walmart research articles

• Skip to main
• Skip to footer
• Board of Directors
• Walmart History
• New Home Office
• Working at Walmart
• Sam's Club
• Location Facts
• Contact Walmart
• Media Library
• Contact Media Relations
• Opportunity
• Sustainability
• Ethics & Integrity
• Belonging, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Philanthropy
• ESG Reporting
• Health & Wellness
• Stock Information
• Financial Information
• Corporate Governance
• ESG Investors
• Investor Resources
• Supplier Requirements
• Apply to be a Supplier
• Supplier Inclusion
• Sustainability for Suppliers
• America at Work
• Investing In American Jobs
• Sam's Club Suppliers
• Ask Walmart

Walmart's Healthcare Research Institute Launches With Mission To Improve Care for Underserved Communities Through Research

Whri offers inclusivity for patients in rural and underserved communities to participate in clinical research.

Oct. 11, 2022

BENTONVILLE, Ark., October 11 — Today, Walmart is announcing the launch of the Walmart Healthcare Research Institute SM (WHRI) to increase community access to healthcare research that may help lead to safer, higher quality and more equitable healthcare.

WHRI will be focused on innovative interventions and medications that can make a difference in underrepresented communities including older adults, rural residents, women and minority populations. WHRI initially is focused on inclusion in studies on treatments for chronic conditions and innovative treatments that should include members from these communities.

“At Walmart, we want to help ensure all our customers have access to high quality, affordable and convenient healthcare resources, including innovative research,” said Dr. John Wigneswaran, Walmart’s Chief Medical Officer. “We know our customers are interested in participating in healthcare research, but many have not had access until now. We are already making an impact for our customers and for medical research, by raising patient trust and engagement in their care.”

For decades, clinical trials have not been representative of the population at large and often recruit participants who live near research centers, have the time and have the financial ability to participate. 1 According to Food and Drug Administration data, in 2020, 75% of trial participants were white, 11% were Hispanic, 8% were Black, and 6% were Asian. 2 Walmart is focused on studies that can have a health equity impact in the communities it serves and represent all populations. With 90% of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart, the retailer can offer solutions to care by meeting customers and patients where they live and work.

Walmart is working with a wide range of study partners, including clinical research organizations, pharmaceutical companies and leading academic medical centers, including CTI Clinical Trial & Consulting Services and Laina Enterprises. WHRI is already demonstrating strong results, with a referral rate 3x the industry benchmark.

“The efforts by Walmart in research are innovative and impactful – it is clear that the intention behind their foray into this space is to genuinely make a difference for patients of all ages, race and gender in their ability to access research,” said Bill Hawkins, Chairman of the Board, Duke University Health. “This initiative will support individual patient health as well as the health of numerous communities home to Walmart stores.”

To help make it easier for research patients to simplify their care, Walmart launched MyHealthJourney SM , a digital tool that lets patients take control of their own data through easy access to their eligible medical records and insurance information online in one place. With MyHealthJourney SM , patients receive reminders for care services and research opportunities to help them keep their health on track.

“Walmart's research initiative aligns with North Carolina A&T's strategic plans to further expand its local, regional and national community engagement activities in order to reduce social, economic and health disparities within African American populations,” said Dr. Raymond Samuel, Professor, North Carolina A&T State University; Center of Outreach in Alzheimer’s Aging and Community Health; Past Project Director, Hampton University-based Minority Men’s Health Initiative (MMHI). “Walmart's interest in ensuring that DEIA is at the core of its effort to increase customer access to clinical trials is in synergy with the historical commitment of NC A&T to enhancing the well-being of its communities.”

Walmart’s Healthcare Research Institute is an extension of Walmart’s long-standing commitment to helping expand access to patients and underrepresented populations. The retailer has demonstrated this through low-cost medicines such as, $4 generic medication program and private label ReliOn® insulin, high-quality healthcare at Walmart Health Centers and Vision Centers, partnerships and programs to address Social Determinants of Health, and now the opportunity to enroll in healthcare research.

Patients can learn more about healthcare research and opportunities that may be right for them at walmarthealthcareresearchinstitute.com .

1 - Chaudhari N, Ravi R, Gogtay NJ, Thatte UM. Recruitment and retention of the participants in clinical trials: Challenges and solutions. Perspect Clin Res . 2020;11(2):64-69. doi:10.4103/picr.PICR_206_19 

2 - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2020 Drug Trials Snapshot Summary Report. February, 2021. 2020 Drug Trials Snapshots Summary Report (fda.gov) . Accessed October 9, 2022. 

About Walmart Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) helps people around the world save money and live better - anytime and anywhere - in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week, approximately 230 million customers and members visit more than 10,500 stores and numerous eCommerce websites under 46 banners in 24 countries. With fiscal year 2022 revenue of $573 billion, Walmart employs approximately 2.3 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. Additional information about Walmart can be found by visiting corporate.walmart.com , on Facebook at facebook.com/walmart and on Twitter at twitter.com/walmart .

• Account Settings

FEATURED INSIGHTS

• Behavioral health
• Site-of-care shifts
• Specialty care
• State of the healthcare industry
• The workforce crisis
• Value-based care
• View all featured insights

RESOURCES BY SECTOR

• Digital health
• Health plans
• Hospitals and health systems
• Medical device
• Physicians and medical groups
• Purchased and professional services
• View all sectors

NEWS & INSIGHTS

• Daily Briefing
• Radio Advisory
• Advisory Board tools

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

• Research Membership
• Expert Support
• Advisory Board Fellowship
• On-Demand Courses
• Sponsorship

FEATURED CONTENT

Truly personalized care is possible. here's how to make it a reality..

Learn to navigate 4 key obstacles to improve patient access to innovative care.

• AskAdvisory

Our direct-to-expert service is here to help you navigate your membership, our research, and your most pressing challenges in healthcare. No question is too big or too small.

Inside Walmart's plan to make clinical trials more accessible

Walmart on Tuesday announced that it is launching a medical research institute that aims to make health care "safer, higher quality, and more equitable" by increasing access to clinical trials among underrepresented groups.

An ecosystem approach to achieving diversity in clinical trials

Walmart launches health care research institute

Walmart on Tuesday launched the Walmart Healthcare Research Institute (WHRI), which will focus on recruiting individuals from underrepresented groups, including older adults, rural residents, women, and racial/ethnic minorities, for clinical trials and research on chronic conditions.

So far, clinical trials have largely not been representative of the U.S. population since participants are typically individuals who live near research centers and have both the time and money to participate. In 2020, FDA found that 75% of clinical trial participants were white, 11% were Hispanic, 8% were Black, and 6% were Asian.

"At Walmart, we want to help ensure all our customers have access to high quality, affordable and convenient healthcare resources, including innovative research," said John Wigneswaran, the company's CMO. "We know our customers are interested in participating in healthcare research, but many have not had access until now. We are already making an impact for our customers and for medical research, by raising patient trust and engagement in their care."

Currently, 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart, and almost 4,000 stores are in underserved areas. According to Wigneswaran, this will help the company connect with customers and patients closer to where they live and work. WHRI plans to partner with pharmaceutical companies, clinical research organizations, and academic medical centers to help identify and recruit participants.

Initially, the institute will focus on clinical trials for diseases that most impact underrepresented communities, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Covid-19, and asthma. In the future, it will also consider research on other conditions like HIV and dementia.

To ensure the most beneficial clinical trials are chosen and patients receive appropriate communications, Wigneswaran said WHRI will have an independent review board, as well as a clinical advisory board, oversee all projects.

"This is a remarkable initiative by Walmart, addressing a critically important issue by leveraging their reach, resources, and influence," said Harlan Krumholz, from the Yale New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. "As a trusted brand, I am hopeful that their efforts will make research more readily available to so many who have not had the opportunity to participate and also produce progress toward greater health equity."

Competition heats up in the clinical research space among retailers

According to Reuters , Walmart is the latest retailer to expand into clinical research, joining both Walgreens and CVS Health .

CVS Health first launched its clinical trial unit in 2021, and since then, the company has conducted studies to track the emergence of new coronavirus variants through a contract with HHS. Currently, CVS is working on a flu study, as well as a collaboration with Pfizer to study the long-term effects of Covid-19.

In addition, Walgreens previously partnered with the University of North Texas Health Science Center in 2018 for a study on African American HIV patients. In June, the company launched its own clinical trial services to increase diversity among trial participants.

According to a Walgreens spokesperson, the company is currently in discussions with "many leading pharmaceutical companies" about patient recruitment, virtual or hybrid clinical trials, and diversity initiatives.

"Walgreens is making a push to utilize their stores to reach their more diverse population in their clinical trials, so it seems feasible that that's something that Walmart may eventually want to do as well," said Carri Chan, a professor at Columbia Business School . (Devereaux, Modern Healthcare , 10/11; McLymore, Reuters , 10/11; Japsen, Forbes , 10/11; Gans, The Hill , 10/11; Walmart news release , 10/11)

Is this content helpful?

Posted on October 13, 2022

Updated on March 18, 2023

Around the nation: CVS reduces prices for menstrual products in its stores

Charted: clinician burnout (and what to do about it), at what age can you expect to gain the most weight, meet the 3 new macarthur 'geniuses' in health care.

We help leaders and future leaders in the healthcare industry work smarter and faster by providing provocative insights, actionable strategies, and practical tools to support execution.

• All Resources
• Our History
• Legal Disclaimer
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

Don't miss out on the latest Advisory Board insights

Create your free account to access 2 resources each month, including the latest research and webinars.

Want access without creating an account?

You have 2 free members-only resources remaining this month remaining this month.

1 free members-only resources remaining this month

You've reached your limit of free monthly insights

Become a member to access all of Advisory Board's resources, events, and experts

Never miss out on the latest innovative health care content tailored to you.

Benefits include:

Brought to you by:

Wal-Mart: In Search of Renewed Growth

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Stephan Meier

In early 2020 Walmart Stores, Inc., the world's largest retailer, faced several strategic challenges. The company had just been ranked number one on the Fortune 500 list, but its growth rate lagged…

• Length: 26 page(s)
• Publication Date: Aug 4, 2015
• Discipline: Strategy
• Product #: CU20-PDF-ENG

What's included:

• Teaching Note
• Educator Copy

$4.95 per student

degree granting course

$8.95 per student

non-degree granting course

Get access to this material, plus much more with a free Educator Account:

• Access to world-famous HBS cases
• Up to 60% off materials for your students
• Resources for teaching online
• Tips and reviews from other Educators

Already registered? Sign in

• Student Registration
• Non-Academic Registration
• Included Materials

In early 2020 Walmart Stores, Inc., the world's largest retailer, faced several strategic challenges. The company had just been ranked number one on the Fortune 500 list, but its growth rate lagged its competition. International expansion had turned out to yield uneven results, and Walmart lagged in online sales. To foster continued growth, the company was considering a strategic shift: looking outside the store's traditional customer base to attract more upscale consumers. Walmart's past efforts to move upscale had not been successful. What are the strategic risks and benefits of the company's latest efforts to improve sales?

Learning Objectives

The case allows students to understand how Wal-Mart implements its low-cost strategy. The discussion focuses on economies of scale and density, the link between sunk cost and market structure, as well as the role of diversification in explaining the company's financial success. Students will also consider the extent to which the strong alignment of activities poses a barrier to future growth.

Aug 4, 2015 (Revised: Aug 23, 2022)

Discipline:

Geographies:

United States

Industries:

Department stores, Retail and consumer goods

Columbia Business School

CU20-PDF-ENG

We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience, including personalizing content. Learn More . By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies and revised Privacy Policy .

Find the right market research agencies, suppliers, platforms, and facilities by exploring the services and solutions that best match your needs

list of top MR Specialties

Browse all specialties

Browse Companies and Platforms

by Specialty

by Location

Browse Focus Group Facilities

Manage your listing

Follow a step-by-step guide with online chat support to create or manage your listing.

About Greenbook Directory

IIEX Conferences

Discover the future of insights at the Insight Innovation Exchange (IIEX) event closest to you

IIEX Virtual Events

Explore important trends, best practices, and innovative use cases without leaving your desk

Insights Tech Showcase

See the latest research tech in action during curated interactive demos from top vendors

Stay updated on what’s new in insights and learn about solutions to the challenges you face

Greenbook Future list

An esteemed awards program that supports and encourages the voices of emerging leaders in the insight community.

Insight Innovation Competition

Submit your innovation that could impact the insights and market research industry for the better.

Find your next position in the world's largest database of market research and data analytics jobs.

For Suppliers

Directory: Renew your listing

Directory: Create a listing

Event sponsorship

Get Recommended Program

Digital Ads

Content marketing

Ads in Reports

Podcasts sponsorship

Run your Webinar

Host a Tech Showcase

Future List Partnership

All services

Dana Stanley

Greenbook’s Chief Revenue Officer

December 1, 2022

Is Walmart the Future of Market Research?

Editor’s Note: Earlier this year, we had Linda Lomelino on our podcast to discuss how Walmart is now leveraging shopper data and serving commercial customers as a research supplier. This…

by Ashley Shedlock

Content Coordinator at Greenbook

Editor’s Note: Earlier this year, we had Linda Lomelino on our podcast to discuss how Walmart is now leveraging shopper data and serving commercial customers as a research supplier. This strategic decision positioned them as not just an iconic retailer, but a competitive vendor with a solid value proposition. We want GreenBook readers to know about this important development, not just our podcast listeners, so have a look and let us know what you think in the comments!

