Amazon, what have you done? Big chain stores, like Walmart, hit hard by online retail giant

'We're at a time when companies are ready to start figuring this stuff out.'

Amazon recently announced free grocery delivery with the potential to benefit Prime members in the future but what really has businesses scrambling is Amazon's most recent move.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The online retail giant invited big-time brands to its headquarters in an attempt to cut out the "middle man," such as Walmart, Target, Costco and grocery stores, to sell their products directly to online shoppers.

Executives from General Mills, Modelez and other big names in the packaged goods industry were invited to attend a 3-day gathering in May, Bloomberg reported.

The executives will tour an Amazon fulfillment center and hear a presentation from Worldwide Consumer chief Jeff Wilke, one of Amazon's three CEOs.

An invitation to the company executives read: "Times are changing. Amazon strongly believes that supply chains designed to serve the direct-to-consumer business have the power to bring improved experiences and global efficiency. To achieve this requires a major shift in thinking."

If Amazon persuades brands to create individualized packaging to sell to the online world, Amazon could ship any common household good to urban dwellers in under an hour, potentially rendering grocery stores obsolete.

But before Amazon can change the way we shop, it needs to convince brands that online purchases are the future.

Major brands have been selling to grocery stores and chain restaurants like Costco, Walmart and Target for so many decades they never bothered with e-commerce, which Melissa Burdick, the vice president of e-commerce at The Mars Agency marketing firm, explained to be a think of the past.

"Most of these people haven't been interested in e-commerce because e-commerce has been such a small piece of their overall sales. But we've reached a tipping point. We're at a time when companies are ready to start figuring this stuff out."

In response to the new threat, big-box retailers such as Walmart are amping up their online options. They are working to offer more benefits to customers and continue to experiment with reaching their online audience.

Ken Cassar, an analyst at Slice Intelligence, said Amazon's 300 million shopper base relies on the company to bring what they want to the table.

Cassar noted that, historically, Amazon has the ability and drive to create its own products if brands aren't willing to sell on its marketplace.

Should Amazon win the big names over, or if it begins to push out its own products, retail giants and manufacturers alike can suffer heavy losses.

"Fear, more than anything else, may compel these companies to pay attention," he observed.

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