Last week in San Diego, Walmart held its Marketplace Seller Summit, where top execs Latriece Watkins and Michael Mosser underscored just how Walmart is shaking up what we expect from retail. With millions of products, fast delivery and some surprising new partnerships, Walmart's strategy is transforming both in-store and online shopping for customers and sellers alike.
Redefining Assortment: Online Meets Physical
Latriece Watkins started with a trip down memory lane, sharing how her childhood fascination with running a cash register grew into a passion for retail. Walmart’s model blends the physical and digital in three big ways:
- Store assortment: The basics; bread-and-butter products that sell in every community.
- Warehouse (FC) and online exclusives: This includes items shipped from fulfillment centers or stocked through programs like Walmart Fulfillment Services.
- Marketplace extension: Third-party sellers can list almost anything, giving Walmart an “endless aisle” effect.
Walmart isn’t just aiming for breadth. Speed is a big deal. By the end of the year, same-day delivery will cover almost the whole country. Already, a third of recent deliveries happen in under three hours, and 20% get to customers in just thirty minutes.
The Platform Play: Growth for Sellers
Watkins and Mosser both say that calling Walmart a “platform” actually means something real: sellers have more than one way to grow.
Here’s how it could work:
- Start online: A seller like Dreo, which joined Walmart in 2021, begins with marketplace listings for their fans and heaters. If the products catch on, some get moved into physical stores. That’s the dream path for a lot of brands.
- Go the other direction: A store supplier like Levi’s may start in stores, but then use marketplace to offer more sizes, colors or styles that wouldn’t fit on shelves.
This flexibility is what makes Walmart’s platform so different. Sellers don’t have to win a spot in 4,600 locations overnight. They can start local and scale when it makes sense.
Expanding Assortment: Live Events and Luxury Sneaks
Walmart isn’t just sticking with its core. Now, there are some fresh moves with partners like StockX and Rebag, best known for resale and luxury. It turns out, Walmart had plenty of shoppers already searching for high-end brands, and now those customers are coming back for more.
AI Power: Merchandising and More
Artificial intelligence has a real presence in Walmart’s playbook now. Here's where it shows up:
- Assortment identification: AI scans what customers want and helps place orders with suppliers.
- Catalog management: Automated tools keep product data accurate; images, descriptions, attributes.
- Merchant support: Trend-spotting (what college football gear sells best, for example) that used to take days now happens in seconds.
The message from San Diego was clear: Walmart isn’t just a store. It’s a fast, flexible, data-smart platform powered by personal touches and a bit of AI magic, where sellers can find new paths to growth and shoppers can get almost anything, almost instantly.
