Today, we welcomed members of the investment community to our home office to share how we’re doing as a company and how we’ll serve our customers in the future.
We enjoyed giving them an update because our associates are making so much progress. This is an exciting time to be part of Walmart.
In the U.S., our investments in people, stores and technology are helping us grow – as we reported last quarter, comp sales are up, and more customers are shopping with us. In Walmart International, we delivered positive comps in ten out of our 11 markets in the first half of the year. Membership income is growing at Sam’s Club. And, in addition to more than doubling the number of items available on Walmart.com, we recently welcomed Marc Lore and the Jet.com team to our Walmart family.
Our goal is to be the best place for our customers to shop – whether they choose to do it in stores, online, on mobile devices, or a combination of these, it will be fast and easy.
How will we do that?
It starts with making every day easier for busy families. Saving them money makes every day easier and now, more than ever, they need us to save them not only money but time. We’ll do that in stores and we’ll do that with e-commerce. We will continue to invest in technologies and services that make shopping even easier, like Scan and Go at Sam’s Club, Walmart Pay and more.
We are a company that must become more of an e-commerce and technology company. There’s no doubt that e-commerce is going to become a much more important part of our business. So as we run stronger stores and build a bigger e-commerce business, we will continue to link them together in exciting ways. Today, more of our customers are shopping with us in stores and online or using our apps. Our ongoing investments in online grocery, Walmart.com and Samsclub.com as well as new investments in Jet.com are just a few examples of how we will evolve to offer customers the flexibility and convenience to shop when, where and how they want.
The distinctions made today between stores, apps, pickup, delivery and websites are blurring into the background for customers. For them, it’s all Walmart, and we will continue to offer new solutions that create a seamless shopping experience.
''Our goal is to be the best place for our customers to shop – whether they choose to do it in stores, online, on mobile devices, or a combination of these, it will be fast and easy.''
As retail changes, and Walmart changes with it, we can drive strong, efficient growth by continuing to operate with discipline.
Our business model of everyday low costs fuels the everyday low prices our customers expect. That’s not changing. So we will be thoughtful about expense control and be more productive across the business. We’ll win the basket business in stores and in e-commerce. And one other benefit from taking this approach is that shipping larger baskets is more sustainable from an environmental point of view.
So as we help our customers save money and time, we are also running our business with more sustainable practices and that gives us the opportunity to be our customers’ most trusted retailer.
Our goal is to earn their trust every day and to ensure that all of our customers know why they should feel good about shopping at Walmart. We do that by offering products that make a difference in communities. We carry products that support American jobs and sell produce sourced from local farms. We share profits with our associates – like the performance bonuses 99% of our stores earned last quarter-- and invest in their careers.
Overall, I’m encouraged by our progress. Our team has momentum, we’re delivering results and positioning Walmart to win in the future.
But to earn both the trust and business of busy families, it will take all of us working together to create a seamless, more sustainable shopping experience that no one else can match. We know where we’re headed and we’re excited about making life easier for them.
