Walmart Grows Ecommerce 30% in Q2

Content Manager

Ecommerce sales grew more than 30% globally for big-box chain Walmart in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, according to a recent earnings call transcript.

Net sales for Walmart reached $68.7 billion in the second quarter in the U.S. and Internationally, sales reached $32.9 billion, according to the earnings call transcript.

While ecommerce numbers weren’t broken out for the chain, Neil Ashe, president and CEO of global ecommerce for Walmart, offered some highlights for the ecommerce portion of the business, in the call transcript.

Ashe reported that Walmart doubled the number of products available on walmart.com in the first half of the year through the company’s own inventory and via its marketplace.

He said Walmart is working to enhance the ecommerce growth of Sam’s Club across online, mobile and clubs.  The chain built a new mobile app for Sam’s Club which helped increase the average basket by 25% over the last quarter.

According to Ashe, Yihaodian, the China-based online grocery business in which Walmart acquired in 2012 saw 10 times the growth in mobile sales in the first half of last year and continues to grow quickly.  Walmart has more than doubled the number of active users in the past year.

Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., said on the call, the company continues to integrate its ecommerce platform with stores. With mobile, the company continues to test its “Scan  & Go” pilot.

Scan & Go pilot program was announced in 2012 which allows shoppers to scan items on their iPhones and pay at self-check out counters, according to an article from Reuters.  Walmart plans to expand this option to Android devices as well.

Daniela Forte is a Content Producer with Multichannel Merchant.  Daniela can be reached at 203-899-8449 or connect with her socially on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+