Walmart Is Not Dead - Fighting Back Against Amazon

Amazon is not killing Walmart’s business, in fact, it is not even close.
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According to Walmart’s latest earnings report, the largest bricks and mortar retailer has made its place in the online world despite Amazon's presence.  The charts showed that Walmart’s online sales were up by 43%, in the fourth quarter, and they have successfully achieved approximately 40% of sales grown in 2018. Matching their own expectations, the company was thrilled moving into 2019. In this year alone their online sales are up by 35% and come with a solid growth ratio. If they keep building in the same manner, they will be able to contain their quarterly growth ranging from 30% to 40% says Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs.

CEO Dough McMillan said that Walmart is making progress in e-commerce, and analysts and investors are happy with the growth. Their focus remains on earning the trust of returning customers and expanding their assortment of products. Adding to his interview, he said; Walmart has invested in a few new projects that mostly focus on offering a well-rounded experience online. The main focus is currently set on making it more user-friendly, manageable, and easy to keep up with; while ensuring speedy delivery.

While Amazon takes on more than 50% of the e-commerce sales in the U.S. Walmart is stabilizing its footing, and expanding their growth rate at a steady level. Last year alone Walmart was able to surpass Apple, and become the third largest retailer in the country, right behind eBay and Amazon. Furthermore, researchers predict that Walmart will be able to end the year 2019 with a 4.6% share in the United States e-commerce market.

Walmart’s Strategy to Grow Online: 

Walmart has been adding to its website in many ways while keeping the interface simple and easy to understand; the website now offers products from partner brands such as Lord & Taylor. Offering customers high end dresses for the fabulous, and sports apparel by Fanatics. In addition, they successfully acquired Moosejaw which made a home on Walmart.com and then even rolled out grocery delivery services. It is no doubt that food is a huge part of Walmart’s online business, and they are ready to pair with 1600 stores for quick and easy grocery delivery, and 3100 grocery pickup hubs across the country.

To ensure that Walmart is still able to improve its e-commerce business, it tries to make each sale profitable. A sensible approach that is pushing them to sell more than groceries, and at a low margin rate.
In hopes, they launched a home furnishing line MoDRN, along with a number of revamped apparel brands. These are the kind of efforts required by Walmart to ensure stable growth. Another venture of theirs includes a collaboration with celebrities such as Sofia Vergara and Ellen Degeneres for exclusive clothing lines for Walmart.

In addition, Walmart is trying to take on digital brands such as Art.com, Bonobos, Modcloth, and Bare Necessities. While they are not dedicated completely to Walmart, but they give in a good chunk to its e-commerce sales growth.