How Walmart rebranded itself as a fashion outlet

Walmart is becoming more like a department store, as the mass retailer takes steps to expand and improve its fashion offerings, according to Denise Incandela, EVP of fashion at Walmart, who spoke at eTail Palm Springs on Tuesday.

“Some of our customers come in and feel like they’re in a department store,” she said.

Typical for Walmart, price is at the center of this pivot. Incadela said her division noticed “white space” in the market for clothing in the $15–$40 range. National brands weren’t falling within that sweet spot, and Walmart’s own private label offerings were often falling below it. To fill this gap, the company started working with fashion designers such as Brandon Maxwell to launch brand offerings that fit the bill.

Initially Walmart focused on making these costlier brands available at suburban and urban stores with higher-income customers, Incadela said, but then it heard from store managers in more rural areas that Walmart was the “only game in town” when it came to fashion, so customers were looking for those quality options.

Adjusting to this role as a fashion outlet with more options and price points has required Walmart to overhaul its store format and merchandising techniques. Incandela said the “pile-high-let-it-fly” sales approach wasn’t suited to this strategy. So it cut out 10% of inventory to reduce clutter and added more mannequins and digital displays.

Food-fueled fashion: However, Walmart’s leading position as a seller of groceries and essentials remains key to this effort. Food and consumables drive 145 million visits to stores and Walmart.com every week, and Incandela sees this as a golden opportunity for its fashion business.

“I’ve been in luxury for most of my career, and to have that kind of traffic is quite unprecedented for me,” she said. “So put on top of that food business a legitimate, credible fashion business is a competitive differentiator that only we can deliver on.”