Top 50 Retail Brands for 2009 Includes Two Online-Only Outlets

InterBrandDesignForum has just released their 2009 list of the 50 Most Valuable Retail Brands for 2009.  Heading the list of course is Walmart whose brand is valued at $129 billion.  To get a sense of the range, at #50 is Anthropologies at $420 million. 

Of particular note to Jedwar.com readers, two of the top 15 brands are actually online-only sellers eBay (at #11 and valued at $7.9 billion) and Amazon (at #14 and valued at $6.4 billion.)   As online-only brands both have the advantage of all consumer touchpoints – brand and otherwise – being under one experience.   However, being just on the Internet means their primary competitive differentiator is convenience, which is easier for competitors to narrow.  Brick & mortar stores who also sell online can express their value propositions in a myriad of ways including price, design, store-layout, store-location, attitude, etc.

In addition, eBay’s brand has some challenges ahead.  What was once an auction business is now a blurred collection of acquisitions that include Skype (which hasn’t faired as well as they had hoped) and online payments systems including PayPal.  Further adding to the challenge is their move towards fixed-pricing.  Keeping all those consumer experiences tied together logically will be difficut for eBay, just as it was for previous online aggregators like AOL.

Amazon is in better shape.  Their narrower scope allows them to vigilantly focus on making online buying really, really simple.  With fewer levers to pull they continue to drill down on the critical moving parts of their business which is site useability, product availablity, shipping and price.  It would not be surprising to see Amazon’s brand move ahead of eBay in the 2010 list.