For more inf o rmation on how Walmart is influencing the market research industry, tune into the GreenBook Podcast  episode How Walmart is Commercializing the Power of Data Science streaming now!   

“For an industry that’s experiencing a mass acceleration in change, understanding what customers want can give companies a competitive advantage.”

The GreenBook podcast recently sat down with Linda Lomelino , the Senior Director of Product Management and data ventures at Walmart, to discuss their ambitious plans for its Luminate data research platform. Over the past three years, Linda and her team have built technologies that help Walmart listen to customers and bring them into the decision-making process.  For an industry that’s experiencing a mass acceleration in change, understanding what customers want can give companies a competitive advantage.

Linda’s background in sociology, consumer insights , public policy, and public opinion makes her perfect for shedding some light on the new robust Walmart database platform and what it means for the industry. Here’s what we learned in our chat.

How people are choosing to shop post-pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how people live their daily lives and how they decide to go grocery shopping was not immune to these new changes. This shift in customer/company relations has forced brands and retailers to understand their customers on a personal level to earn their business. 

To understand a customer base, a company needs to seek insights from the data collected from its customers. This more intimate customer relationship and the rise of the importance of understanding customer data has caused a new trend of companies investing in building internal data capabilities.

As the market research industry began evolving, Walmart wasn’t just a simple participant in this trend. Walmart was leading the charge and proved itself to be a trendsetter, once again. Being at the forefront of this massive shift in how market research is conducted, they are already looking to expand the Walmart data ventures.

Walmart is already serving external clients their data products and focusing on delivering value to their customers that will improve the customer experience. Their main goal is to continue to put out data products that serve the end customer.

What is Walmart Luminate? How is Walmart using it to become a Data Giant?

Walmart’s Luminate platform is being used by both internal stakeholders and suppliers to gain a better perspective of the customer from the merchant’s point of view. The platform is being offered commercially to suppliers and was previously provided internally to merchants. It gives U.S.-based merchants and suppliers access to complete customer insights so they can make decisions faster and easier.  

The difference between Luminate and other similar platforms is that it has a proprietary community that is carefully curated to ensure high engagement and response rates. This community has helped inform over a thousand business decisions over the last three years.

Amazon Prime vs. Walmart Plus—Who Will Win?

The market research industry is moving towards being more engaged with consumers, and Walmart’s Luminate allows them to do just that. Their new privacy-conscious and accessible platform lets merchants have a better dialogue with their consumers.

Other companies have tried to replicate the success of the Walmart database, including LinkedIn. They offered a similar service for a short time but quickly realized that the industry was too crazy and opted not to continue with the project.

How Walmart plans to grow their data ventures

As a next step in Walmart data ventures, they plan to add qualitative research capabilities to the platform. The Walmart insights team is looking to increase its research capabilities in both the quant and qual spaces and is considering partnering with other research providers to help them achieve this.

Walmart is considering partnering with companies, including Kirksey, to augment their facial coding and eye-tracking capabilities. Kirksey provides a next-gen insights platform that features an interactive mobile survey app with benefits like high response rates and short field time.

They are also working on a platform that will allow clients to bring in their partners to help with data collection and analysis. There is a need for an agile and flexible service component for technology-based companies.    

Platforms like these will help clients to do the best research possible. The company is working on making the platform easy to use. Democratizing access to data is a key motivation for this platform. It requires the right tools and expertise to be in place to help people make decisions.

Being at the forefront of this evolving industry, Walmart has started using technology and data to give experts a complete understanding of the market. This tactic has never been done at this scale before and has caused excitement around the future of the market research industry and the new ways it can grow.   

What does this mean for the future of market research?

The Walmart insights team, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, and with campuses in California and New Jersey, is excited about the potential for activation from insights and is looking to expand its teams. 

When it comes to growth in the market research industry, Walmart has proven itself to be the main player when it comes to innovation and keeping up with trends. Their commitment to listening to their customers and giving them the best possible experience has led them to create something that this industry has never seen before.  

Walmart has become an anomaly in the market research space. Where others have failed, Walmart seems to have soared. Instead of stopping while they’re ahead, they are looking forward to how they can grow their data ventures.

Ashley Shedlock

The views, opinions, data, and methodologies expressed above are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official policies, positions, or beliefs of Greenbook.

Comments are moderated to ensure respect towards the author and to prevent spam or self-promotion. Your comment may be edited, rejected, or approved based on these criteria. By commenting, you accept these terms and take responsibility for your contributions.

More from Ashley Shedlock

Research Methodologies

5 Secrets to Effective Competitor Research

Gain valuable insights with competitor research. Understand trends, customer preferences, and industry opportunities. Stay ahead in the competitive la...

March 27, 2024

Read article

Top in Quantitative Research

Moving Away from a Narcissistic Market Research Model

Why are we still measuring brand loyalty? It isn’t something that naturally comes up with consumers, who rarely think about brand first, if at all. Ma...

Devora Rogers

Chief Strategy Officer at Alter Agents

May 31, 2023

Qualitative Research

The Stepping Stones of Innovation: Navigating Failure and Empathy with Carol Fitzgerald

Natalie Pusch

Senior Content Producer at Greenbook

March 16, 2023

Play Episode

Sign Up for Updates

Get content that matters, written by top insights industry experts, delivered right to your inbox.

67k+ subscribers

Weekly Newsletter

Greenbook Podcast

Event Updates

I agree to receive emails with insights-related content from Greenbook. I understand that I can manage my email preferences or unsubscribe at any time and that Greenbook protects my privacy under the General Data Protection Regulation.*

We will send you a greatest letters one per week for your happy

Your guide for all things market research and consumer insights

Create a New Listing

Manage My Listing

Find Companies

Find Focus Group Facilities

Tech Showcases

GRIT Report

Expert Channels

Get in touch

Marketing Services

Future List

Publish With Us

Privacy policy

Cookie policy

Terms of use

Copyright © 2024 New York AMA Communication Services, Inc. All rights reserved. 234 5th Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001 | Phone: (212) 849-2752

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Omnichannel battle between Amazon and Walmart: Is the focus on delivery the best strategy?

Rupinder p. jindal.

a Marketing at Milgard School of Business, University of Washington Tacoma, 1900 Commerce St., Tacoma, WA 98402, United States

Dinesh K. Gauri

b Marketing and Wal-Mart Chair in Marketing at Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, United States

c Marketing at Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

d Marketing and Bensadoun Faculty Scholar at Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Associated Data

A large body of academic research has recently focused on omnichannel retailing especially on brick-and-mortar (offline) retailers adding and integrating online capabilities. Relatedly, trade press has highlighted how offline retailers have been investing heavily in the use of their existing physical retail network for quicker delivery and pick-up of online orders. Looking at the competition between Amazon and Walmart, however, we demonstrate that focusing on quicker delivery is not the best strategy for offline retailers when opening online channels to compete with online retailers. We estimate a multivariate probit model using data from a customer survey and find that offline retailers should instead focus on delivering the fundamentals of retailing to their online customers too – larger assortment, competitive prices, and purchase convenience. Further, we employ cluster analysis to show which demographics are good targets for retailers as they develop omnichannel capabilities, as well as which demographics retailers need to keep loyal to their original channels.

1. Introduction

In the past decade, trade press and academic research in marketing has highlighted the rise of omnichannel retailing. This type of retailing involves employing multiple channels and integrating activities within and across these channels to correspond with how customers shop ( Ailawadi & Farris, 2017 ). The Marketing Science Institute (MSI) has recognized omnichannel retailing as one of the five marketing research priorities for 2018–20 ( Marketing Science Institute, 2018 ). The growth of internet raised a number of challenges for brick-and-mortar retailers (denoted as offline hereon) starting with the advent of digital-first retailers (denoted as online hereon). Manufacturers started using both kinds of retailers to market their products, which resulted in offline retailers facing cross-channel competition from online retailers. Because online retailers had a lower cost structure, they were able to offer lower prices to customers. This resulted in showrooming where customers would use physical stores to inspect the merchandise but then purchase the merchandise through online stores ( Ratchford, 2019 ). To compete, offline retailers started opening online channels too. On the other hand, online retailers started realizing the importance of physical stores in retailing specific product categories (such as grocery and apparel) and started opening physical stores. Such omnichannel retailing provides customers a seamless experience across offline and online channels of the same retailer ( Bhatnagar & Ghose, 2004a ). Research has shown that this makes shoppers spend more at a retailer and increases customer loyalty ( Neslin et al., 2006 ). In this context, a lot of attention has been focused on the rivalry between Amazon and Walmart – the respective leaders in online and offline retailing – both in general merchandise and, more recently, in grocery.

According to the National Retail Federation, retail (at 2.6 trillion dollars in sales) is about one-sixth of the entire GDP of the United States. Of this, the “food and consumer products” category is the largest with nearly 1 trillion dollars in sales. According to Nielsen, online grocery sales accounted for just 5 percent of the total sales ( Nassauer, 2019c ). This share was expected to double by the year 2024 though Covid-19 pandemic has caused a spurt in online purchases by consumers ( Nassauer, 2019b ). What proportion of this pandemic-induced online purchasing persists is debatable but the bulk of sales will still be conducted offline for the foreseeable future.

Offline grocery stores in the U.S. are of various kinds. These include supermarkets such as Kroger, supercenters such as Walmart, natural food stores such as Whole Foods, limited-variety stores such as Trader Joe’s, and warehouse stores such as Costco. Online food shopping has been considered one of the last major holdouts in online retailing because items are often perishable, fragile, or heavy; and, customers prefer to see, touch, smell, and sometimes taste the products (in the form of samples) to validate their freshness and quality before purchase. Most customers shop for groceries at offline stores located close to them; in this context, delivery fees for online orders are usually high in proportion to the total bill which acts as a disincentive against their online purchase ( Griffith, 2018 ). For online retailers, relatively low margins, small average order size, and the perishable nature of products, along with high consumer price sensitivity and strict delivery preferences, raise economic and logistical challenges ( Kumar & Mittal, 2018 ). For example, customer purchases show cyclical patterns, with increased purchasing over the weekends. This implies that trucks customized for grocery delivery are likely to be under-utilized on weekdays. Also, customer density in a given locality needs to be above a certain threshold to justify the economics of sending a delivery truck ( McDonald, Christensen, Yang, & Hollingsworth, 2014 ).

Because offline retailing is expected to continue accounting for the bulk of grocery sales, there is immense interest in the activities of well-established offline grocery retailers as they try to protect their market shares by initiating and integrating their own online channels. Trade press has reported extensively on the activities of such retailers as Walmart, Target, and Kroger. Although research in retailing has identified a multitude of attributes that influence customer’s store choice behavior, these retailers seem to be focused inordinately on leveraging their physical infrastructure to provide quicker delivery of online orders as they attempt to compete with Amazon for a larger share of online shoppers.

In this article, we explore whether or not this focus on quick delivery is the best strategy for offline retailers to compete with online retailers when attracting online shoppers. We conducted an online survey to collect primary data from customers of both Amazon and Walmart to understand reasons for their patronage behavior. Using a multivariate probit choice model, we show that the key reason customers choose Amazon home delivery lies in the fundamentals of retailing – large assortment, competitive prices, and purchase convenience. Offline retailers such as Walmart should thus focus on providing these attributes in their online stores to wean away customers from online retailers such as Amazon instead of investing inordinately in their physical infrastructure to provide quicker delivery of orders. First, they need to generate an online order by being attractive, competitive, and convenient before they can demonstrate their speed of delivery. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to look at the relative importance of the determinants of channel or format choice in an omnichannel context that includes more than one retailer. Furthermore, we employ cluster analysis to show which demographics are good targets for retailers as they develop omnichannel capabilities and which demographics they need to keep loyal to their original channels. Our results provide meaningful and actionable insights, especially for offline retailers looking to optimize their investments in omnichannel retailing.

This article is organized as follows. In the next section, we look at recent omnichannel activities by both Amazon and Walmart. Then we consider extant research in determinants of customer patronage behavior of channels or retail stores. Next, we explain our data, measures, and model estimation technique. We follow this with the discussion of results. We conclude with managerial implications of our findings, limitations of the study, and avenues for future research.

2. Amazon vs. Walmart

Walmart started with, and continues dominating, offline retailing which still accounts for almost 90 percent of retail sales in the U.S. By contrast, Amazon started with, and continues dominating, online retailing. Although both have been aware of the challenges posed by each other, both also “stayed in their lanes” for a long time. With the increasing demand for omnichannel retailing, however, each company has been attracted to the other’s predominant channel. Towards this end, Amazon has taken steps to increase its presence in offline retailing whereas Walmart has taken steps to increase its presence in online retailing. Both retailers are integrating their new channels with existing ones. Amazon is using offline locations as pick-up and return points for online orders, whereas Walmart is using online channel to generate orders that can then be fulfilled by its vast network of stores.

2.1. Amazon: from clicks to bricks

Starting in 1994 as an online book retailer, Amazon has diversified into multiple product and service categories and is now the most dominant brand in online retailing. Its reach among U.S. online shoppers is at least ten times that of any offline retailer ( Redman, 2019 ). It offers the largest assortment of products available at competitive prices. When trying to compete with offline retailers, one of Amazon’s disadvantages however has been the delivery time, especially for certain product categories, such as groceries.

