University of Dhaka

DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS (10th Batch)

Course: E-business (IB-404)

Assignment On: Walmart

Submitted To:
Dr. Santus Kumar Deb
Associate Professor
Dept. of Tourism and Hospitality Management
University of Dhaka
Submitted By:
Group no: 2
Name ID
Nusrat Jahan SK-030-023
Towhida Akter Kona SK-030-029
Mohammad Salauddin Dastagir ZR-030-058
Anindya Saha JN-030-099
Tamanna Tabassum SN-030-009
Mymona Ahmed Puspo SN-030-036
Jannatul Ferdous SN-030089
Supti Rani Roy SN-030-070
Sourov Mondal JN-030-101
Bishu Kumar Biswas JN-030-081

Submission Date: 20.09.2020

Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 1

1.0 Company overview ................................................................................................................... 2

2.0 Business Strategy of Walmart:.................................................................................................. 3

3.0 Marketing Strategy of Walmart ................................................................................................ 5

3.1 Marketing mix ....................................................................................................................... 7

4.0 E-Business Policy of Walmart ................................................................................................ 10

4.1 Policies ................................................................................................................................ 10

5.0 E-Business Related Problems ................................................................................................. 13

6.0 Solution of E-business related problems................................................................................. 17

7.0 SWAT analysis of Walmart .................................................................................................... 19

8.0 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 20

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 21

TABLE OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1: WALMART’S BUSINESS STRATEGIES ............................................................................ 3
FIGURE 2: PILLARS OF THE MARKETING STRATEGY OF WALMART ............................................ 5
FIGURE 3: MARKETING MIX.......................................................................................................... 7
FIGURE 4: SWOT ANALYSIS OF WALMART ................................................................................ 19

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Executive Summary
Walmart is a renowned American retail corporation that serves more than 200 million customers.
Walmart was established by Sam Walton in 1962. The company has also an online platform.
Typically, Walmart's operation directly procures from the manufacturers or the producers there by
going away from the intermediaries which usually eats up around 5-10% of margins, therefore,
carry forwarding these margins to the customers and reduced prices. The company offers fresh
produce, meat and dairy products, bakery and deli items, household supplies, health and beauty
aids and a pharmacy, furniture, mattress, bath items, kid’s items etc. Walmart operations focus on
low prices every day. Primary Business Strategy at the operational level for Walmart is ‘Every
Day Low Prices Strategy’ which means it always emphasizes the need to reduce its purchasing
costs and offer the best price to its customers. The company focuses on particular people and
geographical areas. The company set the price of the commodity according to the countries’
perspective. They also try to develop their technological advancement to reach the customer
doorsteps easily and customers can receive proper after-sales services from them. But it creates a
question about how the company sells product such a discount price and what is their strategy. The
strategy is selling products in a large volume. Their excellent marketing strategies reach them close
to the consumer. In this digital world, they offer products through online channels. Product
availability is their powerful strategy which makes them unique from others. Walmart offers
reliable warranties and replacement policies for a majority of their items. Walmart faces some
problems such as logistics, payment issues, data inaccuracy, product return, and refund etc. But
the company smartly tackle these issues with their experienced employees and loyal customers.
The most interesting fact is ‘Walmart’s epic 400+ billion annual revenues eclipse the GDPs of
more than 170 countries and its 2,100,000 employees would form the second-largest standing army
on the planet’.

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1.0 Company overview
Walmart 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. As of July 31,
2020, Walmart has 11,496 stores and clubs in 27 countries,
operating under 56 different names. The company operates
under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada,
as Walmart de Mexico and Centro America in Mexico and
Centro America, as Asda in the United Kingdom, as
the Seiyu Group in Japan, and as Flipkart Wholesale in
India. It has wholly owned operations
in Argentina, Chile, Canada, and South Africa.

Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue,

with US$514.405 billion, according to the Fortune Global
500 list in 2019. It is also the largest private employer in
the world with 2.2 million employees. It is a publicly traded
family-owned business, as the company is controlled by
the Walton family. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50
percent of Walmart through both their holding company
Walton Enterprises and their individual holdings. Source: (Walmart corporation, 2016)

Walmart was the largest United States grocery retailer in 2019, and 65 percent of
Walmart's US$510.329 billion sales came from U.S. operations. Walmart was listed on the New
York Stock Exchange in 1972. By 1988, it was the most profitable retailer in the U.S. and it had
become the largest in terms of revenue by October 1989. The company originally was
geographically limited to the South and lower Midwest, but it had stores from coast to coast by the
early 1990s. Sam's Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989, and the first California outlet
opened in Lancaster, in July 1990. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania, opened in October 1990, the
first main store in the Northeast Walmart's investments outside the U.S. have seen mixed results.

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2.0 Business Strategy of Walmart:
Walmart business strategy is based on ‘everyday low prices’ philosophy of the company. In other
words, Walmart pursues cost leadership business strategy enabled by the economies of scale
derived by the company in a significant extent. Walmart business strategies are the following:

Buisness Strategies of Walmart

•Low prices
•Cost Leadership
•Differentiation
•Focus Strategy
•International Presence
•Technological Innovation
•Improving groceries
•Enhancing the flexibility
•Large sales volume
•Supply Chain Innovation
•Improve customer service
•Improve customer retention
•Cornering a young market
FIGURE 1: WALMART’S BUSINESS STRATEGIES
• Everyday Low prices: The cornerstone of Walmart’s business strategy is its everyday low
prices. The brand sells a very large range of products and its focus always remains on selling
products at the lowest prices in the market.
• Cost Leadership: Walmart is truly dedicated towards its low-cost strategy. Its evidences could
be noticeable in its supply chain management and operational efficiency from where huge cost
saving is derived through bulk purchasing, stock holding for less than 48 hours etc.
• Differentiation: Walmart have created distinctive offerings of goods and services through its
many dimensions such as creating unique products by adding value to it; integrating innovative
ideas into its product development; range of products with distinctive design, features,
technology, fine quality and customer satisfaction.
• Focus Strategy: The focus strategy focuses on a particular segment of people or geographical
location or even particular segment of product line and market to provide an edge to its strategy
from its competitors. Walmart is offering seamless shopping experience where customers can
scan items as they shop and then pay using smart phones. The focus is also on E-commerce to
improve sales through growing range of brands and expansion of marketplace.

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• International Presence: Around the world, Walmart sells high-quality goods and fresh and
nutritious food at low prices and thus saves its customers precious money. Prices can be an
important differentiator and cost leadership is the biggest source of competitive advantage for
Walmart.
• Technological Innovation for better customer service: Walmart has also advanced boldly
into e-commerce. It has a global e-commerce segment with its base in Silicon Valley,
California that leads all the online and mobile innovation for Walmart. The innovation center
of Walmart has some brightest minds working to create a seamless experience for shoppers
whether they are shopping online, from mobile devices or in stores.
• Improving groceries: Due to increasing level of health-consciousness of consumers, Walmart
is attempting to increase its range of organic options and fresh produce. This change is more
evident in the US market and it is being actively integrated into marketing communication
message of the brand.
• Enhancing the flexibility of the shopping experience: Customers are able to collect their
online orders from stores and they can also get text reminders from the pharmacy.
• Large sales volume: The largest retailer of the world has grabbed the largest market share in
the retail industry based on its pricing strategy. There are two more things about it. They are
its widespread operations and a large and varied assortment of products.
• Walmart’s Supply Chain Innovation: Walmart’s more than 150 distribution centers have
played a central role in strengthening its business. An important part of Walmart’s supply chain
management is its logistics management. Its supply chain system is considered to be the most
advanced and efficient in terms of technology.
• Improve customer service: This can’t be a good business strategy if Walmart business has
had a problem delivering quality customer service. Walmart usually focus its objectives on
something like online support or a more effective call center.
• Improve customer retention: This strategy requires Walmart to identify key tactics and
projects to retain Walmart customers.
• Cornering a young market: Walmart companies are buying out or merging competitors to
corner a young market. Acquiring a new company allows a larger company to compete in a
market where it did not previously have a strong presence while retaining the users of the
product or service.

