined checkout and deliveries — two areas where Walmart has struggled in the past.

An acquisition of the social app would bring with it users and data that can fuel Walmart, Microsoft or Oracle’s e-commerce and marketing battles against top competitors.

It took years for NFC payments to gather momentum in the U.S., with merchants initially dragging their heels to enable contactless technology at payment terminals and banks waiting until 2018 to begin the slow rollout of NFC-enabled cards.

Walmart Inc. has partnered with e-commerce giant Shopify Inc. to expand its third-party marketplace site and grab more of the pandemic-fueled surge in online shopping. Shares of the Canadian technology company rose on Monday.

The reloadable debit card resembles a bank account with new high-yield savings account and other tweaks.