In a recent survey, 80 percent of the respondents who were Prime members indicated that their primary motivation for shopping at Amazon was fast, free shipping ( Kestenbaum, 2020 ). Amazon has been investing heavily to make next-day delivery standard for Prime members. These investments include linking together its fulfillment/distribution centers by adding smaller jets to its rented air-cargo fleet of 70 aircrafts, opening local sortation/collection centers close to large metropolitan areas, operating its own delivery vans, and even asking its own employees to deliver packages ( Cameron, 2019 ). It now operates more than 75 fulfillment centers, some of which are larger than a million square feet, and 25 sortation centers (which group goods by destination) across the U.S. ( Mims, 2018 ). Amazon has a fulfillment node within 20 miles of half of the US population, which is up from the mere 5 percent of the US population within that radius in 2015 ( Collis, Wu, Koning, & Sun, 2018 ). To increase the speed of its supply chain further, Amazon is planning to open a central air hub near Cincinnati in 2021 and regional air hubs in major population centers such as southern California and central Florida ( Troy, 2020 ). To cut costs and complications in the last-mile delivery, Amazon has acquired Zoox, an autonomous vehicle company, for $1.2 billion. It is expected to utilize Zoox’s self-driving technology to automate its distribution network ( Acosta, 2020 ).

In addition to these initiatives for faster delivery, Amazon is also increasing its brick-and-mortar presence, betting that shoppers still want to buy groceries and other consumer products at physical stores. Amazon acquired Whole Foods stores in 2017 for about $13.5 billion. The company has now started offering grocery pick-up and one-hour delivery from some Whole Foods stores and plans to expand these services to nearly all 477 stores. Amazon is planning to build Whole Foods stores in more suburbs and other areas to put more customers within range of a two-hour delivery service ( Haddon & Stevens, 2018b ). Amazon’s brick-and-mortar initiatives also include Amazon Go convenience stores, which are just 1800 square feet in area but sell a range of drinks, prepared foods and groceries ( Haddon & Stevens, 2018a ). With improvements in camera technology, Amazon extended its Go concept in early 2020 to an urban grocery store larger than ten thousand square feet ( Herrera & Tilley, 2020 ). It is also exploring purchase of smaller regional grocery chains to broaden its reach. Another kind of stores launched in 2018 are named “4-star” stores which carry such items as Amazon devices, electronics, toys, books, and home goods rated at least four stars by customers on Amazon.com. Prime members get preferential prices at these stores ( Accardi, 2020 ).

Amazon also has thousands of self-service kiosks/lockers in almost a thousand cities in the U.S. It has installed lockers at Whole Foods Markets, various convenience stores, and at thousands of apartment complexes and college dormitories throughout the country for residential package pick-up. It is also leveraging existing offline retailers’ infrastructure to expand last-mile delivery options to its online customers. For example, shoppers will be able to pick up their online purchases at specialized counters in more than 1500 Rite Aid locations by the end of the year ( Herrera, 2019a ).

2.2. Walmart: From bricks to clicks

Walmart dominates offline retailing in the U.S. with domestic annual revenue of about $332 billion in 2019 (excluding its international revenue and Sam's Club revenue). The company has a store within 10 miles of 90 percent of Americans. Walmart entered grocery sector in 1988 with the opening of its first supercenter. Since then, food and other staples have come to account for more than half of Walmart’s total revenue in the U.S., and it has become the country’s largest grocer with a 23 percent share of the market ( Hsu, 2018 ). In fact, Walmart’s revenue from grocery is more than double of Kroger’s and five times that of Amazon’s in the sector ( Nassauer, 2019a ).

Walmart is taking several initiatives to continue its hold on grocery retailing as online purchasing has gradually increased. Walmart has been aggressively pursuing click-and-collect model where customers buy an item online and pick it up at the store, usually curbside or in the parking lot. Compared with home delivery, click-and-collect is an attractive model for retailers because they can achieve higher profit margins by avoiding shipping fees ( Meyersohn, 2018 ). It offers customers the best of both conventional offline shopping and home delivery of online orders – they can make their purchases in the comfort of their home and get it faster than waiting for delivery or without waiting in a checkout line at the store. Walmart has added grocery pick-up to more than 2,000 of its approximately 4,600 stores in the past four years, and pick-up of general items to 700 stores in the past two years. It has cut the number of new store openings in favor of offering pick-up and same-day delivery options at more stores ( Haddon & Fung, 2019 ). Trade press has highlighted related moves such as partnerships with start-ups employing automated carts to fulfill grocery pick-up orders at stores ( Griffith, 2018 ), as well as restructuring store employee roles to adapt to shifting shopping habits.

In the past, Walmart resisted the more expensive model of home delivery in favor of click-and-collect but is now investing heavily in quick home delivery too ( Chin & Nassauer, 2018 ). In 2015, Walmart began opening dedicated online fulfillment centers and increased product quantities in these centers to deliver online orders more quickly. These centers are supplemented by a large number of smaller centers, as well as store shipments. This allows Walmart to put 98 percent of the U.S. population within two days of ground shipping ( Mims, 2018 ). It is also offering delivery from 800 stores, with another 800 planned this year, mostly by joining hands with firms such as DoorDash and Instacart that crowdsource drivers. It is testing employing its own store workers to make deliveries in a few locations too ( Nassauer, 2019b ). Walmart offers free next-day delivery of about 200,000 products on orders costing $35 or more in 40 of the top 50 U.S. metro areas. Through this strategy, it aims to match Amazon Prime, which is considered a key driver of Amazon’s growth and has set standards for fast shipping of online orders.

Walmart is also testing out delivery services with an eye on the future including delivering groceries directly to customers’ refrigerators. This move is in response to Amazon’s Prime Now service which drops orders (including fresh groceries from Whole Foods) on doorsteps within hours, and its in-home delivery service “Key by Amazon” which leaves fresh groceries just inside a door, garage or the trunk of a car ( Nassauer, 2019c ).

Although we have primarily looked at Walmart’s activities in expediting delivery, it is not the only offline retailer trying to compete with Amazon in getting products into customer’s hands more quickly. Other retailers are devising their own strategies too. Target, for example, is utilizing its local stores as distribution hubs, rather than developing dedicated distribution centers for online orders. Using Shipt, a delivery company it acquired in 2017, Target is able to deliver over 90 percent of its online orders within 2 days ( Mims, 2018 ). This has allowed it to keep its delivery costs low. On the other hand, Kroger, the largest supermarket chain, is building a network of automated warehouses for online grocery services ( Haddon & Fung, 2019 ) and has announced a partnership with Ocado, an online grocery company, to use its robots to pack online orders ( Griffith, 2018 ). It now offers delivery or pick-up of online orders at more than 90 percent of its stores ( Haddon, 2019a ).

3. Determinants of store and channel choice behavior

Existing research has identified several factors that influence customer choice of a channel or retail store. These can be categorized into product-related factors (e.g., product quality), store-related factors (such as product assortment, price, convenience, purchase experience, order-fulfillment time, store atmosphere, service quality, friendliness of salespeople, and store image), and customer-related demographic factors (primarily age, income, and gender) ( Blut et al., 2018 , Gensler et al., 2012 , Melis et al., 2015 , Neslin et al., 2006 , Pan and Zinkhan, 2006 ).

Research in store patronage behavior has extensively employed the theory of reasoned action (TRA) which asserts that perceptions of important attributes determine customer attitudes which in turn determine their behavior ( Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 ). Thus, customer perceptions of these key attributes of each channel are assumed to translate into the attractiveness of each channel’s value proposition, which in turn affects customer channel choice ( Verhoef, Neslin, & Vroomen, 2007 ). We too employ this theoretical lens in our study to identify which attributes have the strongest influence on each of the customers’ choices across both offline and online channels of both retailers.

Product assortment has been identified as one of the most important determinants of customers’ channel choice ( Briesch et al., 2009 , Verhoef et al., 2007 ). It is usually measured by the extent of breadth (number of product categories), depth (number of SKUs within a category), and brand choice (number of brands) available. Research has shown that customers’ attitudes toward a retail store or website are strongly related to the assortment offered ( Srinivasan, Anderson, & Ponnavolu, 2002 ). They are also likely to evaluate selected items more positively when the assortment is more comprehensive ( Morales, Kahn, McAlister, & Broniarczyk, 2005 ). As long as it does not confuse the customers, a larger assortment is preferred because it offers more choice flexibility, reduces search costs, and enhances feelings of autonomy for the customer ( Iyengar and Lepper, 2000 , Oppewal and Koelemeijer, 2005 , Sloot et al., 2006 ). Pan and Zinkhan (2006) found that product assortment had the highest average correlation with store choice, followed by other factors such as service quality, product quality, store atmosphere, price, purchase experience, fast checkout, and friendliness of salespeople.

Price dimension has also been shown as a strong determinant of store patronage and customer satisfaction with a channel ( Gensler et al., 2012 ). Besides the price of the product and any discounts, the price dimension also includes acquisition cost, i.e., the cost a customer incurs in either traveling to the store or the cost she pays for home delivery. Customers consider price differences when choosing a store and are more likely to purchase at the channel that offers them most attractive price ( Bell et al., 1998 , Vroegrijk et al., 2013 ).

Time dimension of order fulfillment varies depending on the mode of purchase and delivery. For offline purchase, it consists of travel time and transaction time, i.e., the time required to locate the product and checkout. For home delivery of an online order, it consists of the time required to place the order and to wait for its arrival, i.e., time taken for the product to be delivered. For pick-up of an online order, it consists of the time required to place the order, travel time, and pick-up time, i.e., time required to pick up the order from dedicated pick-up area inside or outside the store. Customers are more likely to choose the channel that minimizes overall time taken ( Baker, Parasuraman, Grewal, & Voss, 2002 ).

Purchase experience is an amalgam of perceived savings in time and effort during the purchase process, including the stages of search, evaluation, and acquisition ( Gupta & Kim, 2010 ). Thus, purchase experience subsumes such attributes as store atmosphere, service quality, friendliness of salespeople, and ease of returning the product. Customer evaluations of purchase experience and service also determine customer satisfaction with both offline and online shopping experiences ( Benoit et al., 2019 , Berry et al., 2002 , Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003 ).

In addition to product- and store-related factors, consumer-related demographic factors are also dominant predictors of customers’ channel patronage and shopping frequency ( Pan & Zinkhan, 2006 ). Given their greater comfort with using internet for shopping, younger shoppers and those with higher levels of education may be more likely to adopt newer channels such as buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS). Income level may play a role in using home delivery formats because of the need to pay delivery fees or to purchase above a certain amount to qualify for free delivery. Household characteristics, such as the number of members who work, may influence preference for pick-up formats. Relatedly, multi-channel customer segmentation has gained attention too ( Konus, Verhoef, & Neslin, 2008 ), which can help retailers more effectively target potential patrons.

Most of these store-, product-, and customer-related attributes have been conventionally studied in offline and online retailing separately. Some attributes of choice behavior (such as service quality) are ideally comparable within-channel competition only (i.e., comparing service quality at offline channel of one retailer with service quality at offline channel of another retailer). However, other attributes (such as assortment and price) are agnostic of within-channel (within offline or within online channels) or cross-channel competition (between offline and online channels) in that they are comparable across disparate channels of different retailers ( Brynjolfsson and Smith, 2000 , Degeratu et al., 2000 ). For most of the attributes, Amazon and Walmart had conventionally taken opposite approaches as they offered different value propositions (either offline or online) to customers ( Kumar & Mittal, 2018 ). When choosing one channel over the other, customers made trade-offs according to their individual preferences. Sometimes these preferences could be mapped along demographic dimensions. In this cross-channel competitive scenario, it was easy to understand customers’ choice of Amazon or Walmart because these two retailers (with their dominant channels) clearly differed in their relative strengths on various attributes ( Verhoef et al., 2007 ). But their efforts in omnichannel retailing to become attractive to customers of each other have turned this cross-channel competition into a mix of simultaneous within-channel and cross-channel competition. Although the direction of patronage determinants’ association with each channel is conceivable, their relative strengths for each channel of each retailer are an empirical issue.

In the past few years, exploration of attributes leading to channel patronage in the context of omnichannel retailing has gathered pace. For example, Emrich, Paul, and Rudolph (2015) showed that limited-line retailers who have a high assortment depth (compared with broad-line retailers who have a high assortment breadth) are better off having the same product assortment at their offline and online stores. Broad-line retailers, on the other hand, are better off providing a larger assortment at their online channels. In grocery retailing, Melis et al. (2015) showed that shoppers adopted the online channel of their preferred offline grocer at first but with time chose an online grocer on the basis of online product assortment. A large proportion of research in this stream has focused on the effects of opening an offline (online) channel for an online (offline) retailer and has documented positive effects on overall sales ( Avery et al., 2012 , Gallino and Moreno, 2014 , Pauwels and Neslin, 2015 ). Research on the effects of integrating multiple channels to provide customers an omnichannel experience has also documented overall positive results ( Cao & Li, 2015 ).

Specifically examining the issue of delivery, Fisher, Gallino, and Xu (2019) used quasi-experimental data to show that faster delivery of online orders increased sales in both online and offline channels of an apparel retailer. They showed that each business-day reduction in delivery period increased online sales of the apparel retailer by about 1.45 percent and offline sales by about 0.61 percent. The average reduction in delivery time across various states however was just about half a day from the baseline delivery period of 7 business days. In this study, we consider competition between Amazon and Walmart both of which have much shorter delivery periods for most online orders. Consumer behavior too likely differs in purchase of apparel and grocery due to factors such as concern for freshness and quality of groceries, and feasibility of returning grocery purchases. Furthermore, we explore the relative importance of various attributes in customers’ choice behavior across online and offline channels of both retailers. We also show which demographics are good targets for them as they develop omnichannel capabilities and which demographics they need to keep loyal to their original channels. In Table 1 , we provide a summary of relevant empirical research in omnichannel retailing.

