Walmart International Q2 operating income declines 29.6% due to Flipkart

Company News

Walmart International, the segment which consists of the retail giant’s operations outside US including retail websites, on Thursday posted 29.6 per cent decline in operational income on a reported basis and 27.3 per cent decline in constant currency, primarily due to Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart.
The Bentonville-based company (in Arkansas) is locked in a battle with US rival Amazon for dominance in India’s online retail market through Flipkart, which it acquired for $16 billion last year in May.
“Walmart International continued to make progress on managing costs and delivered 36 basis points of expense leverage in the quarter. However, operating income declined 27.3 percent in constant currency and 29.6 percent on a reported basis due primarily to the expected dilution from Flipkart as well as the overall gross margin pressure,” said Brett Biggs, executive vice-president and chief financial officer of Walmart Inc.
In May, Walmart had said its reported international operating income in the Q1 declined 41.7 per cent and went down 37.5 per cent in constant-currency terms was on account of Flipkart.
Doug McMillon, president and chief executive, Walmart Inc., said the ecosystem the company is building through Flipkart is impressive and comprises strong businesses. For example, he said Myntra, a leading online fashion destination, recently concluded their largest sale event of the year – the End of Reason sale – where more than two million customers shopped during the four-day period with 7,000 plus orders per minute at peak.

To help fulfill these orders, the Flipkart team partnered with almost 11,000 local Kirana stores to support last mile delivery, said McMillon. This Kirana partner network helped deliver approximately 70 percent of the 8.5 million packages that were fulfilled during the event, he said...Read More

Soon, Walmart will put groceries right in the fridge while you're out

Company News
Walmart Inc. already sells more food than anyone else. Now it wants to put those groceries right in your fridge.
Beginning this fall, about 1 million people in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Vero Beach, Florida, will be able to get cereal and celery while away from home. Walmart staffers -- sporting wearable cameras -- will arrive in company-owned cars and unpack the food in customers’ kitchens.

“Once we learned how to do pickup well, we knew it would unlock the ability to deliver,” Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said in a statement. “What if we not only cover the last mile to customers’ homes, but even the last few steps?”

The service, dubbed Walmart InHome, will be led by Bart Stein, who joined the retailer last year and had been working inside the company’s Store No. 8 incubator on a project code-named “Franklin.” The effort follows a small pilot program Walmart conducted two years ago in California with smart-home provider August Home, which used workers from startup Deliv to handle the in-home deliveries.

Fees and other details of the new service, like what smart-home hardware would be required, weren’t disclosed. Walmart currently charges as much as $9.95 for home delivery, which it offers in more than 100 metro areas, with another 200 coming on board this year.
Real-Time Consent


 Employees who deliver the food could be paid a premium, but the approach shouldn’t cost Walmart much more than existing fulfillment methods, US e-commerce CEO Marc Lore said Thursday.One thing Lore and Stein were clear about was that their delivery staff won’t enter any home without the customers’ real-time consent, transmitted through its shopping app.