This week on 3-Minute Insights, Lainie is joined by Terry Clear, director of Replenishment and Sales Insights at 8th & Walton. We’re discussing the impact of Walmart’s technology investments on this year’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales and the need for Walmart suppliers to update their mindset regarding Walmart’s tech capabilities.
Lainie: There were a lot of media reports about how tech, including but not limited to AI, was a major driver of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Do you think there are gaps between how suppliers perceive Walmart’s tech capabilities and their use of technology, and what is actually happening?
Terry: Oh, absolutely. And as is common with most things, perception lags reality. Walmart is aggressively moving ahead with technology, updating its website and its app, using AI, and looking for other ways of delivery, and yet many suppliers still think of Walmart as that big box that you drive to, navigate through, buy a product, and leave.
Terry: While all that’s true, Walmart is aggressively moving ahead with technology and customers are embracing this technology. So suppliers need to find out how to participate in that.
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Lainie: What would you say are the top two or three capabilities that you would urge suppliers to build so they can plug into Walmart’s tech and Walmart’s tech goals?
Terry: Primarily, it is around their item content and being able to understand that. Discovering and purchasing items today is different than it was even five years ago. Previously, it was a search: you searched for an item, much like you did a Google search for a term. Now it is much more conversational.
You might say, “Make recommendations for a holiday party,” and it would give you things to purchase. Think about using AI: you can now purchase Walmart products from a ChatGPT prompt. Over the holiday weekend, 10 million shoppers used the Walmart app while they were in the store. Although some of that was “just help me find where this is on the shelf,” people are using the apps to find items.
Year over year, home delivery increased 57%. So that’s another way shoppers are purchasing products in different ways. What you need to do is have your product set up so that the customer can find it—whether they are doing a traditional search on the website, using a search on the app, or doing a prompt through ChatGPT or some other AI platform—and so that your item is discoverable by the picker at the store, so they can get the item picked and delivered to the house.
Those are just incremental or add-on capabilities to “I’m just going to drive to the Walmart store and make a purchase.”
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