Walmart Explains Why Digital Relationships Are So Important to Retail in 2022

Walmart’s membership offering Walmart+ continues to be an important piece to the retailer’s steady increases. “Walmart is always going to be a business where you need to look across and see how the omnichannel business is playing out,” he said, but the membership program is important. “It helps us grow our e-commerce business. It helps us deepen the relationship with customers and have more data.”

Partly as a result, Walmart overcame many obstacles to deliver strong fourth quarter results. Deepening its digital relationships with both customers and associates is a core part of that successful strategy. 

“Having digital relationships with customers is so important,” president and CEO of Walmart U.S. John Furner noted on the retailer’s earnings call. 

“Sometimes it feels like 2020 and 2021, were just one long year,” said president and CEO Doug Mcmillon. “If you look at growth since the beginning of fiscal ‘21, through the end of fiscal ‘22, excluding divestitures, our company is about 17% larger in terms of revenue, 31% larger in terms of operating income, and globally our percentage of digital sales grew from 6% to 13%.  Our strategy is coming to life.”

Walmart+ and Digital Data


Walmart’s membership offering Walmart+ continues to be an important piece of what the retailer is building. “Walmart is always going to be a business where you need to look across and see how the omnichannel business is playing out,” he said, but the membership program is important. “It helps us grow our e-commerce business. It helps us deepen the relationship with customers and have more data.”

“Walmart’s flywheel strategy solidifies as the company continues to make shopping easy and intuitive, all the while monetizing data and relationships,” Insider Intelligence principal analyst Suzy Davidkhanian tells RIS. 

“Leaning on a consumer-centric approach with consented, zero- and first-party customer data and engagement, Walmart has been able to break through the noise and set themselves up for a strong 2022 in both advertising and retail,” says Brent Ramos, director of product, search at Adswerve.

“We have momentum in our business in all three segments,” McMillon said in a statement. “We’re being aggressive with our plans and executing on the strategy.”

 

Customer Loyalty Accelerator

The Customer Loyalty Accelerator (CLA) app for Shopify and Clover platforms helps small and medium sized merchants compete with retail Goliaths like Walmart in building digital relationships .  A groundbreaking loyalty program, CLA uses the power of spending-based store credits to reward return customer visits – and higher spending –generating more revenue for your store. CLA also includes a Referral Promotion feature to broaden your customer base. In addition, Clover merchants can integrate a Gift Card program right within your loyalty program for even greater reach.