Summary of Empirical Literature on Omnichannel Retailing.

4. Methodology

We designed a survey and asked participants to report their shopping behavior at Amazon and Walmart, as well as their perceptions of the various factors discussed in the previous section. The survey was administered in early 2018 by a market research company which recruited a random population of respondents from its sample panel of consumers in the U.S. The company recruits individuals from across the U.S. using a variety of methods to obtain sample diversity, and regularly cleans the database so that it reflects a representative sample. 524 respondents completed all survey questions. We report the summary statistics in Table 2 . Among these respondents, 76 percent shop frequently (defined as more than once per month) on Amazon.com and have products delivered to home, while only 21 percent frequently use the pick-up option when shopping on Amazon.com. Regarding Walmart, 87 percent of participants shop frequently at Walmart stores; 37 percent shop frequently on Walmart.com and choose to ship to home; and 35 percent shop frequently on Walmart.com and use the pick-up option. Fig. 1 depicts an UpSet plot of the proportion of respondents who frequently use a shopping mode exclusively or various combinations of the five shopping modes.

Descriptive Statistics.

UpSet Plot – Shoppers’ Choice of Various Modes of Shopping.

36 percent of respondents are male, and the average age is around 41 years. 59 percent respondents are married, and almost two-third of the respondents have children. The largest proportion of respondents (33 percent) have college degrees and the largest proportion of respondents (35 percent) earn between 50 thousand and 100 thousand dollars per annum. Almost one-third of the respondents each report that either one or two members in the household work.

The various attributes conventionally considered influential in store choice and outlined in the previous section may be correlated. To reduce the dimensions of the ratings, we performed a principal component analysis to extract orthogonal components. We report the rotated factor loadings in Table 3 . For the 18 attributes we identified three components (with eigenvalue of 10.16, 1.73, and 0.95 respectively) that account for 71 percent of total variance. The first component – comprised of such attributes as offering pleasant shopping experience, speedy checkout, good customer service, helpful employees, and free 2-day shipping for online purchases – broadly reflects purchase experience, customer service, and product delivery. Hence, we named this component experience, service, and delivery (ESD). The second component – comprised of such attributes as offering competitive prices, a wide range of product choices, preferred brands, easy returns, and an easy-to-use website – broadly reflects product assortment, competitive price, and purchase convenience. Hence, we named this component assortment, price, and convenience (APC). The third component – comprised of such attributes as offering fresh produce, quality private-label products, quality meat and poultry, and availability of organic items – broadly reflects freshness and quality of products, as well as the ability to validate these qualities. Hence, we named this component freshness and quality validation (FQV).

Principal Component Analysis Loading Matrix.

4.2. Model specification

We propose a multivariate probit model (MVP) to explain a survey participant’s decision to shop frequently at one or more of the five options – Amazon home delivery, Amazon pick-up, Walmart in-store shopping, Walmart home delivery, and Walmart pick-up. A multivariate probit model is a flexible approach to explain the contemporaneous incidence outcomes in this situation where participants may choose more than one option (see Seetharaman et al., 2005 for a review).

We assume the utility of buying from option i(i = 1,…,5) for household h can be written as:

where h stands for participants, i stands for the five shopping options, ESD , APC , and FQV are the three principal components, and X h is a vector that includes demographic variables for household h .

The observed shopping decisions (more than once per month vs. less frequent) for option i can be written as:

We assume that the error terms of different options for a survey participant, ɛ h = {ɛ h1 , ɛ h2, …, ɛ h5 }, follow a multivariate normal distribution. That is,

where ∑ is a 5 × 5 covariance matrix. The covariance matrix allows very flexible substitution patterns and captures the co-incidences in the outcomes ( Manchanda, Ansari, & Gupta, 1999 ). For identification purposes, all diagonal elements of the covariance matrix are set to 1, and the covariance matrix is essentially estimated as a correlation matrix. We estimated the model using simulated maximum likelihood implemented by Stata CMP module ( Roodman, 2011 ).

4.3. Results

4.3.1. estimation results from multivariate probit model.

We report the estimation results in Table 4 and present them for each choice available to the customers. We have standardized the coefficients (covariates only) to infer the strength of each attribute in forming a customer’s preference for each choice.

Estimates of Multivariate Probit model (MVP).

Notes: All tests are two-tailed.

Coefficients are standardized.

Income category “Less than $25 k” is the base category for income, and education level “High school or less” is the base category for education.

Home delivery of online orders placed at Amazon.com seems to be preferred the most by customers who place high importance on APC, i.e., product assortment, price competitiveness, and purchase convenience (β std  = 0.39; p < 0.01). Amazon home delivery is preferred second most by customers who place high importance on ESD, i.e., purchase experience, customer service, and product delivery (β std  = 0.21; p < 0.01). It is interesting to note that the choice of home delivery mode is driven more by APC than by ESD. FQV, i.e., Product freshness and quality validation understandably drives customers to Amazon home delivery to a much smaller extent (β std  = 0.16; p < 0.05). This is driven partly by the fact that it is difficult to validate quality for a product that is going to be delivered. Comparing the three attributes, APC is almost twice as effective as ESD and almost two and a half times as effective as FQV. In terms of customer demographics, this mode is preferred by males (β std  = 0.21; p < 0.01), younger customers (β std  = −0.29; p < 0.01), customers with a master’s degree or higher (β std  = 0.25; p < 0.05), customers earning between 50,000 and 100,000 dollars per year (β std  = 0.20; p < 0.05), and customers earning between 100,000 and 150,000 dollars per year (β std  = 0.20; p < 0.05).

Picking up one’s Amazon orders at one of the stores or pick-up points provided by Amazon seems to be preferred primarily by customers who place high importance on FQV (β std  = 0.46; p < 0.01). It is also preferred by customers who place importance on ESD, though not to the same extent (β std  = 0.20; p < 0.01). Choice of this mode does not seem to be associated with the level of importance customers place on APC (β std  = −0.11; n.s.). Understandably, those customers who consider purchase convenience important are less likely to choose picking up their own purchase. This could also be partly driven by Prime members who qualify for free delivery and may not want to expend time and money involved in pick-up, which effectively increases the price for them. Comparing the attributes, FQV is more than twice as effective as ESD, whereas APC is not effective at all. In terms of customer demographics, this mode is preferred by male customers (β std  = 0.23; p < 0.01), younger customers (β std  = −0.43; p < 0.01), customers with adult children (β std  = 0.14; p < 0.10), and customers earning more than 150,000 dollars (β std  = 0.23; p < 0.01). Preference for this mode among households with adult children may be driven partly by the availability of additional adults to pick up online orders.

Offline purchasing in-store at Walmart seems to be preferred the most by those customers who place high importance on FQV (β std  = 0.32; p < 0.01). This finding is self-explanatory – purchasing products at a store in person provides the best opportunity to validate freshness and quality. However, it is not associated with importance customers place on ESD (β std  = 0.04; n.s.) nor on APC (β std  = 0.13; n.s.). Other than giving shoppers an opportunity to validate freshness and quality of products, Walmart does not seem able to attract customers on any other attribute. In terms of customer demographics, this mode is preferred by married customers (β std  = 0.17; p < 0.10) but less preferred by customers with college degrees (β std  = −0.20; p < 0.10). Surprisingly, shopping at Walmart stores is not significantly associated with any other demographic variable, which implies that no customer demographic segment has offline shopping at Walmart as its favorite mode.

Home delivery of online orders placed at Walmart.com seems to be preferred by customers who place high importance on ESD (β std  = 0.26; p < 0.01). It is also preferred, though to a slightly lower extent, by customers who value APC (β std  = 0.23; p < 0.01). Choice of this mode does not seem to be associated with the level of importance customers place on FQV (β std  = 0.07; n.s.). In terms of customer demographics, this mode is preferred by males (β std  = 0.13; p < 0.05), younger customers (β std  = −0.31; p < 0.01), and customers who have children between ages 5 and 17 (β std  = 0.11; p < 0.10).

Picking up online Walmart orders at one of the stores seems to be preferred by customers who place high importance on ESD (β std  = 0.37; p < 0.01). It is preferred second most by customers who place importance on APC (β std  = 0.16; p < 0.05). Valuing FQV also drives customers to Walmart pick-up, though not to the same extent (β std  = 0.14; p < 0.05). Comparing the three attributes, ESD is more than twice as effective as APC and more than two and a half times as effective as FQV. In terms of customer demographics, this mode is preferred by males (β std  = 0.13; p < 0.10), younger customers (β std  = −0.26; p < 0.01), and customers earning more than 150,000 dollars (β std  = 0.14; p < 0.10).

Home delivery of online Amazon orders and in-store shopping at Walmart are the original formats of these two retailers and are in a way a study in contrasts. Results broadly suggest that shoppers prefer Amazon home delivery primarily because they think they get better product assortment, competitive prices, and purchase convenience; other factors influence Amazon shoppers too, though not to the same extent. In-store Walmart shoppers mainly shop there because they think they can validate product freshness and quality; they do not seem to be motivated by any other factor. To cut into each other’s market share in these formats they need to counter their rival’s main attraction for the customers, i.e., Amazon needs to provide an opportunity for product freshness and quality validation while Walmart needs to provide a stronger motivation for customers who value assortment, price, and convenience.

By expanding into pick-up of online orders from various kinds of pick-up points including Whole Foods stores, Amazon seems to have successfully achieved its objective. The influence of freshness and quality validation is the main driving factor for customers choosing Amazon pick-up and is almost fifty percent more than the influence on customers choosing Walmart in-store shopping. Hence, between its two formats Amazon seems to provide incentives for most customers.

By expanding home delivery of online orders and pick-up of online orders from its stores, Walmart seems to have addressed the insufficiencies of purchase experience, customer service, and product delivery associated with the retailer’s in-store shopping. Customers who place higher importance on experience, service, and delivery are more likely to choose Walmart’s newer formats, though pick-up more so than home delivery. Trade press validates Walmart’s vast investments to provide experience, service, and faster delivery especially through pick-up of online orders for the past few years. However, these new formats do not seem to have fully addressed the key reason Amazon home delivery shoppers use Amazon – product assortment, competitive prices, and purchase convenience; such customers are still more likely to choose Amazon home delivery. The effect of these attributes on customers choosing Walmart delivery is more than forty percent less than its effect on customers choosing Amazon delivery. The attributes’ effect on customers choosing Walmart pick-up is less than half of the effect on customers choosing Amazon delivery. This is especially ironic given Walmart’s Everyday Low Prices (EDLP) strategy and its slogan of “Always low prices” since inception. Hence, the key challenge for Walmart is to deliver a larger assortment at competitive prices while making shopping convenient for customers. This challenge is distinct from that of delivering purchase experience and quick delivery, which has been a focus for Walmart over the past few years. A piece of validating empirical evidence: Walmart’s online assortment of stock keeping units (SKUs) is only ten percent of Amazon.com’s assortment, which is more than half a billion. Walmart needs to actively enlarge its online assortment in order to effectively cut into Amazon’s market share. Although it professes “Always low prices,” empirical evidence has also shown that Walmart’s prices are not always the lowest ( Profitero, 2018 ).

In terms of attracting specific demographic segments, Amazon home delivery appears popular among males, younger customers, customers with higher education, and customers with a middle-to-high income. By expanding into pick-up, Amazon not only seems to have retained males and younger customers but has also attracted households with the highest levels of income and households with adult children at home, perhaps because the number of members in the household who can pick up online orders is higher. On the other hand, there is no particular demographic group that appears to be strongly attracted to Walmart in-store shopping. By providing home delivery and pick-up of online orders, Walmart seems to have attracted more males and younger customers, who form the core customer base for Amazon home delivery. Thus, it seems that at least to some extent Walmart has succeeded in attracting Amazon customers with its newer channels. Walmart home delivery also seems to have attracted households with school-going children, which could perhaps be because they appreciate their purchases home-delivered due to paucity of time. Walmart pick-up seems to have attracted households with highest levels of income. However, this segment seems to prefer pick-up option at Amazon too. Thus, compared with Amazon, Walmart still needs to do more to attract customers with higher levels of education and income to its newer formats.

Overall, Amazon seems to have had greater success at adopting omnichannel retailing than Walmart. Walmart should focus more on offering larger online product assortment, competitive prices, and purchase convenience in addition to making investments in customer experience and faster delivery. Additionally, it should increase its efforts in attempting to gain the more educated and higher income shoppers that Amazon currently attracts.

4.3.2. Segmentation analysis

Ailawadi and Farris (2017, p. 133) suggest that “segmenting consumers not just based on their preferences for different channels but based on the attributes or reasons for those preferences is important. Segmentation schemes that show whether and how the importance of convenience- and price-based attributes correlate in different segments can give suppliers insight into how they need to control the availability, presentation, and pricing of their brands online. And they can give retailers insights into how they can differentiate to appeal to important segments while controlling costs on aspects that are less important to the segments.” Multichannel customer segmentation has frequently been identified as a key consumer behavior issue for designing effective multichannel strategies ( Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2004a , Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2004b , Ganesh et al., 2010 , Konus et al., 2008 , Namin and Dehdashti, 2019 ).

