Walmart reported 12% second-quarter ecommerce growth, up 18% vs. 2020, as it gained market share in grocery and passed 1 million deliveries for its GoLocal service that provides last-mile service for other retailers including Home Depot, with inflation helping attract more upscale shoppers. The result was better than at rival Target.
The CHIPS act, which passed Congress in late July, sets aside $52B in subsidies and tax credits to boost domestic production and R&D, helping reduce our dependence on China’s semiconductor dominance. In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Spencer Shute, a consultant at Proxima, helps us understand the importance for retail.
Walmart like Target lowered its quarterly and year-end guidance, citing the continuing drag of overstocked inventory and shoppers focusing on lower-margin essentials and less on general merchandise. The scenario is causing a negative effect on pricing and profit, causing a hit to its stock and others in retail.
To generate sales without cutting margins and avoid partaking in this race to the bottom, retailers should think about how else they can offer value to their customers. A sure-fire way that retailers can do this is to provide a service that shoppers cannot get elsewhere and are willing to pay a premium for.
Over the past couple years, several retailers have launched new scan & go pilots. Some are even calling this tired technology autonomous checkout, comparing it to systems from Amazon Go. But scan & go and autonomous checkout really have little in common. Here’s how the two tech-powered checkout processes differ.
More than a third of U.S. consumers said they plan to cut back on other spending in order to be able to shop for back-to-school items due to ongoing inflation concerns, according to the annual survey from Prosper Insights & Analytics commissioned by the National Retail Federation. More than half had started shopping as of early July.
Frustrating shoppers by showing them unavailable products does much more than wasting ad dollars and losing a sale. Out-of-stocks decrease basket sizes, cause VIP customers to leave loyalty programs, damage brand reputation and take customer service members away from helping customers who already bought an item.
As shoppers are back in stores, retailers now need to determine which COVID innovations they will keep and how those measures will mature over the long term. This will help maximize the value of COVID innovations, bringing the benefits of digital to brick-and-mortar and scaling capabilities to accommodate long-term needs.
Ecommerce sales will top $1 trillion for the first time this year, while Amazon will become the biggest retailer in the U.S. by 2026, surpassing Walmart with a 14.9% market share vs. 12.7%, according to a new report from Edge By Ascential. Costco and Home Depot will hold the number 3 and 4 spots, respectively, the report states.
While scarcity has always been a tool used to drive desirability and prestige, inflation and supply chain issues have been changing consumers’ relationship to it. In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Katie Thomas of the Kearney Consumer Institute, explains the changing nature of scarcity, and how to watch for the scarcity tipping point.