Walmart U.S. president and CEO John Furner said that the “new normal” will be a blend of pre-pandemic and amid-the-pandemic behaviors.
“We’ll think of 2020 as some sort of point of inflection for all of us personally, professionally,” Furner said during the National Retail Federation’s virtual conference. “In some ways, it feels like we’re getting back to normal, but I think what we’re really heading to is a new normal, which will be a blend of what we were before the pandemic and some of the things we’ve learned to do—just like we’re talking today, remotely. Some of that will continue. I think some of our trends with shopping that have changed will continue, and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next.”
However, there are still some impacts of the pandemic that still have yet to emerge, said Furner.
“It’s probably a bit too early to tell. It was definitely too early to tell last year,” he said. “What happened last year for Walmart, we probably skipped about four years worth of change, evolution, transformation, growth —whatever we’d like to call it—in the ecommerce space. Just in the first quarter of this year, we were up 37 percent in e-commerce sales on top of 77 percent last year, so well over double the business in two years. While there will be some fluctuations, and there’s still some settling to do. I think underlying trend is what the trend would have been. And there’s been a steady shift from a combination of in-store shopping to in-store shopping and pickup and in-store shopping and delivery to home.”
Looking ahead to the future, Furner shared how the retailer will be working towards a more resilient supply chain.
“We’re investing in our supply chain in a big way over the next few years, not only in the physical supply chain but also about how our supply chain can be more dynamic,” Furner said. “If consumers are shopping both physically and virtually, or a combination thereof, what they’re expecting is for it to be delivered in the way they want it, when they want it. And we’ve got to be able to handle the complexity of the supply chain in the background. I think over the next few years, you’ll see supply chains become more dynamic and the timeline from idea to delivery speed up.”
