The Magic Behind Walmart's Best-in-Class Experience
Walmart is making progress on building a more customer-centric organization, with a foundation of everyday low prices. From investing in technology to its multi-format portfolio, Walmart is integrating digital and physical retail, allowing customers to shop on their terms.
"Overall, we're continuing to increase our capabilities in this area," said Bill Simon, president and EVP of Walmart U.S. "To further integrate our digital platform with our store fleet, we've recently rolled out an e-receipts program. The initiative makes it easier for our customers to keep track of their purchases and, when combined with the Savings Catcher program, will provide an opportunity for our customers to save even more. We also recently updated our mobile pharmacy app, and we're seeing strong customer response with usage across the country."
As the retailer sets focus on customer relevance it continues to make progress on e-commerce initiatives, creating transformative growth through its capabilities. Investments are focused on improving the customer experience and fulfillment capacity to provide the options that customers expect.
"The growth in e-commerce support was driven by our investments to help expand our global technology platform to deliver an unparalleled customer experience," said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, EVP of finance and treasurer for Walmart. "Our leverage services area includes investments we are making in technology, such as back office capabilities and risk and compliance management. In addition, we continue to invest in SAP to support our core operating segments, including productivity initiatives."
The e-commerce business has delivered double-digit sales growth, climbing approximately 27%, two-thirds of which came from the walmart.com fulfilled sales and the remainder from store fulfilled orders. This growth surpassed Amazon's 23% for the same quarter. The retailer continues to make progress through site enhancements, search capabilities and fulfillment, and expects the improvements to continue. In fact, during the quarter, two fulfillment centers dedicated to e-commerce were opened – one in Pennsylvania and one in Brazil.
With the acquisition of Simplexity's wireless activation platform earlier this month, the retailer will be able to more efficiently support wireless activations for both its Sam's Club and Walmart U.S. customers.
"We'll also continue to make strategic acquisitions to build out our technology, talent and capabilities," said Charles Holley, CFO and EVP for Walmart. "Over the least three years we've acquired 12 companies, which today serve as the driving force behind the innovative work our e-commerce teams are doing. Our acquisition earlier this month of Adchemy is a great example of how we're adding talent to @WalmartLabs, as well as enhancing our capabilities in areas like semantic search, data analytics and web marketing."
Walmart's investments are not only intended to attract e-commerce customers, but also to help them navigate and shop its physical stores. With nearly 11,000 stores, over 2.2 million associates worldwide and a growing presence of highly skilled engineers in Silicon Valley, the retailer is positioned to deliver a best in class e-commerce experience.
"Overall, we're continuing to increase our capabilities in this area," said Bill Simon, president and EVP of Walmart U.S. "To further integrate our digital platform with our store fleet, we've recently rolled out an e-receipts program. The initiative makes it easier for our customers to keep track of their purchases and, when combined with the Savings Catcher program, will provide an opportunity for our customers to save even more. We also recently updated our mobile pharmacy app, and we're seeing strong customer response with usage across the country."
As the retailer sets focus on customer relevance it continues to make progress on e-commerce initiatives, creating transformative growth through its capabilities. Investments are focused on improving the customer experience and fulfillment capacity to provide the options that customers expect.
"The growth in e-commerce support was driven by our investments to help expand our global technology platform to deliver an unparalleled customer experience," said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, EVP of finance and treasurer for Walmart. "Our leverage services area includes investments we are making in technology, such as back office capabilities and risk and compliance management. In addition, we continue to invest in SAP to support our core operating segments, including productivity initiatives."
The e-commerce business has delivered double-digit sales growth, climbing approximately 27%, two-thirds of which came from the walmart.com fulfilled sales and the remainder from store fulfilled orders. This growth surpassed Amazon's 23% for the same quarter. The retailer continues to make progress through site enhancements, search capabilities and fulfillment, and expects the improvements to continue. In fact, during the quarter, two fulfillment centers dedicated to e-commerce were opened – one in Pennsylvania and one in Brazil.
With the acquisition of Simplexity's wireless activation platform earlier this month, the retailer will be able to more efficiently support wireless activations for both its Sam's Club and Walmart U.S. customers.
"We'll also continue to make strategic acquisitions to build out our technology, talent and capabilities," said Charles Holley, CFO and EVP for Walmart. "Over the least three years we've acquired 12 companies, which today serve as the driving force behind the innovative work our e-commerce teams are doing. Our acquisition earlier this month of Adchemy is a great example of how we're adding talent to @WalmartLabs, as well as enhancing our capabilities in areas like semantic search, data analytics and web marketing."
Walmart's investments are not only intended to attract e-commerce customers, but also to help them navigate and shop its physical stores. With nearly 11,000 stores, over 2.2 million associates worldwide and a growing presence of highly skilled engineers in Silicon Valley, the retailer is positioned to deliver a best in class e-commerce experience.