“It’s a confusing time. You can find data that would support a number of arguments.”
The headline misses the point; it’s not about who’s #1. The real story is how Walmart, Amazon, and other #retailers and #brands are building capabilities to thrive in a challenging environment.
One of these is the ability to understand what, how, and why #consumers are thinking and behaving.
#WMT is focused “customized moderation,” where “shoppers are moderating spending in certain areas based on their needs, not just spending less overall.” This has brought more high-income shoppers into Walmart stores, drove an uptick in expectations, and a dip in C-Sat.
And it’s behind many of their in-store changes to improve experience while managing labor costs:
- adding new products (e.g. #bettergoods), increasing product “‘clustering,’ stocking some stores with specific products to cater to specific consumer groups,” and cross-merchandising select non-food products to drive “across the aisle” and grow basket size
- expanding the use #mobile, buying 1M smartphones and equipping them with tools to help associates keep “better track of inventory and [move] products from backrooms to shelves, which increased in-stock levels”
- focusing “on the checkout process, increasing a metric Walmart calls register utilization, to calculate if registers are adequately staffed,” which correlates with C-Sat
- shifting comp for store managers, tying “a higher percentage of their bonus … to actions that tests showed led to better customer experience, such as staying on top of cleanliness and out-of-stock items,” which correlated to higher sales
Success in this environment won’t come from one idea. It takes many, combined with a maniacal focus on #execution at scale.
Or in Walmart’s language, “constantly striving to be the best version of ourselves, staying true to our values and offering quality, affordable goods and services.” If they do that, per a spokeswoman. “everything else will take care of itself.”
https://lnkd.in/eX_aAVv2
