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Walmart Canada had a huge digital quarter, the company reported this week, with online net sales spiking 229% in the quarter ending January 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walmart Canada’s net sales for the quarter were up 8.6%, with comparable sales also growing by 8.6%. Overall online sales for Walmart increased 69% in the quarter, up from the 35% increase during the same time last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walmart Canada demonstrated a huge commitment to digital innovation over the course of 2020, as COVID-19 drastically shifted shopping patterns. \u201cCOVID accelerated many of our digital aspirations,\u201d Nicolai Salcedo, Walmart Canada\u2019s chief information officer, said in December of last year<\/a>. \u201cFor Walmart Canada, our ideal digital experience, whether it is in-store or online, starts with our customers in mind. We start designing things by listening to what our customers need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Walmart, this included a $3.5 billion investment in \u201cstores of the future,” which included earmarking<\/a> $110 million for online-focused physical upgrades, such as the construction of two new micro-fulfillment centers. An existing hybrid concept store, in Vaughan, Ontario, currently serves as an incubator to test omnichannel capabilities and features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The investment also includes a plan for 10 hybrid locations, with expanded fulfillment space; renovations to make space for e-commerce capabilities; the expansion of Walmart Grocery Pickup to 70% of Canadian locations by the end of the year; and the hiring of new staff who will be assigned to omnichannel-related roles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking on an earnings call this week, Judith McKenna, Walmart’s President and CEO, also pointed out that Spark\u2014the company’s in-house courier service\u2014was launched first in Canada, further underscoring the company’s Canadian commitment to customer service-led innovation. Spark is now available in the US and Mexico; delivery, McKenna said, is a huge part of Walmart’s current business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’re now doing about 1.5 million deliveries each and every week from stores, which is more than seven times what we were doing a year ago,” she said. “We’re doing this through a combination of our own Spark Driver platform and third-parties. We’re quickly getting items to customers and we expect to see delivery costs to continue to go down as we build volume and density.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n McKenna also noted that Walmart has enabled 586 on-demand stores at 1,390 pickup locations, built 63 stores, opened three new distribution centers, and rolled out Spark’s last-mile delivery program to almost 30 stores. “Going forward, we will double down on each of these fronts,” she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walmart has launched a number of digital initiatives this year that have helped contribute to its e-comm success, including the expansion of its third-party marketplace<\/a>, a livestream shopping pilot<\/a> with TikTok, and the launch of Walmart+<\/a>, its subscription program. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Need to Know Digital sales grew 229% in the quarter ending January 31 for the retailer’s stores in Canada. Net sales at Walmart Canada grew 8.6% in Q4, with comparable sales growing by the same amount. Online grocery sales, plus the deployment of pickup capabilities to 300 stores across the country, contributed to Walmart Canada’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76318,"featured_media":110437,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3397],"tags":[1116],"magazine-region":[427,428],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[3678],"class_list":["post-122931","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-News","category-retail","tag-walmart","magazine-region-toronto","magazine-region-vancouver","magazine-topic-marketing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/122931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76318"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/122931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125014,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/122931\/revisions\/125014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/110437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122931"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=122931"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=122931"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=122931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}