Walmart CEO to Biden: ‘Throughput’ Improving 'a Lot' at US Ports

Walmart will work “all the way through” the holiday selling season to be sure “that we’re in a good in-stock position,” CEO Doug McMillon told President Joe Biden Monday during a White House roundtable on supply chain disruptions with 10 retail chief executives. “There are a few items, as there are every year with the hottest toys or things in electronics, that we wish we had more of,” said McMillon. Though all retailers are “concerned about the supply chain, we have more inventory than we did a year ago and have the inventory that we need to be able to support the business,” he said. Congestion and delays at the ports “has been a big issue, but we’ve really seen a lot of improvement,” he said. “We’ve seen an increase in throughput over the last four weeks of about 26% nationally in terms of getting containers through ports,” including a 51% improvement in “flow” through the California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, he said.