There is currently some turbulence in the retail world and it didn't surprise me at all that Target lost so much value so quickly, but it angered me that the MAGAt get to take credit for the decline in Target's price over the tuck-swimsuit bullshit. Kohl's is another matter; their problems go far deeper and the LGBT issue is just another casualty of our homophobic (really transphobia, but we're joined at the hip so thanks trans for dragging the entire alphabet down with you) culture.
Now that things are getting back to normal after the pandemic, retailers are discovering that when consumers have other things to spend their money on, they are not buying for entertainment's sake. Further, as R22 points out, Walmart has found a way to make upper middle class and wealthy people shop there: they don't have to shop there! It's kind of ironic that Walmart won't employ people to run the cash registers (pretty much the only personal contact a customer has with the store) but they'll pay someone to shop for you, check it out, bag everything, and bring it to your door. Hubby bought the plus membership at the beginning of the pandemic over my objection, but I've come around, too. It is sweet when the doordash driver rolls up with our groceries (and one recent driver was a hot 6'4" 220lb muscleboy that unfortunately was wearing a Jebus is king t-shirt) and I can stay home and smoke pot.
If Walmart gets their platform for third-party sellers running smoothly, they will ruin Amazon. Amazon knows this but is cocky as they watch Walmart flounder; it's time for another stock scare after an announcement that Walmart's share of online sales grew at Amazon's expense. Amazon's house of cards is showing the signs of stress, too. They are currently at war with their sellers after they issued a demand that the sellers contact Congress protesting the INFORM act and hardly any sellers did, and those who did basically told Congress that it was a terrific idea and could they please regulate Amazon more?
So now Amazon is punishing their third party sellers by requiring them to verify their identity despite the fact that Amazon already has all of the information required by the Act (and more). Jassy essentially issued a dictate that the sellers must be made to suffer for not supporting Amazon's corporate defiance of Congress, so has demanded that sellers jump through ridiculous hoops repeatedly, and still be told their their selling accounts are "at risk of deactivation" despite having all of the information required, the sellers doing everything Amazon demanded for this round of bullshit, and it causing undue consternation.. and rebellion.
Memo to Walmart: get your shit together and half of Amazon's 3 million third-party sellers will defect, and the other half will sell on both platforms.
Meanwhile, Amazon needs to keep an eye on TikTok's venture into online retailing. TikTok already accounts for about 20% of Amazon's traffic, so they're trying to find a way to scoop up more of that business, and those MF'ers are brutally competitive. Bezos was right: Amazon's woes are only just beginning.
Bottom line, OP: now is not the time to invest in retail unless you really know and understand what's going on.