Wonder

Research Outline

Prepared for Nirvana F. | Delivered November 13, 2019

Walmart

Goals

To understand Walmart's business including key categories and trends.

Early Findings

Walmart recently took significant steps to compete with Amazon's growing market share. The company hired top software developers to maximize its website and onboarded numbers of other online retailers to expand its online offerings.
They also overhauled their logistics, moving to shipping stock from stores to fulfill online orders, rather than central warehouses.
Walmart's next strategy is to put all this in a comprehensive marketing message that Walmart can save the shopper time AND money with no annual fee (unlike Prime membership).
One expert summarizes how Walmart has understood demographic trends where other major retailers have not. They have understood the declining birth rate equals fewer shoppers (so guests need to spend more money each visit), the emergence of the grandparent economy and the shrinking budgets of low income minorities.
Walmart announced in September it was bringing back "trendy" brand Scoop NYC. The brand was popular during "Sex and the City" days but closed its doors about three years ago. Now Walmart will offer the brand's women's fashion at more accessible price points, though still on the higher end for a usual Walmart customer.
Walmart has also recently partnered with Lord & Taylor to sell dresses online, and has launched lines by celebrities Sofia Vergara and Ellen DeGeneres.
In a news story from just last week, apparently more online brands are shifting to Walmart.com (from Amazon).
The company is also investing heavily in its grocery side. It recently launched Delivery Unlimited membership, where customers can choose to pay a subscription to have an unlimited number of grocery deliveries to their home. And they also significantly expanded their alcohol offerings at 2,000 stores.
In addition to this public search, we scanned our proprietary research database of over 1 million sources and were unable to find any specific research reports that address your goals.