Chicago, Oct 19 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Wal-Mart and Amazon are slugging it out by reducing prices on best sellers and other top thrillers. The prices of many of the highly anticipated books have been reduced to $9, which is great news for all the book lovers.

“While it’s the largest retailer in the United States, it’s not the dominant online retailer in the United States,” said Albert Greco, professor of marketing at New York City’s Fordham University. “And this appears to be an attempt to increase its position in the online space.”

This discounts war has been affecting other players in the market who are looking at very low sales and a decreased customer base.The worst affected is the large chain bookstores Borders Group Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc., which have been affected drastically by Amazon.com’s discounting and a decline in their music business.

Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Lester said its latest efforts to beef off its online discounts are part of the company’s overall strategy to sell products at the lowest prices.

Economic experts are saying that selling certain books for such a low price could lure customers to browse other more profitable titles, or even other merchandise, from the company’s Web site.

“Let’s say you lose money on one item, you’re making money on other items,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Wayne Hood.

There are other experts who disagree too.”They can’t bring (prices) that low,” said Michael Norris, a senior analyst with Simba Information. “As a whole, it’s very hard for traditional bookstores, large or small, to compete with this kind of nonsense.”