Not Repeating ‘Promotional Things’ Impeded Walmart’s Q4 Online Growth, Says CFO

Walmart’s Q4 e-commerce revenue growth was “a little bit lower than we had planned” (see 1802200019) because of the company’s decision not to repeat “some promotional things” it did in the holiday quarter a year earlier, including its offers of two-day free shipping and merchandise-pickup discounts, Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs told a UBS investor conference Thursday. Repeating those promotional offers “we felt like wasn’t the right thing to do this year from an e-commerce perspective,” said Biggs. “Operational challenges, mostly on the fulfillment side and nothing that was major,” helped impede e-commerce revenue growth, he said. “But as we are growing as an e-commerce company, it’s not always going to be linear. We’re learning. We are fairly new still as an e-commerce company. So, we are going to learn as we go through that and there is going to be some hiccups, and we had a little bit of that in the fourth quarter.” Biggs nevertheless is “excited about what we’re doing in e-commerce” and stands by the forecast that e-commerce revenue will grow 40 percent by year-end, he said. Look for Walmart’s online shopping site to continue to “evolve over time,” said Biggs. He said he was reluctant for competitive reasons to share more details about the company’s online strategy, other than to say “there’s always things going on.” Having products at the site that are “priced right” and can be delivered to the customer “in the right amount of time” is something that Walmart is “getting better at” every day, every quarter, every year, he said. Walmart will always be “a leader on price,” he said. “It’s a huge part of what we do, and we’re going to be thoughtful about it, though.” By that, he means pricing-wise, “we’re going to be strategic, we’re going to be targeted,” he said.