Walmart News
A bimonthly line of four-inch mini-figures will launch in Walmart stores this month.
NEW DELHI: A number of key shareholders in India's largest online retailer Flipkart have agreed to sell their stakes in the Bengaluru-based company to Walmart but the biggest of them, Soft-Bank, is holding out for a better price, said people aware of the development.
Walmart (formerly branded as Wal-Mart) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses.
( Wal-Mart NYSE:WMT) has been an aggressive player in the e-commerce market over the past 18 months. Since acquiring Jet.com last year and installing Marc Lore as head of U.S. e-commerce, Wal-Mart has seen online sales surge. Wal-Mart's various online stores saw sales increase 60% year over year in the second quarter.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images Walmart said it would raise the minimum hourly wage from $9 to $11, a move that would cost up to $400 million a year. The company also said it would hand out one-time bonuses of up to $1,000, depending on the length of each employees' individual service.
Walmart on Thursday abruptly announced plans to close more than 60 of its Sam's Club locations, or nearly 10 percent of its store fleet, across the country. The wholesale club locations closing span from Alaska to Puerto Rico. Some of the shuttered stores will be converted into e-commerce fulfillment facilities, the company said.
By Walmart Inc. is taking on dollar stores in the area where they historically have been most competitive - price. Big Lots Inc. , Dollar General Inc. and Dollar Tree Inc. were all downgraded at Raymond James on the renewed threat from Walmart , with analysts suspecting that the retail giant is focused on price.
Walmart's online sales is likely to grow double than Amazon.com during the back-to-school season, helped by the Jet.com acquisition and competitive price offerings, industry research body NPD said. An aggressive pricing and marketing strategy, coupled with the fact that Amazon's business has reached maturity in back-to-school sales, will see Wal-Mart winning the online retail tussle this back-to-school season, NPD chief analyst Marshal Cohen told Reuters.