Walmart Holiday Sale Events to Be 'More Digital,' CEO Says

Give consumers what they want and let them shop accordingly, said Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner on a National Retail Federation webinar Tuesday, noting retailers must adapt to how people expect to shop in uncertain times. COVID-19 accelerated initiatives the retailer had in its sights, he said. On holding three November deal events (see 2010140038) versus Black Friday week, Furner said it was a Texas store team’s email suggesting giving employees Thanksgiving off, “with all that’s going on,” that put in motion the decision. Three events give customers time to think through shopping options and whether to buy in store or online, or buy online, pick up in store. “Our events will be much more digital this year than they’ve ever been before,” the executive said. Furner compared changes in retailing to time he spent with Walmart in China in 2013-15, when he saw a rate of consumer change “enabled by technology that I probably would not have dreamed possible at such a large scale had I not been there.” A country with 1 billion consumers went from “analog and physical to digital in just a couple years.” Built on mobile technology, it showed “how fast things can happen without the constraint of legacy infrastructure. You’re trying to adapt as you move.” Since the pandemic, “we think we probably skipped a couple of years, if not three or four years, of adopting one channel and using the other channel to help enable it,” said Furner.