To further understand the differences in customer needs, we conducted a segmentation analysis on the extracted principal components using K-means clustering. A three-cluster solution provides clear distinction between respondents’ shopping choices, and we report the results in Table 5 , Table 6 . Approximately 13 percent of respondents seem loyal solely to Amazon home delivery, driven primarily by better product assortment, competitive prices, and purchase convenience available at Amazon, as well as by better purchase experience, customer service, and product delivery provided by the retailer. This cluster also has very low perception of Walmart on all the three key factors. Unmarried customers, customers with children 18 years and older, those with college degrees, and customers earning between 50 thousand and 100 thousand dollars seem to be relatively better represented in this cluster.

Segmentation Analysis: Cluster Analysis Results.

Segmentation Analysis: Comparison of Variable Means across Clusters.

Approximately 29 percent of the respondents seem to have embraced omnichannel retailing unmindful of which retailer it is. They may choose one retailer or channel over another to meet their specific needs at the time of purchase ( Kumar & Mittal, 2018 ). As expected, they seem to rate both Amazon and Walmart high on purchase experience, customer service, and product delivery, as well as on product freshness and quality validation. Younger customers, as well as customers with legally minor children, with higher education, with higher levels of income, and double-income households are relatively better represented in this cluster.

Approximately 58 percent of the respondents seem hesitant to utilize new formats introduced by their preferred retailers. A larger proportion of these respondents shop in-store at Walmart and seem to be doing so for the ability to validate freshness and quality of product. A smaller proportion use Amazon home delivery for reasons of purchase experience, customer service, and product delivery, as well as product assortment, competitive price, and purchase convenience. Female customers, as well as customers with relatively lower levels of education and income seem to be better represented in this cluster.

Overall, as these retailers invest in newer formats, the ideal potential customers for those formats are highly educated married young people (with or without young children) with high incomes, especially with both members of the household working. This desirable profile is widely validated in popular press too. At the same time, Amazon needs to hold on to college-educated singles with a middle-to-high level of income, a demographic that seems to form their loyal customer segment. Finally, female customers with lower levels of education or income appear averse to trying out new formats from both retailers. Hence, both retailers will do well to hold onto this core set of their customers.

5. Discussion

Offline retailers may be making a mistake in the way they are trying to compete with Amazon. Most of their recent investments and activities are focused on quicker delivery of online orders. This focus is understandable given their ready network of delivery and pick-up points in the form of thousands of physical stores. But what they need to examine is why a customer will shop at their online store in the first place if the best they can do is match Amazon on delivery. Offline retailers are focused on gaining parity in distribution of online orders—but what about the assortment and price of products they are making available online and the convenience with which customers can shop for those products? Most offline retailers’ online assortment is a fraction of what is available at Amazon. For example, compared to 536 million SKUs available on Amazon.com in 2016, Walmart.com had only 38 million SKUs ( Collis et al., 2018 ). Some offline retailers, including Walmart, have tried to charge higher prices online than they do in their stores. Is that an attractive proposition to compete with online retailers?

Teixeira (2019) argues that the misplaced focus may be based on offline retailers’ assumption that their industry is being disrupted by technology and innovation of online retailers. He contends that although technological in nature the roots of this disruption lie in better customer value. The recession in 2008 enhanced the importance of price and value for the customer, but traditional grocers kept increasing prices at historical levels to maintain their gross margins. This harmed their value perception. Customers started seeing higher value in online retailers, given their larger assortments and lower prices. Amazon calls it the “flywheel” effect: more product selection and growth leads to lower costs and prices, which gives customers reasons to keep shopping at Amazon ( Haddon & Stevens, 2018b ). Offline retailers need to recognize this phenomenon, otherwise their investments in technology to ensure quicker delivery of online orders will only further raise their costs. If these costs are then passed onto customers in the form of higher prices, these investments will ultimately worsen their value perception ( Gomes, 2019 ). In a survey conducted by Forrester, the price of an item was the biggest reason shoppers favored a particular retailer; expedited shipping drove purchase decisions for less than 10 percent of the respondents ( Smith, 2019 ).

Offline retailers need to understand and leverage their comparative advantages ( Gomes, 2019 ). They should invest in tracking their supply chain in real time to get a better sense of what, and how much of it, is where and when. Evidence suggests that faster delivery may not be as important for customers as “certain” delivery, i.e., meeting the promised delivery date ( Kumar & Mittal, 2018 ). In an analysis of its online business, REI Inc. found that “if we can provide four-day or less service for our customers consistently, we’re retaining them and getting wallet share” ( Smith, 2019 ). When Amazon missed its two-day delivery promise to several of its Prime customers on Prime Day in 2019 it led to such reactions as “If you can’t fulfill it, don’t promise it.” Amazon explained the high traffic of customers through price: “People are not focused on speed, they are focused on deals.” This validates the primary importance of pricing in customers’ patronage behavior. ( Herrera, 2019b ). Tracking their inventory in real-time would allow offline retailers to fulfill their promised delivery dates.

Most grocers lack the ability of real-time tracking – 15 percent of consumer products listed on U.S. online ordering services are out of stock when it comes to fulfilling them ( Haddon, 2019b ). These items are not in the nearest stores fulfilling a delivery order, which forces employees to make necessary substitutions in the order, but these substitutions are not always optimal. At Instacart, the largest third-party grocery-delivery service, incomplete orders are the second most frequent source of customer dissatisfaction, after high price. Mishandling substitutions often lead to returns and refunds which decrease an online order’s profitability ( Haddon, 2019b ).

In conclusion, Walmart perhaps has the best physical distribution and retail network in the world. Instead of imitating Amazon, which offers a different value proposition to its customers, Walmart should invest in this competitive advantage. It has moved away from focusing on its brand identity as a retailer providing everyday low prices. It should invest in and leverage its core competencies both offline and online and make it convenient for shoppers to make purchases ( Yohn, 2017 ).

5.1. Managerial implications

Although based on competition between Amazon and Walmart, the key results of this study have managerial implications for all retailers pursuing omnichannel strategies. Online retailers’ key limitation is that shoppers cannot validate freshness and quality at the time of purchase. They can overcome this limitation by offering pick-up of online orders in customers’ vicinity. Pick-up option seems to especially attract high very income customers too. Offline retailers need to ensure that their online assortment and prices are competitive with major online retailers and the purchase experience is convenient for the shoppers. These are the key attributes that attract shoppers, especially younger shoppers, to online channels. It may be overrated for them to invest inordinately in quicker delivery, as evidence suggests that delivering on a “promised” date is as effective as, if not better than, quicker delivery.

In general, omnichannel retailers would be advised to target younger double-income households with higher levels of education and income, as they seem the most receptive to addition of newer channels by retailers. However, when targeting these segments of customers by adding newer channels, retailers need to continue providing benefits for their existing customers to maintain their loyalty. These customers likely have lower levels of education and income, which again highlights the critical need to offer greater assortments at competitive prices while making the purchase process convenient to attract all different kinds of customers.

5.2. Limitations and future research

Although this study contributes to our understanding of strategies omnichannel retailers can utilize to compete more effectively, there are some limitations. First is the issue of generalizability. Our analysis is based on customers’ patronage of two retailers only – Amazon and Walmart. As such results may be biased by certain unobservable dimensions of competition between these two specific retailers. Future research should consider other major offline and online retailers too. Second, the retailing sector is undergoing changes and developments at a fast pace especially after the economy was hit by Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of year 2020. As such, results based on data collected more than a year ago may not fully hold now or in the future. Third, we have not considered the relative cost or capacity issues involved in terms of providing various attributes to the customers. Future research should consider these issues as well in omnichannel retailing. Fourth, we collected information only about the frequency with which customers shop at each of the channels – more frequently than once a month or not. We did not collect how they divided their budget between these different channels, which could have provided a more insightful outcome variable to validate the relative effects of various attributes. Fifth, our results suggest that by expanding into various kinds of pick-up points, Amazon seems to have addressed the freshness and quality validation issue. Picking up an order however is not a direct validation of product freshness; after all, one cannot validate the freshness or quality unless one unpacks the order. Thus, there could be a number of reasons why customers perceive picked up orders to be high on freshness or quality. For example, picking up an order may cut down the transit time from the time of packing to the time one acquires the product, or picking up one’s order at Whole Foods store may psychologically bestow “freshness” on the order. Future research should explore the reasons for this customer perception. Finally, we utilized cross-sectional data of consumer perceptions, but arguably longitudinal data could better capture the dynamic effects of retailers’ omnichannel strategies.

Acknowledgement

The last author was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC-435-2018-0631).

Appendix A Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.08.053 .

Appendix A. Supplementary material

The following are the Supplementary data to this article:

