Walmart, the world’s largest retailer has reported better-than-expected sales results from the online sales in the current quarter. Online sales at the retail giant soared 40%In the last three months boosting the overall sales to US$128 billion. Walmart has been heavily investing in the online sales department primarily targeting Amazon which is considered to be anything into the share of Walmart. With the aggressive strategy of online sales, Walmart acquired Jet.com, for about $3bn in 2016 to increase its online presence. After a series of losses, Walmart is back on track with its e-commerce sales up 40% over the same period a year ago. Doug McMillan, chief executive of Walmart set the following in a press release,” we are pleased with how customers are responding to the way we are leveraging stores and e-commerce to make shopping faster and more convenient. We are continuing to aggressively rollout gossip pick up and delivery in the US and we recently announced expanded omni-channel initiatives in China and Mexico.”
Online grocery is another huge potential e-commerce opportunity that everyone is looking to encash. While Walmart is making a huge Push towards online grocery, Amazon has already taken the lead with the acquisition of Whole Foods for 13.7 US billions dollars. It also signaled Amazon (AMZN) was taking direct aim at the stale grocery industry. Since the deal was completed in August, Amazon has firmly put its stamp across Whole Foods’ 473 stores. Logistics and delivery are two most important catalysts to the online sales and Amazon is already contemplating its own logistics supply chain management. While Amazon is doing the best to push forward and take the lead role in the e-commerce industry, Walmart is slowly but definitely inching higher. It remains to be seen how much aggressive can these giants can go to capture the lucrative home user market.
