Walmart US Q3 Sales Up on COVID-19 as Retail Digital Switch to Persist
With COVID-19 accelerating a retail shift to online and digital, Walmart had a 79% spike in e-commerce net sales growth in Q3, said CEO Doug McMillon in a Q3 Tuesday call. “We’re convinced that most of the behavior change will…
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persist beyond the pandemic.” McMillon cited the retailer’s omnichannel retail strategy allowing consumers to shop the way they’re most comfortable: in store, curbside pickup or online delivery. Walmart doubled employees working the in-store pickup business to 140,000 to accommodate customer preferences, said Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs. Company revenue rose 5.2% vs. Q3 2019 to $134.7 billion. U.S. comparable sales advanced 6.4%. Coronavirus costs totaled $600 million. Q4 “will feel different from past years as customers shop differently and shopping events are spread out," said Biggs. McMillon believes customers want to find a sense of normalcy in this “unique” holiday season, even if they can’t be with relatives in the usual way. Following reports that the retailer ended a contract for shelf-scanning robots in some stores because humans could handle the job just as fast, McMillon said automation will be a “big part of what we do." The company continues to conduct pilots for automation to find ways to improve efficiency, he said. Automation will play a role “in helping the store experience get better as it reduces the amount of work associates have to do at the store level just moving freight around,” he said.