Walmart Plans To Bring Together eCommerce, Store Groups

As Walmart aims to grow profits at its online shopping business and cut discord between units, the retailer is bringing together its store and eCommerce product-buying teams, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Manufacturers that sold items in Walmart’s physical locations and on Walmart.com had to pitch two distinct buying teams, and groups sometimes had discordant opinions over pricing differences between in-store and online products.

The retailer is making six category teams, such as apparel, entertainment, food and consumables. An executive will head up each team and eventually purchase each product Walmart sells in the U.S. The food and consumable groups will commence joint buying right away, and other purchasing categories will join forces as time goes on.

Walmart has long had different store and online shopping teams. The retailer, however, has been slowly bringing the two together as the business blends. It joined its store and online supply chains and finance groups in 2019. Even so, the retailer kept two distinct chief executives for the U.S. web and store businesses. The two will remain in their positions with the revised structure.

A spokesperson for Walmart noted that the new structure is targeted at having steadier prices and customer experience regardless of where transactions occur. And the retailer named Chandra Holt as Walmart eCommerce’s chief merchandising and integration officer.

In separate news, reports surfaced in November that Walmart debuted a new program called Delivery Unlimited in 1,400 of its stores. Shoppers who wish to order groceries from the retailer without having to pay a per-delivery fee every time have the choice of paying an annual or monthly fee. There’s also the option to pay for deliveries on a case-by-case basis.

A customer can either visit Walmart Grocery online or use the grocery app and start adding items to their cart. When they’re checking out, they can choose a one-hour space of time that’s convenient for delivery. Trained shoppers will then pick the freshest items, Walmart said.