Perhaps seeing an afterburner kick in from the summer’s Jet.com acquisition, Walmart reported a healthy 21% jump in its ecommerce sales for the third quarter.
“From a marketplace perspective, we’re scaling fast, adding eight million SKUs over the last three months alone,” Walmart CEO and President Doug McMillon told analysts on an earnings call. “It’s great to see an improving ecommerce business complement the momentum we have in our stores.”
McMillon said one the reasons Jet.com makes sense for Walmart is the common ground they share with “basket economics,” referring to Jet.com’s model of allowing shoppers to realize savings as they add to the basket and select fulfillment options prior to checkout.
“Walmart’s advantage has always been in providing the lowest prices on a basket of goods, and Jet has created a unique way to deliver the lowest cost basket online,” said McMillon. “When customers build a bigger basket online, the economics work in their favor and in ours.”
[Related: Walmart Confirms Jet.com Acquistion]
McMillon said with Jet.com founder Marc Lore on board, Walmart has managed to set up teams to accelerate integration efforts and leverage its strengths. These include optimizing the two fulfillment networks, utilizing scale in areas like shipping, sharing assortments and leveraging the combined strengths of the marketing teams.
[Related: Jet.com Will Help Walmart Gain Back Share But Not Increase It]
Globally, ecommerce has also proven successful for Walmart. McMillon said the company is pleased with its JD.com partnership and its ability to reach more customers with its brands.
The Sam’s Club flagship store launched on JD.com providing customers access to Sam’s Club products and JD.com’s same-day and next-day delivery service.
The Walmart Global Imports store is on JD.com Worldwide, its cross-border platform. It provides Chinese consumers access to thousands of products available from Walmart stores around the world.
Walmart has also invested in New Dada, China’s largest local on-demand logistics and grocery online-to-offline ecommerce platform. It enables two-hour delivery service from more than 45 Walmart locations.
For the quarter, total revenue for Walmart was $118.2 billion, an increase of 0.7%. Net sales for Walmart International were $28.4 billion, a decrease of 4.8%.