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3.0 Marketing Strategy of Walmart
There are 4 main pillars of the Marketing strategy of Walmart.

Price Access Assortments Customer

Experience

FIGURE 2: PILLARS OF THE MARKETING STRATEGY OF WALMART

The marketing strategy of Walmart was simple, gain a competitive advantage by keeping the
customers first. Before digging deep down into the marketing strategy of Walmart, let’s first
understand what the customer segment is that Walmart targets and its positioning statement:
Customer segment: Walmart targets lower-middle and middle-class customers and prices their
products in a range that is suitable for their target audience.
Positioning statement: Among price-sensitive customers, Walmart is the brand of a retailer that
provides the convenience of one-stop shopping for everyday products at the lowest possible price,
because of its operational excellence, inventory management, and logistics infrastructure.
Here are their marketing strategies,
Pricing strategy:
Price is one of the main factors that influence the buying decision of the customer and Walmart’s
management knew this secret very well. Walmart’s EDLP (Everyday low price) strategy is well
known all over the world and is all something which gave it the necessary competitive advantage.
Walmart knew, that with time and with an increase in the volume of sales, they would be able to
achieve economies of scale and ultimately achieve high profits. A strong network of supply chain
and the ability to curb and lower the operational costs are two other factors that enabled Walmart
to keep their prices low.
Accessibility of products:
Walmart didn’t stop at just stores, in this digital world, the need was to offer products through
online channels as well. Customers can visit the Walmart website and can order products directly
from their website. To provide customers with home decor products, Walmart recently acquired
Art.com, the world’s largest online retailer in the art and wall décor category. To give Japanese
customers a taste of US products, Walmart is collaborating with Rakuten to open the First Walmart

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E-Commerce Store in Japan. The online shopping collaboration to deliver Walmart US products
directly to Japanese consumers.
Assortments:
Providing a different variety of products to its customers was one of the main factors in the
marketing strategy of Walmart. That’s exactly what the people in Walmart’s board meeting must
have thought and hence they came up with a strategy that enabled them to offer a wide variety of
products to their customers at a low price. Some of their stores,
• Walmart Discount Stores offers products categories like family apparel, automotive
products, health and beauty aids, home furnishings, electronics, hardware, toys, sporting
goods, lawn and garden items, pet supplies, jewelry, housewares, etc.
• Walmart Supercenters: Apart from general merchandise, Walmart Supercenters offers
bakery goods, frozen foods, meat, and dairy products, etc. Specialty shops like hair salons,
McDonalds, Subway, etc. find their place in these supercenters.
• Walmart Neighborhood Markets feature products that are used by customers in their
everyday use like deli foods, fresh meat and dairy items, pharmacies, stationery, and pet
supplies, etc.
• Sam’s Club: These are a chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs that offers products
ranging from laptops to grocery to jewelry at a cheap price.
Customer Experience:
Walmart to focus on improving customer experience (in-store or online) by using modern
technology. Walmart recently deployed Dotcom store technology that allowed in-store customers
to buy items on Walmart.com, with the help of store associates who can place orders on their
handheld touchscreen devices. Walmart is also using VR technology to make customers’ shopping
experience a pleasant one. Walmart has been very careful in adding the taste and flavor of every
country /region in which they are operating. The same is reflected through their store designs and
their product offerings.

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3.1 Marketing mix
Walmart is the world’s largest retail company and is a publicly-traded family business. To manage
such a large business, Walmart needs to effectively employ what can be referred to as the Walmart
Marketing Mix.
Provided below is an explanation of how Walmart handles its marketing mix core principles. The
five core principles of a marketing mix are Price, Product, Promotion, and Place.

