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The remarkable growth of Walmart’s e-comm biz.
August 22, 2024

Retail Brew

Particl

Hello, it’s Thursday. You can now add whiskey to the list of the many things Beyoncé is great at. The singer and entrepreneur is entering the liquor business with a line of whiskey called SirDavis, created in collaboration with LVMH’s Moët Hennessy.

In today’s edition:

—Vidhi Choudhary, Jeena Sharma, Maia Anderson

E-COMMERCE

Big gains

A Walmart worker filling a car with grocery delivery items. Walmart

Walmart may be traditionally known for its low prices and large stores, but the retailer has also managed to grow an Amazon-like e-commerce business.

The “every day low price” retailer reported a 22% YoY rise in Q2 e-commerce sales in the US. At Amazon, sales from online stores grew just 5% for the same period, albeit across a much larger base. Walmart said its e-commerce growth was “led by store-fulfilled pickup and delivery.”

Meanwhile, Walmart’s e-comm business is also getting closer to becoming profitable, CFO John David Rainey told investors in June, per Bloomberg. Walmart’s e-commerce business has become one of its main growth engines. It has also been growing at a faster clip than Amazon.

Keep reading here.—VC

   

PRESENTED BY PARTICL

Operation: retail recon

Particl

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  • Analyze competitors’ pricing strategies.

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RETAIL

Hold the phone

A woman holds a mobile phone. Lechatnoir/Getty Images

Mobile shopping seems to be outpacing many other e-commerce platforms, and may soon even overtake the humble desktop, according to a new report from Adobe Analytics. But considering the amount of time most people spend glued to their phones, is it all that surprising?

The report, which analyzed online commerce transactions, covering more than 1 trillion visits to US retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories, also predicted that 53% of online sales during the holiday shopping season will be driven by mobile shopping.

In fact, mobile spending grew in the double digits in the first half of 2024, and that puts it “neck and neck” with desktop shopping, Adobe said, with a “tipping point in the months ahead.”

Keep reading here.—JS

   

HEALTH

Primary snare

Walgreens mortar tipped over Francis Scialabba

In a significant strategy pivot, Walgreens is considering selling its VillageMD primary care subsidiary just three years after purchasing it for $5.2 billion, according to an August 7 SEC filing.

VillageMD clinics provide primary care services, with many locations attached to Walgreens pharmacies. The retail pharmacy chain’s goal when it first bought VillageMD was to get into the value-based care business, which managing partner Michael Abrams at healthcare consulting firm Numerof & Associates previously told Healthcare Brew is a lucrative expansion opportunity for pharmacies.

Keep reading here on Healthcare Brew.—MA

   

TOGETHER WITH NOURI

Nouri

Feel your best inside and out this summer. Nouri’s cutting-edge Women’s Health Daily Probiotic Capsules support urinary tract health, help advanced digestion and immune function, and more—all things you want to keep in check as you head into the active, healthy summer months of sun and fun. Check them out today.

SWAPPING SKUS

Today’s top retail reads.

Incoming: H&M CEO on his grand plan to recapture the market share the brand has lost. (Business of Fashion)

Robo-shop: Why Urban Outfitters and Nuuly are looking at automation to bolster profits. (the Wall Street Journal)

Costco of doing business: How Costco has taken over the American shopping experience, becoming the third-largest retailer in the world. (the New York Times)

JOBS

Forget generic job searches. CollabWORK leverages the power of community to connect you with relevant opportunities in Slack channels, Discord servers, and newsletters like Retail Brew. Land your dream job through the power of your network with CollabWORK.

NUMBERS GAME

The numbers you need to know.

When you think about loyal customers, Gen Z is probably not the first generation that comes to mind, right? Well, you’ll be surprised to learn that 61% of Gen Z shoppers actually identify as “forever customers,” per Medallia Market Research’s latest Consumer Views on Brand Loyalty study.

  • In comparison, only 57% of millennials and 43% of boomers said they would call themselves “forever customers.”

Overall, it seems, customers are pretty loyal. More than 70% feel some degree of loyalty toward a brand they’ve had a recent interaction with, although only 24% would call themselves “very loyal” to that brand.

So what drives this deep or forever type of loyalty? Of course offering a good price, especially in this economy, never goes unappreciated.

  • Of the more than 2,000 US customers surveyed, 46% said that price was the top factor in determining if they’d become a “forever customer to a brand,” followed by product quality (39%), product selection (30%), and experience (29%).

Speaking of experience, a consumer can just as easily get turned off by a brand as they can become loyal.

Of those surveyed, 59% said they swore to not shop at a retailer again after a bad experience, while 37% said it took just one bad experience to totally write a brand off.

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