Walmart.ca gives chase to Amazon
Beauty, home, baby, apparel, toys, sporting goods added to the site
Walmart Canada announced Tuesday it is expanding the number of items for sale online by allowing other companies to sell on its e-commerce platform, moving into territory long held by rival Amazon.
“Our customer is looking for that onestop shop,” said Rick Neuman, executive vice-president of technology and ecommerce with Walmart Canada.
“If we can provide an even better assortment, leveraging the capabilities that we’ve built on the website and then tapping into what different sellers across Canada and the U.S. and even beyond have to offer, it’s a really good opportunity to help serve customers.”
On Tuesday, 27 third-party sellers were launched on Walmart.ca, offering new items in beauty, home, baby, apparel, toys and sporting goods.
Deciding what to offer from other vendors was informed by collecting information on customer searches on Walmart.ca and other customer feedback, Neuman said.
Among the new vendors: Mike’s Computer Shop, which sells computers and parts; Unbeatablesale.com, which sells a wide variety of consumer goods; and Dear Born Baby, which sells popular baby brands including Peg-Perego and BabyBjorn.
Walmart is actively seeking more vendors and is hoping to quadruple its assortment by the end of the year, Newman said, adding that interest from sellers has been robust.
“If we can provide an even better assortment, leveraging the capabilities that we’ve built on the website and then tapping into what different sellers . . . have to offer, it’s a really good opportunity.” RICK NEUMAN EXECUTIVE VP OF TECHNOLOGY, E-COMMERCE, WALMART CANADA
As on Amazon, it will be clear whether the products are being offered by Walmart.ca or other sellers, who may offer different shipping and return policies, Neuman said. Transactions will be in Canadian dollars.
Neuman says Walmart is hoping to attract more customers and offer existing customers a more complete shop so they don’t have to go to multiple places to get what they need.
Adding third-party sellers will help Walmart.ca become more of a onestop shop, but it has a long way to go to close the gap with Amazon, especially in light of the recent Whole Foods acquisition, said Jonathan DeCarlo, research analyst at the business analytics firm IbisWorld.
Whole Foods will attract high-end shoppers to Amazon.ca and, if Amazon slashes prices as it has said it will, it will attract lower-end shoppers to the site for groceries.
“Amazon already dominates traditional e-commerce — consumer goods,” DeCarlo said.
“By adding this grocery segment, it will be hard for any competitor to touch them at this point.”
Total Canadian e-commerce sales are in the range of about $18 billion, according to BMO Capital Markets analyst Peter Sklar in an analysis of the e-commerce landscape issued earlier this summer.
Sklar said the growth of Amazon in Canada is due to a continued growth in product categories, increased membership in Amazon Prime and the growing popularity of Amazon Prime Day, a one-day, large-scale sales event for Prime members.
Amazon rang up $3.4 billion in ecommerce sales to be first in Canada in 2016. Walmart was in fifth place, with $605 million in e-commerce sales in Canada, according to Sklar. Apple, eBay and Costco placed second, third and fourth, respectively.
Walmart operates 410 stores in Canada and the online store is visited by 600,000 customers daily, according to the company.