Price

Place
Marketing Product
Mix

Promotion

FIGURE 3: MARKETING MIX

Walmart Marketing Mix – Price
The price of a product influences its future success and long-term continuity. If the prices are low,
demand is more likely to be high. Companies can either go high value, low volume or low value,
high volume. Walmart has perfected its price positioning in the following ways:
• Customer-friendly prices and focus on bulk sales to maximize sales rather than overpricing
products.
• Excellent procurement strategies that enable the company to bargain with the most affordable
players in the supply chain to keep prices low.
• Diversification ensures that complimentary goods can drive the sales of other products if one
is under-promoted.

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• Universal barcoding and SKU systems create a more effective supply chain that allows for
lower prices.
• Varying purchase options, with the ability to pay cash, or to pay installments for larger
purchases (such as in the case of appliances or furniture).
Walmart Marketing Mix – Product
Walmart stores sell a wide variety of products. They bring to the market what customers want.
Selling and promoting a product that people want is easier than trying to introduce innovation in
the market. In selecting their product mix, Walmart employs the following strategies:
• They offer a wide variety of products in almost every category. These range from groceries,
hardware, furniture, appliances, health goods, wellness, to entertainment.
• They buy in large quantities to achieve discounts and economies of scale.
• They maintain a strong relationship with their suppliers.
• Walmart white labels products that are then exclusively available in Walmart stores.

Walmart Marketing Mix – Promotion

Promotional strategies are the strategies an organization uses to attract or enlighten the public
about its product.
• Walmart runs frequent promotions, with available discounts across all seasons.
• The store uses slogans that are associated with low prices like “save money, live better,”
“lowest price store,” “worry-free fresh,” and the most common, “everyday low prices.”
• Walmart employs a diversified array of advertising media, including TV ads, billboards,
social media, and even their eCommerce platform.
• They provide secure shipping methods that ensure the highest level of service for customers
who purchase online.
• Walmart offers reliable warranties and replacement policies for a majority of their items
sold, which gives customers peace of mind when purchasing.

Walmart Marketing Mix – Place

Location is vital in any business undertaking. Business placement and geographical accessibility
are key elements for customers. Walmart employs various strategies to ensure that all factors
related to the place as a marketing mix element are efficient and effective:

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• A strong E-commerce platform that allows customers to purchase goods without having to
visit a physical location.
• A well-planned network of distribution centers that make it easy for stores to collect their
orders, as well as to deliver their products directly to consumers.
• Advanced IT systems enable the organization to trace products regardless of whether they
are in transit or inventory.
• Great geographical placements, particularly in the USA, with Walmart outlets strategically
located.
• A fleet of delivery trucks for efficient door-to-door deliveries.
• Branding and differentiation of their many Walmart outlets, such as Walmart Supercenters,
Walmart Neighborhood Market, Walmart Express stores, and Walmart Discount Stores.

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4.0 E-Business Policy of Walmart
Walmart’s e-commerce business continues to grow at double-digit rates. For Walmart U.S. e-
commerce sales have grown 37 percent year-over-year. Here are the Walmart’s e-commerce
strategy rests on a few key pillars:
1. First, it’s been building out a variety of omnichannel services like grocery pickup and the ability
to place an online order with an in-store associate, to get customers who visit its stores to go to its
website.
2. Second, it’s been broadening its assortment of premium brands like Betsey Johnson and Levi’s
in Kids apparel, and more smart home products in baby to get more big-ticket items into the baskets
of e-commerce shoppers.
3.Lastly, it’s been building out a robust logistics network so it’s better equipped to roll out faster
delivery options in 2017, Walmart acquired Parcel, a logistics startup that specialized in same-day
and last-mile delivery to support its grocery delivery options. And in 2016, it acquired e-commerce
marketplace Jet.com and brought on founder Marc Lore to oversee its U.S. e-commerce operations.

