Walmart Aims To Build Décor, Clothing Business

Walmart is still seeking the right combination of fashion and home, while its online shopping initiatives have been rewarded with an eCommerce grocery purchase boon. Marc Lore, who is Walmart’s U.S. eCommerce business president and chief executive officer, said the merchant is dedicated to providing shoppers with an attractive assortment of online goods, and, for that reason, it bought brands such as Bonobos, CNBC reported.

Lore was one of the company leaders who talked at the retailer’s investor day about how Walmart is joining its physical locations with its website and apps. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, for his part, also promoted the firm’s formidable brand stable but noted that the retailer wants to sell more home goods as well as clothing. He also affirmed the firm’s strong spending to build its online shopping business.

“We’ve invested a lot to do it, but we’re now in a position to play offense in an omnichannel game,” McMillon told analysts as well as investors. “We’ve got a strong set of chess pieces to work with.” Walmart has dedicated billions to bolster its eCommerce business. It purchased Jet.com in 2016 for $3.3 billion. As of that time, it has purchased online home and apparel brands, with the inclusion of Eloquii and Bonobos.

Walmart is still at work trying to figure out how to anticipate and adapt to the preferences of shoppers. McMillon, in one case, said Walmart locations didn’t have the correct mix of apparel during the Christmas season. He noted that its apparel “looked like red and green” and had too high a quantity in the lower price ranges.

In December, news surfaced that Walmart was collaborating with autonomous vehicle company Nuro to roll out a new pilot program that will test autonomous grocery delivery in the Houston market. The service was to use R2 — Nuro’s custom-built delivery vehicle — and autonomous Toyota Priuses, all powered by the proprietary hardware as well the software of Nuro.