Who would have thought having a network of stores would be so critical to selling merchandise online? Walmart had this foresight and a decade ago in 2013 it started testing a grocery pickup service. The secret to eCommerce success turns out to be….stores. If you want to learn more about what has contributed to Walmart’s strong eCommerce performance then read on.ġ. Omni-channel retailing is working. While Walmart trails Amazon by a wide margin in online sales Walmart is gaining ground. Walmart is now the second largest eCommerce retailer in the United States with eCommerce making up over 13% of its sales. Then in 2022 Walmart’s eCommerce sales were up 12%. Walmart’s US eCommerce sales were up 79% in 2020 and were up 11.0% in 2021 on the back of strong growth in the prior year. Walmart’s strength in eCommerce can be seen in its results. For many years analysts were saying stores are dead but if Walmart didn’t start testing grocery pickup back in 2013 its grocery pickup services would not have performed so well when put to the test during the pandemic. One of the things Walmart has done very well is it has focused on its own assets and how to best leverage them. The 60 year old retailer has stood out for taking a challenging situation brought on by the pandemic and turning it into an area of strength. Before everyone was focused solely on Amazon but as retailers were forced to shift sales online during the COVID-19 pandemic a number of retailers came to the forefront with their eCommerce savvy and Walmart is one of those retailers. If Walmart were a startup the Jetblack ‘exploration’ would have never been funded by investors.2020 is the year when the eCommerce narrative shifted in a major way. "Well-funded retailer innovation labs quickly become well-funded projects in search of a real-world reason for being. "There are plenty of startups working with very little capital to solve real problems," wrote Cynthia Holcomb, CEO of Prefeye. "That’s hard to do with software unless it was allocated costs. "I don’t exactly understand why Walmart was losing so much money each year per customer," wrote Rosenblum. The financials struck some on the BrainTrust as being out of kilter. She was replaced by Nate Faust, Walmart senior vice president of e-commerce logistics. Jenny Fleiss, a cofounder of Rent the Runway and CEO of Jetblack going back to its launch, left the company in October. ![]() The Wall Street Journal reports that Walmart was losing about $15,000 a year on each Jetblack member. Over the past year, Walmart has sold ModCloth, cut staff at Bonobos and Jet.com, and closed the Omaha headquarters of Hayneedle. The discontinuation of Jetblack is part of a larger effort for Walmart to rein in costs on its unprofitable digital properties. Walmart company spokesperson Ravi Jariwala told CNBC that 58 of Jetblack’s 350 employees will be integrated into the retailer’s conversational commerce technology team. ![]() If there’s any lesson to learn it’s this: solve customer needs or cautiously uncover their unexpressed desires, but avoid technology for technology’s sake and un-vetted concepts at all costs." ![]() "It also portends little insight about conversational commerce which this kinda-sorta was in an unusual way. "This was such an odd approach to retail that its demise is no surprise," wrote consultant Ken Lonyai. "Walmart is slowly working its way into a more upscale market, but I don’t think people that can afford $50/month are going to use it on a personal Walmart shopper," wrote Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at RSR Research and fellow contributor.
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