• Accardi, N. (2020). Amazon to open 2 brick-and-mortar stores in N.J. Available at https://www.nj.com/business/2020/01/amazon-to-open-2-brick-and-mortar-stores-in-nj.html .
• Acosta, G. (2020). Amazon's vision for autonomous delivery. Available at https://retailleader.com/amazons-vision-autonomous-delivery .
• Ailawadi K.L., Farris P.W. Managing multi- and omni-channel distribution: Metrics and research directions. Journal of Retailing. 2017; 93 (1):120–135. [ Google Scholar ]
• Avery J., Steenburgh T.J., Deighton J., Caravella M. Adding bricks to clicks: Predicting the patterns of cross-channel elasticities over time. Journal of Marketing. 2012; 76 (3):96–111. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baker J., Parasuraman A., Grewal D., Voss G.B. The influence of multiple store environment cues on perceived merchandise value and patronage intentions. Journal of Marketing. 2002; 66 (2):120–141. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bell D.R., Ho T.-H., Tang C.S. Determining where to shop: Fixed and variable costs of shopping. Journal of Marketing Research. 1998; 35 (3):352–369. [ Google Scholar ]
• Benoit S., Evanschitzky H., Teller C. Retail format selection in on-the-go shopping situations. Journal of Business Research. 2019; 100 :268–278. [ Google Scholar ]
• Berry L.L., Seiders K., Grewal D. Understanding service convenience. Journal of Marketing. 2002; 66 (3):1–17. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhatnagar A., Ghose S. A latent class segmentation analysis of e-shoppers. Journal of Business Research. 2004; 57 :758–767. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhatnagar A., Ghose S. Segmenting consumers based on the benefits and risks of Internet shopping. Journal of Business Research. 2004; 57 (12):1352–1360. [ Google Scholar ]
• Blut M., Teller C., Floh A. Testing retail marketing-mix effects on patronage: A meta-analysis. Journal of Retailing. 2018; 94 (2):113–135. [ Google Scholar ]
• Briesch R.A., Chintagunta P.K., Fox E.J. How does assortment affect grocery store choice? Journal of Marketing Research. 2009; 46 (2):176–189. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brynjolfsson E., Smith M.D. Frictionless commerce? A comparison of internet and conventional retailers. Management Science. 2000; 46 (4):563–585. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cameron D. Amazon rents more jets to expand next-day delivery. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 June 18. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cao L., Li L. The impact of cross-channel integration on retailers’ sales growth. Journal of Retailing. 2015; 91 (2):198–216. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chin K., Nassauer S. Walmart tries out own home-delivery service. The Wall Street Journal. 2018 September 5. [ Google Scholar ]
• Collis D., Wu A., Koning R., Sun H.C. Harvard Business School Publishing; Boston, MA: 2018. Walmart Inc. takes on Amazon.com. [ Google Scholar ]
• Degeratu A.M., Rangaswamy A., Wu J. Consumer choice behavior in online and traditional supermarkets: The effects of brand name, price, and other search attributes. International Journal of Research in Marketing. 2000; 17 (1):55–78. [ Google Scholar ]
• Emrich O., Paul M., Rudolph T. Shopping benefits of multichannel assortment integration and the moderating role of retailer type. Journal of Retailing. 2015; 91 (2):326–342. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fishbein M., Ajzen I. Addison Wesley Publishing Company; Reading, MA: 1975. Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fisher M.L., Gallino S., Xu J.J. The value of rapid delivery in omnichannel retailing. Journal of Marketing Research. 2019; 56 (5):732–748. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gallino S., Moreno A. Integration of online and offline channels in retail: The impact of sharing reliable inventory availability information. Management Science. 2014; 60 (6):1434–1451. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gallino S., Moreno A., Stamatopoulos I. Channel integration, sales dispersion, and inventory management. Management Science. 2017; 63 (9):2813–2831. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ganesh J., Reynolds K.E., Luckett M., Pomirleanu N. Online shopper motivations, and e-store attributes: An examination of online patronage behavior and shopper typologies. Journal of Retailing. 2010; 86 (1):106–115. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gensler S., Verhoef P.C., Böhm M. Understanding consumers’ multichannel choices across the different stages of the buying process. Marketing Letters. 2012; 23 (4):987–1003. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gomes, J. (2019). Retailers are focusing on the wrong kind of disruption – It’s not about technology per se. At https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/04/17/retailers-are-focusing-on-the-wrong-kind-of-disruption-its-not-about-technology-per-se/#601f65685dd1 .
• Griffith E. Amazon’s ripple effect on grocery industry: Rivals stock up on start-ups. The New York Times. 2018 August 21. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gupta S., Kim H.-W. Value-driven Internet shopping: The mental accounting theory perspective: Value-Driven Internet Shopping. Psychology & Marketing. 2010; 27 (1):13–35. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haddon H. Kroger shares fall as online investments dent profit. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 March 7. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haddon H. Amazon to Whole Foods online delivery customers: We’re out of celery, how’s kale? The Wall Street Journal. 2019 March 24. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haddon H., Fung E. Grocers brace for another blow from Amazon. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 March 3. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haddon H., Stevens L. Amazon tests its cashierless technology for bigger stores. The Wall Street Journal. 2018 December 2. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haddon H., Stevens L. Amazon plans to add Whole Foods stores. The Wall Street Journal. 2018 December 31. [ Google Scholar ]
• Herrera S. Amazon adds Rite Aid locations to package delivery network. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 June 27. [ Google Scholar ]
• Herrera S. Amazon’s two-day shipping standard slips for some on Prime day. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 July 16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Herrera S., Tilley A. Amazon opens cashierless supermarket in latest push to sell food. The Wall Street Journal. 2020 25 th February 2020. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hsu T. Walmart is finding success in the grocery aisle. The New York Times. 2018 August 16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iyengar S.S., Lepper M.R. When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2000; 79 (6):995–1006. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kestenbaum, R. (2020). Amazon could be vulnerable to competition, and this is how. Available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardkestenbaum/2020/02/05/amazon-could-be-vulnerable-to-competition-and-this-is-how/#cf6dd7052a02 .
• Konus U., Verhoef P.C., Neslin S.A. Multichannel shopper segments and their covariates. Journal of Retailing. 2008; 84 (4):398–413. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kumar N., Mittal S. Singapore Management University; Singapore: 2018. Amazon and Walmart on collision course. [ Google Scholar ]
• Manchanda P., Ansari A., Gupta S. The “Shopping Basket”: A model for multicategory purchase incidence decisions. Marketing Science. 1999; 18 (2):95–114. [ Google Scholar ]
• McDonald R., Christensen C., Yang R., Hollingsworth T. Harvard Business School Publishing; Boston, MA: 2014. AmazonFresh: Rekindling the online grocery market. [ Google Scholar ]
• Melis K., Campo K., Breugelmans E., Lamey L. The impact of the multi-channel retail mix on online store choice: Does online experience matter? Journal of Retailing. 2015; 91 (2):272–288. [ Google Scholar ]
• Meyersohn, N. (2018). Retail’s Amazon antidote: Buy online, pickup in store. At https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/29/business/walmart-target-best-buy-amazon-online-pickup/index.html .
• Mims C. The Prime effect: How Amazon’s two-day shipping is disrupting retail. The Wall Street Journal. 2018 September 20. [ Google Scholar ]
• Morales A., Kahn B.E., McAlister L., Broniarczyk S. Perceptions of assortment variety: The effects of congruency between consumers’ internal and retailers’ external organization. Journal of Retailing. 2005; 81 (2):159–169. [ Google Scholar ]
• MSI Marketing Science Institute (2018). Research priorities 2018–20. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.
• Namin A., Dehdashti Y. A “hidden” side of consumer grocery shopping choice. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2019; 48 :16–27. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nassauer S. Walmart posts strong holiday sales gains in U.S. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 February 19. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nassauer S. Walmart’s food-delivery challenges: Patchwork of drivers, tolls, crowded aisles. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 March 14. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nassauer S. Walmart wants to put groceries into your fridge. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 June 7. [ Google Scholar ]
• Neslin S.A., Grewal D., Leghorn R., Shankar V., Teerling M.L., Thomas J.S., Verhoef P.C. Challenges and opportunities in multichannel customer management. Journal of Service Research. 2006; 9 (2):95–112. [ Google Scholar ]
• Oppewal H., Koelemeijer K. More choice is better: Effects of assortment size and composition on assortment evaluation. International Journal of Research in Marketing. 2005; 22 :45–60. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pan Y., Zinkhan G.M. Determinants of retail patronage: A meta-analytical perspective. Journal of Retailing. 2006; 82 (3):229–243. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pauwels K., Neslin S.A. Building with bricks and mortar: The revenue impact of opening physical stores in a multichannel environment. Journal of Retailing. 2015; 91 (2):182–197. [ Google Scholar ]
• Profitero (2018). Price Wars – Grocery, Household & Beauty. Volume 2, February 2018. At http://insights.profitero.com/022018-AmazonPricingStudy_LP.html .
• Ratchford, B. T. (2019). The impact of digital innovations on marketing and consumers. In Marketing in a Digital World (Review of Marketing Research, Vol. 16). Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 35−61.
• Redman, R. (2019). Brick-and-mortar retailers narrow gap with Amazon. Supermarket News, March 18, At https://www.supermarketnews.com/online-retail/brick-and-mortar-retailers-narrow-gap-amazon .
• Roodman D. Fitting fully observed recursive mixed-process models with cmp. The Stata Journal. 2011; 11 (2):159–206. [ Google Scholar ]
• Seetharaman P.B., Chib S., Ainslie A., Boatwright P., Chan T., Gupta S.…Strijnev A. Models of multi-category choice behavior. Marketing Letters. 2005; 16 (3-4):239–254. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sloot L.M., Fok D., Verhoef P.C. The short- and long-term impact of an assortment reduction on category sales. Journal of Marketing Research. 2006; 43 (4):536–548. [ Google Scholar ]
• Smith J. Retailers are warned to step slowly into one-day shipping. The Wall Street Journal. 2019 May 10. [ Google Scholar ]
• Srinivasan S.S., Anderson R., Ponnavolu K. Customer loyalty in e-commerce: An exploration of its antecedents and consequences. Journal of Retailing. 2002; 78 (1):41–50. [ Google Scholar ]
• Teixeira T. Currency; New York, NY: 2019. Unlocking the customer value chain. [ Google Scholar ]
• Troy, M. (2020). An Amazon advantage other retailers can’t replicate. Available at https://retailleader.com/amazon-advantage-other-retailers-cant-replicate .
• Verhoef P.C., Neslin S.A., Vroomen B. Multichannel customer management: Understanding the research-shopper phenomenon. International Journal of Research in Marketing. 2007; 24 (2):129–148. [ Google Scholar ]
• Vroegrijk M., Gijsbrechts E., Campo K. Close encounter with the hard discounter: A multiple-store shopping perspective on the entry of local hard-discounter entry. Journal of Marketing Research. 2013; 50 (5):606–626. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang K., Goldfarb A. Can offline stores drive online sales? Journal of Marketing Research. 2017; 54 (5):706–719. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wolfinbarger M., Gilly M.C. eTailQ: Dimensionalizing, measuring and predicting etail quality. Journal of Retailing. 2003; 79 (3):183–198. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yohn D.L. Walmart won’t stay on top if its strategy is “copy Amazon” Harvard Business Review. 2017 March 21, 2017. [ Google Scholar ]

Your Complete Guide to Walmart‘s Research and Development Strategy for 2024

Hey friend! With new technologies and competitors emerging every day in retail, you may be wondering – how does Walmart manage to keep their edge? What is Walmart doing to continue leading retail innovation into the future?

After digging into their research and development (R&D) strategy, let me walk you through what I learned. I‘ll explain what Walmart‘s R&D involves, where they are investing, key innovations they‘ve introduced, and the benefits it brings.

Whether you are a bargain hunter, convenience seeker, tech enthusiast or someone just plain curious about how the world‘s largest company stays on top, this inside look will give you a new appreciation for Walmart‘s relentless innovation. Let‘s dive in!

How much does Walmart invest in research and development?

Walmart spends billions each year on R&D – exact amounts aren‘t disclosed publicly but we can see evidence of massive investments across the board.

Here are some of Walmart‘s major innovation investments:

Customer insights team – Walmart employs over 200 researchers focused solely on understanding global consumers through surveys, focus groups, interviews and data analysis.

@WalmartLabs – Acquired in 2011 for over $300 million, this division builds new technologies for Walmart‘s e-commerce, operations and logistics.

Store No. 8 – Founded in 2018, this Walmart incubator develops proprietary technologies in areas like VR, AI, robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles. They‘ve produced cool in-store concepts like Intelligent Retail Lab – an AI-powered store that senses customers as they shop.

Startup acquisitions – Walmart has acquired numerous startups valued from $50 million to over $16 billion to gain access to innovative capabilities. For example, they acquired Jet.com for $3 billion in 2016 to supercharge their ecommerce logistics network.

Sustainability research – Walmart funds extensive research at universities and institutions focused on supply chain sustainability and environmental impact reduction. They donated $25 million to the University of Arkansas in 2018.

With this extensive investment in identifying trends, building proprietary tech, partnering with startups and more, it‘s no wonder Walmart is able to roll out groundbreaking innovations year after year!

Next, let‘s look at the types of activities Walmart‘s R&D strategy involves day-to-day.

What does Walmart‘s innovation process look like?

Walmart‘s research and development strategy involves a broad range of activities aimed at fueling innovation across the enterprise:

Idea generation – Walmart gathers ideas from employees, vendors, shoppers, focus groups, startups, and partners. Internal collaboration tools like Walmart 2.0 facilitate idea sharing.

Market research – They conduct extensive research to identify customer needs, shopping habits, retail trends, sustainability opportunities, and competitive threats.

Concept testing – New concepts are tested through focus groups, surveys, beta tests in stores, and analyzing customer feedback.

Prototype development – Walmart Labs builds functional prototypes of new technologies like checkout apps, delivery drones, virtual reality shopping, and more.

Pilot testing – Promising innovations are piloted in a small number of stores/regions to gauge customer response and business impact before scaling.

Implementation – Successful innovations are refined and rolled out across stores, websites or supply chain facilities.

Performance monitoring – Key metrics are monitored to assess the impact of new innovations on sales, costs, efficiency, and the customer experience.

Strategic partnerships – Walmart partners with tech companies, universities, and startups to co-develop and test cutting edge tech.

Acquisitions – They identify high-potential startups to acquire, integrating their innovations into operations.

Iterative improvement – Existing innovations are continually refined based on customer feedback and performance data.

This extensive innovation funnel allows Walmart to sustainably develop breakthrough innovations that keep them ahead of the competition. Now, let‘s explore some of the key innovations Walmart has introduced over the years to enhance the customer experience.

How has innovation changed the Walmart shopping experience?

Here are some of the key ways Walmart‘s R&D has transformed the shopping experience for customers like you and me:

Faster checkout – Walmart has heavily invested in tech to speed up checkout lines, saving us time. Options include:

• Scan & Go app – Scan items with your phone as you shop
• AI-powered Pickup Towers – Order online, pickup from secure towers in-store
• Mobile Express Returns – Return items without waiting in line

New delivery options – Walmart‘s research into delivery logistics has opened up new convenient ways to get your items. You can now:

• Get groceries delivered same-day with Express Delivery
• Receive next-day delivery on over 160,000 items with Walmart+ membership
• Get in-home delivery with InHome service where they stock your fridge!

Omnichannel experiences – Walmart‘s quest to integrate digital and physical shopping means you can now:

• Enjoy an easy click & collect process buying online and picking up in-store
• Receive location-based alerts about in-store deals when you‘re nearby a store
• Enjoy voice-activated grocery shopping through Walmart Voice Order

Personalization – By leveraging data analytics and AI, Walmart provides personalized promotions and recommendations making it easier to discover relevant products.

New store concepts – format innovations like Walmart Health clinics provide low-cost medical services, while new Supercenters have more self-checkout options.

Sustainability – Efforts like the Eden Reforestation Project use blockchain to trace mangoes ensuring sustainable sourcing. New commitments aim to become emission neutral by 2040.

As you can see, Walmart‘s R&D has introduced many innovations that improve convenience, selection, affordability and the overall retail experience for many shopper types ranging from bargain hunters to technophiles.

Next let‘s explore the key benefits Walmart sees from its massive R&D investments.

What is the impact and benefits of Walmart‘s innovation focus?

Walmart‘s substantial investments in R&D generate significant benefits:

Enhanced competitiveness – Continuous innovation allows Walmart to stay ahead of rivals in meeting customer needs

Improved customer experience – Leveraging emerging tech enhances convenience through services like voice shopping and pickup towers

Greater e-commerce capabilities – Acquisitions and investments in logistics propelled e-commerce sales to over $77 billion in 2022, growing nearly 30% from the previous year.

Increased efficiency – Initiatives like blockchain food traceability and AI lower costs while improving productivity

Sustainability – Innovation allows Walmart to reduce emissions across its supply chain and enhance environmental practices

Business diversification – R&D results in new revenue streams like digital ads, financial services, healthcare clinics and business data services.

Talent retention – Leading-edge innovation helps attract and retain top technical talent to sustain capabilities.

Based on these substantial benefits, it‘s clear that Walmart‘s long-term R&D focus provides excellent ROI and is central to its continued market leadership.

What technology areas is Walmart focused on with R&D?

Looking at Walmart‘s patents, acquisitions, and research initiatives, we can see the key technology areas they are betting on for the future:

AI Applications – Walmart is aggressively adopting AI across operations in areas like pricing optimization, inventory management, autonomous delivery, cashier-less stores and more.

VR/AR Shopping – Virtual reality and augmented reality allow Walmart to prototype next-gen store concepts. For example, VR headsets enable immersive virtual showrooming experiences.

Blockchain – Walmart is using blockchain ledger technology to enhance food traceability, supply chain transparency and efficiency in logistics coordination.

Robotics & Automation – Walmart is piloting robots for inventory scanning, warehouse logistics automation and self-driving cars for delivery.

Sustainability – R&D focused on reducing emissions, food waste and packaging is helping Walmart enhance its environmental footprint and meet societal expectations.

Internet of Things – In-store sensors provide data to improve inventory management, maintenance, energy efficiency and loss prevention.

Mobile Commerce – Walmart is innovating in mobile apps, social commerce, messaging commerce and other channels beyond its website. Over three-quarters of Walmart‘s e-commerce sales now come from mobile channels.

