The curious case of Walmart’s venture into creating a stable of hot startup DTC brands has come to a close, with the 2023 sales of Moosejaw, Bonobos and Eloquii in quick succession. So it’s a fitting time to take a look at the six-year-plus journey that began with the $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com. We look back and ruminate with Raj Konanahalli, a partner and managing director with AlixPartners.
Less than two months after selling off Moosejaw Mountaineering to a more appropriate home at Dick’s Sporting Goods, another of Walmart’s digital-first apparel brands is being sold. This time, menswear seller Bonobos is going to Express and WHP Global for $75 million, a $235 million discount to its $310 million acquisition in 2017.
Major grocer Kroger said it hit by a cyberattack, but that no personal shopper data or credit card information was compromised, in an incident that also hit government entities in New Zealand and Australia, a U.S. college, a state’s auditor and a prominent law firm, AP reports.
Brand investment platform Go Global has closed its acquisition of women’s retro fashion brand Modcloth from Walmart, announced last fall, with financing from Tiger Capital Group. Go Global managing director Jeff Streader talks to Multichannel Merchant about Modcloth’s distinctiveness and the importance of listening to customers.
Follow in the footsteps of other digitally native brands that have gone click to brick like Bonobos, Warby Parker, Framebridge and Tuft & Needle, Wayfair this week opened its first physical store in the Natick Mall in Natick, MA, outside its Boston headquarters. This trend shows that brands starting online acknowledge the power of the store.
It was the power of paying attention that led Andy Dunn, senior vice president of digital consumer brand for Walmart, to launch online men’s apparel brand Bonobos and ultimately change the way he looked at retail.
Marc Lore, Walmart’s CEO of U.S. Ecommerce, pushed back on critics at ShopTalk by saying the company’s Q4 ecommerce sales falloff was planned, that Walmart doesn’t give quarterly online sales guidance and that the company was taking the opportunity to “create a healthier business.”
Walmart’s incubator Store No. 8 has launched three startups thus far, with plans for two more in the next year or so, said the company’s head of corporate strategy who also oversees ventures at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in New York.
Walmart announced the acquisition of Bonobos. The big-box retailer bought the online clothing retailer for $310 million in cash. See what changes are coming down the pike for both companies.
As its Jet.com acquisition continues to pay out, Walmart is seeing hyper growth in ecommerce, with U.S. online sales up 63% in the first quarter. See what initiatives Walmart has accomplished to further its ecommerce success.