Walmart Is Already Planning for a Post-Inflation World
While everyone else is wringing their hands about faster price growth, the retailer is thinking about how it can capitalize on competitors’ missteps.
Low prices are baked into Walmart’s DNA.
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Inflation is so 2021. Walmart Inc. has already been preparing quietly for the day prices drop so that it can beat rivals to the punch and hold on to all the customers it has gained during the pandemic. Other retailers should take notice.
“We’re out there asking suppliers even now, ‘Do any of you want to get aggressive and swim upstream and take prices down — while prices are going up — to gain share?’” John Furner, the head of Walmart’s U.S. business, said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call Tuesday morning. In the meantime, the retailer’s traffic has benefited from not passing along all of its higher supply-chain costs to customers, said Walmart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon. He added: “And in a deflationary environment we can lead down. We can take advantage of both situations.”