Prioritizing these high-potential technologies of the future ensures Walmart retains its industryleading position for years to come.

The Bottom Line on Walmart‘s Research and Development

In closing, I hope this overview gave you a deeper look into how Walmart leverages R&D and innovation to transform the retail landscape!

Key takeaways include:

Walmart spends billions annually on R&D activities like customer insights, emerging technology incubation, startup acquisitions and more.

This enables them to continually roll out groundbreaking innovations that enhance omnichannel experiences, convenience, personalization, sustainability and value across physical and digital retail.

Focus areas like AI, blockchain, robotics and mobile commerce provide proprietary edge in meeting the trends of future.

The substantial investments in research and development are key strategic pillars of Walmart‘s market leadership and continued growth.

The next time you shop at Walmart in-store or online, you can better appreciate the relentless drive for innovation happening behind the scenes! Let me know if you have any other retail tech topics you‘d like me to explore.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

Share this:

You may like to read,.

• Walmart Slogan In 2023 (What Is It, History, Meaning + More)
• Everything You Need to Know About Walmart‘s Car Seat Return Policy
• Does Walmart Sell Home Depot Gift Cards In 2022?
• How To Call In Sick At Walmart In 2022? (Full Guide + FAQs)
• Can You Return Food to Walmart in 2024? (Explained)
• Walmart Tire Warranty Explained 2023 (What‘s Covered + Price)
• Does Walmart Cash EFS Checks In 2022? (Simply Explained)
• How Can I Quit My Job at Walmart in 2024?

• Skip to main
• Skip to footer

You're off the clock!

• Flagship Conferences

Using science to evaluate marketing campaign effectiveness

Oct. 25, 2023   

This is part of a four-part series highlighting work selected for presentation at the 2023 Grace Hopper Conference. The following includes insights from Walmart technologists Q Zhang and Renfei Gao. 

Experimenting in marketing is common, with strategies being evaluated based on using audience research and gut. At Walmart, we use advanced testing techniques to assess marketing efforts, like promotions and price changes, allowing us to make decisions based on data. This improves engagement, conversions and customer behavior, helping us find and optimize areas for better results.

Walmart’s scientific approach to evaluating marketing campaign effectiveness is centered on the ‘causal inference’ method, which determines if a change in one variable causes a change in another. It differentiates between correlation (two events occurring together) and causation (one event causing another). For instance, if a business has an ad campaign followed by increased sales, causal inference methods help establish if the ad caused the sales increase.

The most effective method in marketing is Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), where two random groups are assigned with one receiving a promotion and the other not. This ensures unbiased marketing impact measurements. If not feasible, we use statistical techniques like Matching, Difference-in-Differences and Causal Impact to minimize biases.

An illustration of how RCTs help drive informed decision making in retail

Where full randomization is unattainable, using a quasi-experimental method called Propensity Score Matching can be used to evaluate the marketing effort's impact. Propensity Score Matching is a way to compare groups in a study by matching people with similar backgrounds and features. This helps create a fair comparison, as if they were randomly chosen, and allows researchers to find the real effect of a treatment or change.

Causal inference methods show the true effects of marketing actions. This helps marketers make strategies based on real cause and effect, not just observations. By testing these factors, marketing becomes smarter and data-driven. 

Intuition still matters, but knowing beats guessing. Quasi-experimental designs and RCTs offer data-backed insights for better marketing decisions.

• Ask Walmart
• Privacy & Security
• California Privacy Rights
• California Supply Chain Act
• Terms of Use
• Do Not Sell My Personal Information
• Request My Personal Information

• Retail & Trade ›
• General Merchandise

Walmart - Statistics & Facts

Walmart’s financial performance, walmart by division, consumer behavior and e-commerce, key insights.

Detailed statistics

Walmart: worldwide revenue FY2012- FY2024

World: top consumer goods retailers 2021, by revenue

Walmart: ad spend in the U.S. 2009-2022

Editor’s Picks Current statistics on this topic

Current statistics on this topic.

Retail & Trade

World: retail sales 2021-2026

United States: top 100 retailers 2022, by U.S. retail sales

Key Figures of E-Commerce

Global retail e-commerce sales 2014-2027

Related topics

Recommended.

• Retail market worldwide
• Retail market in the United States
• Food retail in the United States

Recommended statistics

• Basic Statistic World: leading retailers 2021, by retail revenue
• Premium Statistic World: top consumer goods retailers 2021, by revenue
• Premium Statistic Top online stores worldwide 2022, by net sales
• Premium Statistic World: most valuable retail brands 2023
• Premium Statistic United States: top 100 retailers 2022, by U.S. retail sales
• Premium Statistic Top online stores in the U.S. in 2022, by e-commerce net sales
• Basic Statistic Biggest online retailers in the U.S. 2023, by market share
• Premium Statistic Companies with fastest-growing digital ad revenue worldwide 2022

World: leading retailers 2021, by retail revenue

Leading retailers worldwide in 2021, by retail revenue (in billion U.S. dollars)

Leading 15 fast-moving consumer goods retailers worldwide in 2021, by revenue (in billion U.S. dollars)

Top online stores worldwide 2022, by net sales

Top online stores worldwide in 2022, by e-commerce net sales (in billion U.S. dollar)

World: most valuable retail brands 2023

Most valuable retail brands worldwide in 2023, by brand value (in million U.S. dollars)

Leading 100 retailers in the United States in 2022, based on U.S. retail sales (in billion U.S. dollars)

Top online stores in the U.S. in 2022, by e-commerce net sales

Top online stores in the United States in 2022, by e-commerce net sales (in million U.S. dollars)

Biggest online retailers in the U.S. 2023, by market share

Market share of leading retail e-commerce companies in the United States in 2023

Companies with fastest-growing digital ad revenue worldwide 2022

Companies with fastest-growing digital advertising revenue worldwide in 2022

• Basic Statistic Walmart: worldwide revenue FY2012- FY2024
• Basic Statistic Walmart: net sales worldwide FY2006-FY2024
• Basic Statistic Walmart: growth in net sales worldwide FY2006-FY2023
• Basic Statistic Walmart: gross profit margin worldwide FY2006-FY2023
• Basic Statistic Walmart: operating income worldwide FY2006-FY2023
• Basic Statistic Walmart: net income worldwide FY2010- FY2023
• Premium Statistic Walmart International: net sales 2021-2025, by channel
• Premium Statistic Walmart: estimated net sales 2017-2027, by channel

Revenue of Walmart worldwide from fiscal year 2012 to 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart: net sales worldwide FY2006-FY2024

Walmart's net sales worldwide from fiscal year 2006 to 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart: growth in net sales worldwide FY2006-FY2023

Growth in Walmart's net sales worldwide from fiscal year 2006 to 2023

Walmart: gross profit margin worldwide FY2006-FY2023

Walmart's gross profit margin worldwide from fiscal year 2006 to 2023

Walmart: operating income worldwide FY2006-FY2023

Walmart's operating income worldwide from fiscal year 2006 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart: net income worldwide FY2010- FY2023

Walmart's net income worldwide from fiscal year 2010 to 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Walmart International: net sales 2021-2025, by channel

Net sales of Walmart International from 2021 to 2025, by channel (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart: estimated net sales 2017-2027, by channel

Estimated net sales of Walmart from 2017 to 2021, with a forecast to 2027 (in billion U.S. dollars), by channel

• Basic Statistic Walmart: net sales worldwide FY2008-FY2024, by division
• Basic Statistic Walmart: net sales shares FY2024, by division
• Premium Statistic Walmart's leading banners 2022-2027, by sales value
• Premium Statistic Walmart: sales growth 2022-2027, by banner
• Premium Statistic Walmart: estimated net sales by category 2022 and 2027
• Basic Statistic Walmart International: net sales FY2019-FY2024, by country
• Basic Statistic Walmart: net sales share in the U.S. in FY2023, by product category
• Basic Statistic Sam's Club: net sales share in the U.S. FY2023, by product category
• Basic Statistic Walmart: membership fee revenue worldwide 2018-2024

Walmart: net sales worldwide FY2008-FY2024, by division

Walmart's net sales worldwide from fiscal year 2008 to 2024, by division (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart: net sales shares FY2024, by division

Share of Walmart's net sales worldwide in fiscal year 2024, by division

Walmart's leading banners 2022-2027, by sales value

Net sales of Walmart's leading banners in 2022 with a forecast for 2027 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart: sales growth 2022-2027, by banner

Walmart's sales compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2022 to 2027, by banner

Walmart: estimated net sales by category 2022 and 2027

Estimated net sales of Walmart in 2022 and 2027, by category (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart International: net sales FY2019-FY2024, by country

Walmart International's net sales from fiscal year 2019 to 2024, by country (in million U.S. dollars)

Walmart: net sales share in the U.S. in FY2023, by product category

Net sales share of Walmart U.S. in the United States in fiscal year 2023, by merchandise category

Sam's Club: net sales share in the U.S. FY2023, by product category

Net sales share of Sam's Club in the United States in fiscal year 2023, by merchandise category

Walmart: membership fee revenue worldwide 2018-2024

Membership fee revenue of Sam's Club (Walmart) worldwide from 2018 to 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

• Premium Statistic E-commerce net sales of walmart.com from 2014 to 2024
• Basic Statistic Walmart: eCommerce sales worldwide FY2019-FY2023, by division
• Premium Statistic Walmart online grocery sales in the U.S. 2020-2024
• Premium Statistic Walmart e-commerce fulfillment centers 2022-2023
• Premium Statistic E-commerce share of sales of Walmart 2022, by country
• Basic Statistic Total global visitor traffic to Walmart.com 2023

E-commerce net sales of walmart.com from 2014 to 2024

E-commerce net sales of walmart.com from 2014 to 2024 (in million U.S. dollars)

Walmart: eCommerce sales worldwide FY2019-FY2023, by division

Online sales of Walmart worldwide from fiscal year 2019 to 2023, by division (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart online grocery sales in the U.S. 2020-2024

Walmart Inc. grocery e-commerce sales in the United States from 2019 to 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Walmart e-commerce fulfillment centers 2022-2023

Number of e-commerce fulfillment centers managed by Walmart in FY 2022 and FY 2023

E-commerce share of sales of Walmart 2022, by country

E-commerce share of Walmart sales in key markets in 2022

Total global visitor traffic to Walmart.com 2023

Worldwide visits to Walmart.com from July 2023 to December 2023 (in million visits)

• Basic Statistic Walmart: number of stores globally FY2008-FY2023
• Basic Statistic Walmart: number of stores worldwide FY2006-FY2023, by division
• Premium Statistic Walmart: number of stores worldwide 2022-2027, by banner
• Basic Statistic Walmart International: total number of stores FY2016-FY2023, by type
• Basic Statistic Walmart: number of stores in 2023, by country
• Basic Statistic Walmart: number of stores in the U.S. 2012-2023, by type

Walmart: number of stores globally FY2008-FY2023

Number of Walmart stores worldwide from fiscal year 2008 to 2023

Walmart: number of stores worldwide FY2006-FY2023, by division

Number of Walmart stores worldwide from fiscal year 2006 to 2023, by division

Walmart: number of stores worldwide 2022-2027, by banner

Number of Walmart stores worldwide in 2022 with a forecast for 2027, by banner

Walmart International: total number of stores FY2016-FY2023, by type

Total number of stores of Walmart International from fiscal year 2016 to 2023, by type

Walmart: number of stores in 2023, by country

Number of stores of Walmart International as of January 2023, by country

Walmart: number of stores in the U.S. 2012-2023, by type

Number of Walmart U.S. stores in the United States from fiscal year 2012 to 2023, by type

Competitors

• Basic Statistic Annual net sales of Amazon 2004-2023
• Premium Statistic Net sales revenue of Amazon from 2006-2023, by segment
• Premium Statistic Costco: net sales worldwide 2011-2023
• Premium Statistic Costco: global revenue 2017-2023, by region
• Premium Statistic Kroger's sales in the U.S. 2007-2022
• Premium Statistic Kroger's sales revenue 2022, by category

Annual net sales of Amazon 2004-2023

Annual net sales revenue of Amazon from 2004 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Net sales revenue of Amazon from 2006-2023, by segment

Annual net sales revenue of Amazon from 2006 to 2023, by segment (in billion U.S. dollars)

Costco: net sales worldwide 2011-2023

Net sales of Costco worldwide from 2011 to 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Costco: global revenue 2017-2023, by region

Revenue of Costco worldwide from 2017 to 2023, by region (in million U.S. dollars)

Kroger's sales in the U.S. 2007-2022

Kroger's total sales in the United States from 2007 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Kroger's sales revenue 2022, by category

Kroger's sales revenue in 2022, by category (in billion U.S. dollars)

Consumer behavior

• Basic Statistic Walmart: weekly customer visits to stores worldwide FY2017-FY2024
• Premium Statistic Walmart: global brand value 2016-2023
• Premium Statistic Walmart brand profile in the United States 2023
• Premium Statistic U.S. department and discount store consumer satisfaction: Walmart 2008-2023
• Premium Statistic People who shopped at Walmart in the United States in 2023, by age

Walmart: weekly customer visits to stores worldwide FY2017-FY2024

Number of weekly customer visits to Walmart stores worldwide from fiscal year 2017 to 2024 (in millions of customer visits)

Walmart: global brand value 2016-2023

Walmart's brand value worldwide from 2016 to 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Walmart brand profile in the United States 2023

Walmart brand awareness, usage, popularity, loyalty, and buzz among grocery store customers in the United States as of September 2023

Walmart brand awareness, usage, popularity, loyalty, and buzz among online grocery delivery users in the United States in 2023

U.S. department and discount store consumer satisfaction: Walmart 2008-2023

Department and discount store consumer satisfaction with Walmart in the United States from 2008 to 2023

People who shopped at Walmart in the United States in 2023, by age

Share of people who bought groceries at Walmart in the United States as of December 2023, by age

Further reports Get the best reports to understand your industry

Get the best reports to understand your industry.