4.1 Policies
Walmart’s strategy for accelerating the growth of its E-commerce business has primarily focused
on targeting new customer segments, making online grocery shopping more convenient, selling
popular brand names and adding personalization to its website. For any organization looking to
bolster its E-commerce sales, Walmart is becoming the one to watch. Here’s a page out of
Walmart’s E-commerce playbook:
• New customer segments. Walmart’s customer base falls within a lower to middle income
demographic. To generate additional revenue, it is targeting younger and higher-income
consumers. Since it would be challenging for Walmart to target that segment within its
namesake brand it has acquired several brands including MoD Cloth and Bonobos in
2017. Both are digital natives and target millennials and higher-income consumers. Walmart
also acquired online marketplace jet.com in 2016.
• Winning with convenience. Walmart has also made a big bet on grocery pickup. It launched
the service in 2014 and now more than 2,100 Walmart stores offer grocery pickup pick and
that number will grow to 3,100 stores by the end of 2020. Offering grocery pickup provides
shoppers with the ease of shopping digitally and the convenience of picking up purchases on
the customer’s terms. Best Buy, is another retailer that has seen the benefits of offering this
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 type of service with more than 40% of its online orders picked up in-store. Walmart also offers
free shipping when customers purchase $35 worth of merchandise or more. Previously
Walmart offered a three-day shipping guarantee but in 2016 it brought that down to two days
to compete with Amazon Prime. Free two-day shipping is now also available for merchandise
sold on Walmart’s online marketplace.
• A personalized online shopping experience. Last May Walmart relaunched its website with
a new design and personalized content in order to drive the growth of E-commerce
sales. Shoppers now see trending items from their area when they are on the site’s home page.
For example, mattresses made the list of trending items in Dallas and so did Chicago Cubs
tumblers in Illinois. Walmart.com also shows the customer’s local store profile and if services
such as online grocery are available. The home page also shows customers when online
delivery is scheduled to arrive.
• Brands that lead the way. Walmart’s purchase of jet.com also allows Walmart to tap into the
market of big brands that do not want to sell on walmart.com. Jet.com is now selling Blue
Apron meal kits and Nike merchandise. Walmart is certainly showing its belief that popular
brand names will draw the customer in and is quickly becoming a house of high-value brand
names which will likely be a key to future growth.
• Grocery
Walmart has made grocery the cornerstone of its e-commerce strategy, with the company now
on track to enable grocery pickup at 3,100 stores at the end of the year, and grocery delivery
at 1,600 stores. It helps Walmart take advantage of its wide store network, and it’s a product
that requires often weekly purchases. An April analysis from Cowen and Company found that
around 11% to 13% of Walmart shoppers now use its grocery pickup services.
• Home and furniture
Walmart has also been particularly aggressive in diversifying its product assortment online in
the home, baby, fashion, and pet categories. Last year, Walmart redesigned the home and
furniture sections on its website to give customers the ability to shop by style, as well as by
product category, to include more “inspirational” imagery, and to include design types written
by in-house staff. In all of these categories, Walmart has been adding to its website more
premium brands, private labels, and exclusive brands that it’s collaborated on with celebrities.

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• Omni channel is costly
Walmart still has some issues in delivering consistency in its Omni channel services — some
of the in-store towers where customers can pick up online orders aren’t open 24-7, and
sometimes the listed availability of online merchandise can be incorrect. They made it easier
for customers to pick up.

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5.0 E-Business Related Problems
When a consumer wants something, their first port of call is the internet. E-commerce has grown
at an incredible rate since its birth, and so has the competition to make the best use of it.

