Intertype competition is competition between different types of firms at the same channel level, such as the off-price store versus the department store or the merchant wholesaler versus agents and brokers.15 Also, in more recent years, intertype competition is reflected in online retailers competing with conventional store-based retailers. The intense competitive battle between online giant Amazon.com the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, is a case in point.16 While total online sales account for less than 5 percent of total retail sales, Amazon(and other online retailers) believe that eventually online sales could account for 20 or more of total retail sale. Amazon’ aggressive’ s strategy of broadening its product line to compete in more product categories is aimed at taking a large chunk of that projected increase in market share for itself intertype is also unfolding rapidly in the video retail business. For example, the still largest, though rapidly declining, conventional store-based video retailer Blockbuster is being assaulted by competitors using other channels such as Netflix, which is heavily focused on mail online sales to distribute video.17 Meanwhile, on demand movies and TV show are increasingly being pushed by cable companies such as Comcast while Redbox’s competitive channel relies on 22,000 vending machines, placed mainly in supermarkets and drugstores, to distribute video.18
Obviously, such competitive dynamics associated with intertype competition can drastically alter the structure of marketing channels, even over relatively short periods of time.19