Wal-Mart U.S. is simplifying the buying process for suppliers of its nearly 4,600 stores that also want to also sell their products on walmart.com. The effort could help the retailer increase its online assortment by hastening the migration of items from bricks to clicks, further stepping up its battle with Amazon.
Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has been on a mission to close the chasm between Wal-Mart and Amazon. The retailer last year acquired Jet.com for $3.3 billion and named Jet founder Marc Lore as president and ceo of Wal-Mart global e-commerce.
Wal-Mart’s intensive focus on digital is apparent. “New stores have been a big part of our historical growth,” McMillon said in October. “We’re going to prioritize comp sales and open fewer stores, particularly in the U.S. We’re going to focus on accelerating e-commerce growth, including Marketplace.”
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“We’re streamlining how products get from shelf to walmart.com,” a spokesman said. “This is going to help the online buyers because they won’t have to approve an item that’s already sold in stores. It’s going to let them spend a lot more time on the broader assortments and give them the opportunity to buy a wider range of products.”
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Suppliers that sell an item to Wal-Mart stores will now be automatically approved to sell it online. “You no longer have to go through two separate buyers,” said a Wal-Mart spokesman. “It’s a bit of an evolution of how we work.”
However, suppliers that want to introduce online additional stockkeeping units in other colors, shapes or sizes will need to be vetted by the San Bruno, Calif., buying team in addition to the Bentonville, Ark., buying team, which approves all store merchandise.
According to sources, the overwhelming majority of Wal-Mart suppliers will have to deal with both the store buyers and dot-com buyers because most suppliers have a broader online assortment than is sold in stores.
Wal-Mart has 150,000 sku’s in stores and 30 million products at walmart.com. The shift will customers give consumers access online to the full assortment sold in the stores.
Buying jobs aren’t expected to be lost as a part of the refinement because the buying function itself isn’t changing. Consolidating the two buyer teams reportedly isn’t part of the overall plans.