E-commerce tragedy
Around half a decade ago, the biggest ecommerce giant, Walmart launched first online black
Friday sale. It was truly a mesmerizing experience. Marketing for the BIG DAY started almost a
month back. The site was alive in an instant. Thousands started adding products to their carts. And
why shouldn’t they have done that. The discounts were simply unbeatable. Almost 80% off on
most products. You don’t get these kinds of deals every other day. And guess what, with so many
items in the cart, when people tried to press the ‘Check Out’ button, the site crashed. The biggest
ecommerce store of the world tumbled to the ground virtually within five minutes on Black Friday.
It was one ecommerce tragedy that shook the industry.

Ecommerce problems involves much more like technical problems, marketing problems, logistics
problems, payment frauds and poor user experiences etc. Problems that ecommerce faces are given
below:

• Technical Problems: The most common problem that ecommerce faced today, are related to
technology. Technology issues were the culprit of Walmart crash, and they are still the cause
of many ecommerce and drop shipping failures.
1. Web Hosting: Shared hosting has its limits in terms of bandwidth and storage space.
This means if the traffic the store gets on a regular basis exceeds even a little, the
website will collapse. Most of the times the slow speed of ecommerce stores is
because of the type of hosting it uses.
2. Mail Server Problem: Mail servers have a limit to the number of emails that the
ecommerce stores can send to their customers within a day. This limit can become
a major hurdle because stores receive thousands of orders in a single day. On an
average, on one order, they send around three emails to the customer. These include
order confirmation email, marketing, and promotional email, feedback, and order
tracking email.
3. Product URL Issue: Most ecommerce stores face the issue of broken links. This
issue can escalate when more people start to visit the stores. This can lead to more

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 traffic loss, and even de-ranking of URL from search engines because of higher
bounce rates.
4. Slow Speed: Research says that visitors leave a website if it takes more than two
seconds to load.
• Marketing Issues: Marketing issues are a major barrier to growth for an ecommerce store.
‘Data is the currency of 21st century’ is a popular statement. Many ecommerce stores don’t.
They don’t have any idea about how they can use the data they already have about their
customers and find lookalike audience or re-market to them through paid advertisements – a
major hurdle in boosting sales.
• Absence of online identity verification: When a visitor goes to an e-commerce website and
signs up, the portal is unaware of the customer, bar the information they entered. Whether the
customer information is genuine or not remains questionable. Cash-On-Delivery (COD)
purchases using an invalid or fake phone numbers or addresses can lead to huge revenue losses.
• Delivering an Omni channel customer experience: In today's world, customers can reach
out through any number of touch-points. They may visit the website, contact your agent, leave
a message on your social media page, shop from your store or contact you through a live chat
or a messaging platform.
• Competitor Analysis: In a competitive environment, others will offer the same products and
services as you. Unless you have a strategy to differentiate yourself, it is difficult to survive.
• Stuck in at the old-school way of approach to selling: The reason many e-commerce
companies find online selling so difficult is that they are, ironically, stuck in the past. Most of
them lack the necessary insight into customer behavior and buying patterns, data which can
help them thrive in the current e-commerce environment.
• Maintaining customer loyalty: Ecommerce is different now. It has a very minimal
competition back in the day. Far, one day a customer goes to you, the next day they go to your
competitor. Even with the best-designed website out there, without customer trust and loyalty,
the business is bound to struggle. One of the main problems of an online business is the need
to sustain the customer’s loyalty to be a successful venture. Achieving customer loyalty are
just the same as repeat customers, and that is why companies should think of the long-term
value when serving them.

