Walmart's US CEO Pushes Vaccines for Boosting Economy

Keynoters underscored the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations at the National Retail Federation’s virtual Retail Converge conference Monday, as retailers look to bring customers back to stores while riding the surge in pandemic-driven e-commerce growth.

Commenting in a Q&A with NRF CEO Matthew Shay, Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner cited progress toward a new normal following the 2020 pandemic year, saying “the number of people that we’ve been able to help vaccinate in the country is certainly making a difference.” Parts of the economy are “very strong,” Furner said, but “there are places in the country where there are still infections, and lockdowns are in place, appropriately, and we’re very supportive of those as they happen.”

Furner referenced Walmart’s ability to respond early to meet pandemic challenges, including checking on associates in China at the first stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. Management listened to steps China stores were taking, “how they outfitted stores and how they stayed open and used pickup in ways they hadn’t before,” he said. He recalled comments in the U.S. in January-February 2020 that COVID-19 would present a “four- to eight-week disruption if the virus spread in the United States.” Now, 60-70 weeks later, “it’s still affecting us,” he said.

Walmart U.S. tried to get ahead of the virus early by getting masks for employees in stores and in distribution centers. Furner credited members of the food supply chain for its response to the need for food deliveries. He credited operations teams for responding quickly by distributing 80,000 plastic face shields for cashiers and pharmacies, changing store hours and putting operations in auto and optical centers on hold, while assigning those workers to social distancing efforts in stores.

Frontline workers became essential workers for necessities when the pandemic kicked in, said the executive: “That puts a different frame on how we equip essential workers to ensure that they are safely able to serve the public at a time of need.” Walmart was one of the first to require workers to wear masks, “and that was informed by people around the world in other markets where they had already decided, because of the respiratory nature of the pandemic, that mask-wearing could only help to protect associates, so we did that.” It adopted recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines saying people who have been fully vaccinated can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing.

Wearing a mask “is a personal decision,” Furner noted. “I decided to right away, and I’m working without a mask, but other people haven’t, and they’re choosing not to do that and wearing a mask, and that’s OK.” Walmart’s hope is to “provide a platform and access to where anyone can get a vaccine,” he said; some 5,100 Walmart locations have pharmacies with walk-up capability for vaccines.

On what retail trends Furner expects to be “sticky” post-pandemic, Furner said it’s too early to tell. Walmart condensed four years of evolution in e-commerce into the past year, he said, noting the company was up 37% in e-commerce in Q1. There’s still “some settling to do,” but Furner said the underlying retail trend is what it would have been over a longer period, combining in-store shopping, online shopping and pickup, and delivery to home. Walmart wants to be positioned to do “anything a customer needs to at any time.” Its supply chain is serving fulfillment centers and the 4,700 U.S. stores, with some stores acting as fulfillment centers, Furner said.

On whether industry supply chains need to be rebuilt based on events of the past year, Furner said, “We all recognize the restraints put on the supply chain around the world,” arising from manufacturers that had to shut down operations, raw materials that were unavailable or port delays. Walmart is investing “in a big way” in its supply chain over the next few years and how it can be more dynamic, said Furner. If consumers are shopping both physically and virtually, they’re expecting what they buy to be “delivered in the way they want it, when they want it, and we have to be able to handle the complexity of the supply chain in the background.”

Walmart recently announced a $350 billion commitment over the next few years for U.S. manufacturing. “Having inventory forward-deployed, closer to the customers -- the same with final assembly, manufacturing and for these products that are grown, made or assembled in the U.S. -- also will help us with being more dynamic and get to customers in a more flexible way,” Furner said.