Mon - Fri, 9am - 6pm (EST)

Mon - Fri, 9am - 5pm (SGT)

Mon - Fri, 10:00am - 6:00pm (JST)

Mon - Fri, 9:30am - 5pm (GMT)

Advertisement

Supported by

Walmart Reports Rising Holiday Sales as Shoppers Seek Value

The number of transactions at the retail giant rose 4.3 percent, but the average ticket price decreased by 0.3 percent, a sign that shoppers spent a little less during shopping trips.

By Jordyn Holman

• Share full article

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, said on Tuesday that sales rose in the fourth quarter over the previous year, offering one of the first looks at how Americans shopped during the crucial holiday season.

The Numbers

Walmart said its comparable store sales were up 4 percent in the three months that ended in late January compared with the year before. The number of transactions at Walmart rose 4.3 percent, but the average ticket price slightly decreased 0.3 percent, a sign that shoppers spent a little less on shopping trips.

The retailer’s online U.S. sales increased 17 percent, and its online global sales jumped 23 percent, surpassing $100 billion. Losses for the e-commerce business were slowing as the company spent less on fulfillment costs, John David Rainey, Walmart’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. He added that more customers were using Walmart’s delivery services, helping to reduce costs.

“Instead of a Walmart delivery being delivered to one house on a cul-de-sac, now we’re dropping it off at two or three houses from that cul-de-sac,” Mr. Rainey said.

At the same time, he added, U.S. shoppers were pulling back on discretionary purchases, like computers, TVs and other electronics. “Those are the parts of our business where we see less sales growth versus some of the more everyday essentials,” he said.

The Bigger Picture

Walmart is one of the first major retailers to report fourth-quarter earnings. Companies including Target, Macy’s and Kroger will do so in the coming weeks.

Many retailers, including Walmart, focused on value last year as the economy cooled and shoppers became more selective. Walmart’s sizable grocery business and emphasis on low prices helped insulate it from the sales declines that other retailers reported . The company said on Tuesday that its strong comparable sales were underpinned by sales in its food business.

“In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries,” Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, said during an earnings call on Tuesday.

Mr. Rainey said Walmart had a wider assortment of private label brands now than it did two years ago, as it caters to shoppers looking for lower priced items.

Walmart also said it would acquire the television maker Vizio in a deal worth $2.3 billion as it continued to increase Walmart Connect, its fast-growing advertising and media business.

The Road Ahead

During the high inflationary period in 2022 and through the middle of last year, Walmart won over many customers who were in search of lower prices. The company particularly drew more shoppers with household incomes of more than $100,000. Analysts and investors want to see whether the retailer can keep them as inflation subsides.

General merchandise, which includes apparel and home décor, continues to be bolstered by higher-income shoppers, Mr. Rainey said. Two-thirds of the share gain in that category came from households making more than $100,000.

Gaining more new customers will become increasingly difficult, testing Walmart’s ability to continue its sales growth momentum, said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.

“This essentially puts Walmart in the position of having to work far harder and more creatively to generate growth,” he said in an email.

Still, Walmart sees this as a time to expand. Last month, it said it planned to add 150 U.S. stores, a big jump from the past few years. It has also been increasing pay, bonuses and benefits for store managers in a bid to retain them. On Tuesday, it said it expected both net sales and operating income to increase this year.

These will be metrics that analysts will be watching closely as they expect retail sales industrywide to moderate this year after a surge in consumer spending in the early stages of the pandemic.

Jordyn Holman is a business reporter for The Times, covering the retail industry and consumer behavior. More about Jordyn Holman

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Band-Aid, Walmart and CVS among bandage brands containing toxic PFAS

Testing of 40 types of bandages found 65% had alarming levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in adhesive flaps and pads that touch wounds

Many popular US bandage brands contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, new research suggests , raising questions about the products’ safety.

Testing of 40 types of bandages made by companies such as Band-Aid, Curad, Walmart and CVS found 26 products, or 65%, contain alarming levels of a marker of PFAS . The chemicals were detected in the adhesive flaps and in absorbent pads that press against wounds.

The findings are a “wake-up call” for companies that have the chemicals in their products, said Linda Birnbaum, a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official who analyzed the findings of bandage testing commissioned by the Mamavation blog.

“This stuff can directly enter the body from the bandage and it doesn’t make sense for these companies to use it,” Birnbaum said. Research has found PFAS can be easily absorbed by the skin, which Birnbaum said makes the use of absorbent pads that touch wounds all the more concerning.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and are linked to cancer, liver problems, thyroid issues, birth defects, kidney disease, decreased immunity and other serious health problems.

Most companies do not alert consumers to their use of PFAS in products, and rules favorable to the industry rules allow manufacturers to claim the chemicals’ use as a trade secret. However, independent testing has increasingly revealed the wide use of PFAS , especially in personal care products such as dental floss or toilet paper .

The Food and Drug Administration has done little to restrict their use, and no limits exist for levels in personal care products. Band-Aid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

PFAS are commonly used in adhesives because the chemicals help with moistening and penetrate the substrate to improve the bond, which may explain their presence in bandage flaps.

But PFAS were found at the highest levels in the absorbent pads, possibly because they prevent blood from soaking through the bandage, Birnbaum said, though she stressed it was unclear because companies hide such information. It is possible that some companies are unintentionally adding PFAS because the chemicals are used as processing aids during manufacturing.

About one-third of the brands tested did not contain PFAS, which Birnbaum said highlighted that the chemicals do not need to be used to make bandages effective.

“PFAS are everywhere and unless we stop using them unnecessarily they are just going to continue building up in the environment and our bodies,” she said.

• Pharmaceuticals industry

Most viewed

How Walmart’s privileged documents led to $101 mln jury verdict for ex-supplier

• Medium Text

• Company Walmart Inc Follow

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Alison Frankel has covered high-stakes commercial litigation as a columnist for Reuters since 2011. A Dartmouth college graduate, she has worked as a journalist in New York covering the legal industry and the law for more than three decades. Before joining Reuters, she was a writer and editor at The American Lawyer. Frankel is the author of Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin.

Read Next / Editor's Picks

Industry Insight Chevron

Mike Scarcella, David Thomas

Karen Sloan

Henry Engler

Diana Novak Jones

Evidence of Dangerous ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Bandages

M any brands of bandages may contain PFAS chemicals, according to a new report commissioned by Environmental Health News (EHN) and the consumer watchdog site Mamavation . Of the 40 bandages they analyzed in a lab, 65% contained signs of PFAS chemicals.

Also known as “forever chemicals,” because that’s approximately how long they linger in the environment, there are at least 12,000 types of PFAS. The health consequences of PFAS exposure are unclear. But this class of chemicals has been linked by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increased risk of certain cancers, decreased fertility, high blood pressure in pregnant people, developmental delays and low birthweight in children, hormonal disruption, high cholesterol, reduced effectiveness of the immune system, and more. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,  97% of Americans have PFAS in their blood. The chemicals are found in thousands of common products, including food packaging, adhesives, carpeting, clothing, furniture, varnish, cleaning products, shampoo and cosmetics. They are also widespread in the water supply and food chain, and even in the rain .

Mamavation and EHN have made it something of a mission to conduct regular checks of various products, sending samples to laboratories to test them for the presence of organic fluorine, which is found in the presence of PFAS and is easier to detect than the chemicals themselves. A positive result for fluorine is considered a presumptive indicator that PFAS are there as well. In recent years, the two groups have made news with their discovery of PFAS-related chemicals in contact lenses , tampons and sanitary pads , dental floss , diapers , condoms , and sports bras .

Read More : Why Heart Disease Research Still Favors Men

To conduct the current analysis, the investigators selected 40 different bandage products from a variety of brands and sent them to a laboratory certified by the EPA. Bandages, of course, typically have two parts: the absorbent pad, which goes directly over the wound, and adhesive flaps. PFAS chemicals are sometimes added to the pads of bandages to help resist moisture, and to the flaps as an adhesive ingredient. Both were tested by the lab for fluorine levels at or exceeding 10 parts per million (ppm).

“Ten parts per million is the limit of detection, and that’s a large amount,” says Terrence Collins, professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the scientists involved in the study. “We know that with endocrine disruption, there is no safe dose. They fiddle with hormonal control.”

Of the 40 bandages tested, 26 had fluorine levels ranging from 10 PPM to 374 PPM. Of 16 bandages manufactured in black or brown skin tones for people of color, 10 fell into that contamination range.

Products varied widely in the amount of fluorine they contained, even within the same overall brand. Bandages from CVS Health and BAND-AID, for example, fell into all three categories—those with the lowest , middle , and highest levels of fluorine—depending on the exact product tested.

Among the products that fared the worst were BAND-AID OURTONE Flexible Fabric BR65 Bandages, which weighed in at the peak of 374 PPM on the adhesive portion and 260 PPM on the absorbent pad. Bandages on the lower end of fluorine contamination included BAND-AID Water Block Tough Strips, at 13 PPM on the flaps and nothing detected on the pad; and CVS Gentle Fabric Hypoallergenic Bandages, with 10 PPM on the pad and fluorine-free flaps.

In an email to TIME, a spokesperson for CVS said, “We’re in the process of reviewing and evaluating the information in Mamavation’s bandage report.” Kenvue, makers of BAND-AID, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bandages without evidence of PFAS tended to come from smaller brands, such as Patch Bamboo Bandages for Kids With Coconut Oil, with nothing detected on the pad or the flaps; and dark brown TRU COLOR Skin Tone Bandages, which also had no detectable fluorine.

Read More : Hormonal Birth Control Doesn’t Deserve Its Bad Reputation

While the pad, which makes direct contact with an open cut, would seem to present the greater contamination danger, mere contact with the skin via the adhesive flaps may be enough to allow PFAS to leach into the body, says Collins. “You have to assume that the body will have an affinity for a multitude of PFAS compounds.”

Bandages are just one possible route of exposure to PFAS. Our homes and personal care products are teeming with them. Though some PFAS may be excreted in urine and menstrual blood , once the chemicals get into the body, they can accumulate in the blood and tissues including the brain, liver, lung, bone, and kidney. 

There’s not much consumers can do, and fixing the PFAS problem will not be easy. In February, the EPA tightened limits on nine varieties of PFAS that had previously been less regulated. Additionally, legislation is pending or has been passed in seven states —California, Colorado, Maryland, Washington, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Connecticut—to limit or prohibit PFAS in a range of consumer products, as well as in firefighting foam. But they are already ubiquitous in the environment.

“Once you make them, you can’t just crack a whip and call them back,” says Collins. “The stuff that’s out there will accumulate in living things that die and get covered up with sediment. A few thousand years from now,” he predicts, “you’ll be able to dig back and find the fluorine layer.”

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Exclusive: Google Workers Revolt Over $1.2 Billion Contract With Israel
• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Stop Looking for Your Forever Home
• The Sympathizer Counters 50 Years of Hollywood Vietnam War Narratives
• The Bliss of Seeing the Eclipse From Cleveland
• Hormonal Birth Control Doesn’t Deserve Its Bad Reputation
• The Best TV Shows to Watch on Peacock
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Jeffrey Kluger at [email protected]

Costco's gold bars earn company up to $200 million monthly, analysts say

Costco is making gold off its own gold.

The retail chain is making $100 million to $200 million a month by selling gold bars , according to a Wells Fargo equity research note. Last October, the company began selling 1-ounce bars made of nearly pure 24-karat gold priced at about $2,000.

"We view the addition of gold/silver as a smart move for Costco, as it only reinforces its value position," the report said. "That being said, pricing at that level and shipping costs suggests it's a very low-profit business at best."

Equity analysts said the wholesaler priced its gold appropriately by selling about 2% above spot prices to members before a 2% cash back reward for executive members and an extra 2% in cash back for those with a Citi card.

The metal was responsible for about $100 million in sales between its debut and the end of the fiscal quarter ending Nov. 26.

Costco food court: If you aren't a member it may mean no more $1.50 hot dogs for you

Costco also selling silver coins

The warehouse retailer has committed to the metal market by also selling silver coins recently. The coins are sold in tubes of 25 and are nonrefundable.

The 1-ounce Canada Maple Leaf Silver Coins were priced at about $680 before selling out online earlier this month.

Also for sale are coins with a maple leaf on the front and a silhouette of King Charles III on the back, which may be available for less at your local warehouse. Costco members can buy a total of five tubes of coins.

Also found on the site: a  2024 1-ounce Canada Maple Leaf 24-karat gold coin  priced at $2,219.99.

Price of gold is up 0.87% today

Costco's success with the metal comes as spot prices for gold rose more than 13.70% since the start of 2024.

The price of gold traded at $2,349.44 per troy ounce as of 9 a.m. ET Monday, a 0.87% increase since Sunday.

The lowest trading price between the 24-hour period was $2,318.90 per ounce while the highest was $2,365.35 per ounce.

Contributing: Mike Snider, USA TODAY , Tony Dong and Farran Powell, BLUEPRINT