Walmart news 

Walmart is investing in Plenty, a leading vertical farming company, by participating in its $400m Series E funding round. Strategic partnership Walmart plans on leveraging its investment in Plenty to deliver fresh produce to stores in California. The two companies plan on working strategically to create a new, market-leading product category in vertical farming. The retailer will start to sou...

Walmart de México y Centroamérica, also known as Walmex, operates 864 stores (Q3 2021) across five markets in Central America; Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.   The retailer is assessing “strategic alternatives” for its operations in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, which could lead to forthcoming sales or joint ventures. “We believe there may be attractive ...

Janey Whiteside, chief customer officer, and Scott McCall, chief merchandising officer, are leaving their roles at Walmart US. Customer-centric approach The departure of these two key executives was announced in an internal memo, as reported by Talk Business and Politics. Janey Whiteside joined the business in 2018 as the retailer’s first chief customer officer. Over the last four years she...

Following a test of the service with Walmart last year, HomeValet’s smart boxes are being made available for purchase for the first time. This will support the expansion of the retailer’s InHome delivery service. Roll-out starting in Florida Last year, HomeValet partnered with Walmart to pilot online grocery deliveries directly into smart boxes located outside customers’ homes. The smart bo...

Walmart plans to recruit 3,000 associates as delivery drivers to support the expansion of its InHome delivery programme. Scaling the service Launched in 2019, Walmart’s InHome service enables customers to have their online grocery deliveries delivered directly into their homes. This includes their kitchen or garage refrigerator. With the service currently available to 6m households, t...

In December 2021, Walmex (Walmart Mexico) opened its first gas station stores in Mexico. These small units are built adjacent to its Walmart and Bodega Aurrera (Walmex’s discount banner) gas stations.    The launch of Bodega Aurrera Gas Walmex’s first Bodega Aurrera Gas store is located in Celaya, central Mexico. The 60 sq. m store is built adjacent to a Bodega gas station. Source: ...

Walmart is partnering with HSBC and CPD to provide suppliers that with early payment on their invoices based on their sustainability efforts. This is designed to help them unlock investment in sustainability initiatives linked to the retailer’s Project Gigaton. Financing linked to progress on sustainability goals Through Walmart’s Sustainable Supply Chain Finance programme (SSCF), which was...

Walmart Canada is acquiring Foodmaestro to deliver a more personalised online shopping experience and help shoppers discover more relevant products aligned with their health and dietary needs. Why this deal is important? It reinforces Walmart's strategic focus on health and wellness It highlights its commitment to be the omnichannel leader in Canada and needs to have the best online experi...

Data from Adobe Analytics reveals that online sales on Black Friday fell marginally this year to $8.9bn, compared to $9bn in 2020. We look at what’s behind this dip. Strong performance compared to 2019 This year’s sales performance has to be put into context. Last year’s sales was a record high for Black Friday, increasing 21.6% compared to 2019, when sales hit $7.4bn. This was driven by re...

Walmart is partnering with Twitter to host livestream shopping as part of a broad programme of similar events this holiday season. The retailer is the first partner for the social media platform in the US for this type of event. Kick-off to Cyber Week This event will feature singer, songwriter and dancer Jason Derulo and will mark the launch of Walmart’s Cyber Week. This is a major sales ev...