Walmart is combining its teams of buyers for its physical stores and its e-commerce business, according to news reports.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart is combining the two groups in order to alleviate pricing conflicts between stores and its website.
Walmart continues to gain a larger share of the e-commerce grocery market, and its overall e-commerce sales surged 37 percent in 2019. It expects USD 50 billion (EUR 46 billion) in United States e-commerce sales this year, The Wall Street Journal said.
Buyers will be broken up into six merchandising teams: apparel; consumables; entertainment, toys, and seasonal; food; hardlines; and home. Those teams will buy all of Walmart’s items in that category, regardless of where they are sold, CNBC reported, citing a Walmart memo.
Marc Lore, the founder of Jet.com, leads Walmart’s e-commerce in the U.S., while John Furner heads up its store business.
“Our customers only see one Walmart, and they must be No. 1, always,” Lore and Furner wrote in the memo to employees.
“Our customers see one Walmart, and they expect the same low prices and seamless experience no matter how they choose to shop with us,” Kevin Gardner, a Walmart spokesman, wrote in an email to CNBC. “Today we are making changes that put the customer at the center of how we buy and sell merchandise.”
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