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• The headache of product return and refund: Though it’s not a happy scenario for a business
when the customers return their products, this is something which is a common problem for
online businesses. When customers are not satisfied with the delivered items, they return the
product to the seller for replacement or refund. It becomes imperative for the owner to handle
such claims and requests proactively. When a product is returned, whether due to a dissatisfied
customer or damaged product, the business suffers a heavy loss in shipment and reputation.
• The struggle of competing on price and shipping: Online merchants frequently compete on
price. Plenty of sellers list the same products on their sites, but the prices may be different.
Walmart generally have shipping amenities distributed across the country. Their warehouses
allow orders to be shipped from the closest facility. Approximately 60% of orders come from
the same area as the customer. As they are shipped from nearby warehouses, the cost of
distribution decreases and the order arrives in a day or two. Ultimately every online shopper
expects free and fast shipping. And all that at a low price.
• Competing against retailers and manufacturers: Many online stores bulk buy products
wholesale from manufacturers or distributors, selling them with retail online. This is the basic
business model for online stores. Unfortunately, due in part to e-commerce's low barrier to
entry, product manufacturers and retailers start selling directly to consumers.
• Order Fulfillment: Order fulfillment is a major problem when it comes to ecommerce. The
expectations are so high that it gets extremely hard to match up. Most times courier companies
do not offer all-round coverage and basic features like an option to collect money for COD
orders. Delivery hassles are a hindrance in smooth business operations. Especially during the
holiday season, their intensity simply increases.
• Data security: Web privacy and security concerns are also problem for an e-business. online
businesses are more vulnerable to fraud than offline stores. Security issues can lead to
nightmare scenarios. Fraudsters post spam and attack the web host server, infecting the
websites with viruses.
• Logistics Problems: Delivery hassles are a hindrance in smooth ecommerce operations at
times when their intensity simply increases. Let’s see some ecommerce logistics problems that
most store owners face.

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 1. Stock Inaccuracies: How can stores actually know the quantity of items they have
in stock accurately? Although there are tools, the inaccuracies in stock can still
occur.
2. Tracking Issues: A major ecommerce problem that most stores experience face
during sales frenzy is tracking each order. Unless they have a shipping service with
tracking facility, they aren’t able to provide tracking numbers to their customers.
This can be a major turn off for these customers, as they would decide to never
order from the store again.

• Payment Issues: Not only they cost the ecommerce store money, but they also reduce the
number of transactions payment gateways can make by clogging them.
1. Payment Frauds: Payment frauds cost ecommerce a lot. The losses will further
increase because more players are joining the ecommerce industry.
2. Order Placement Limits: Another issue that most ecommerce store owners face is
the limit of orders a user can place. This limit is usually imposed on certain deals
during regular days so any customer doesn’t take advantage of the deal.

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6.0 Solution of E-business related problems
E-Commerce and E-Business are considered as growth intervention tool that invites intense
competition among online vendors. Hence, it has become imperative for businesses to adjust to
evolving technologies, regularly integrate new systems and satisfy a broad variety of consumers.
As it is always a difficult decision to let go of restrictive or legacy based systems. Walmart made
a number of digital innovations in 2019, including moving to next-day free shipping (without
needing a membership fee) and offering online grocery orders for pickup and delivery. It also
launched a subscription service for unlimited grocery delivery. And in looking ahead to 2020,
Walmart says it’ll work on expanding its marketplace, which carries items from third party sellers.
There are currently around 75 million items for sale in the marketplace, according to the vice
president of public relations and corporate communications at Walmart ecommerce. However,
operating virtually or web based, Walmart has been facing various problems and to overcome
those e-business related problems, Walmart can take some initiative which has been recommended
below:

• Solution for Technical Ecommerce Problems: As the most common ecommerce problems
that Walmart faces is issues relates to technology. It can be solved by introducing flexible &
volatile technologies which can be changes according to the sudden arisen situation.
i. Web Hosting: To solve this problem, Walmart can move their store to a
reliable ecommerce web hosting such as a managed cloud.
ii. Mail Server Problem: Walmart expect to receive in a single day during the Holiday
Season. If they have outsourced the mail server, make sure that the Walmart can auto-
scale the email server limit within a minute’s notice.
iii. Product URL Issue: By checking the product URLs of Walmart’s ecommerce store
through a reliable link checking tool, the URL issues could be solved. One of the
best ecommerce on-site technical SEO tool is Screaming Frog. It will provide them a
list of all pages that have bad URLs.
iv. Slow Speed: The solution to overcome the slow speed for e-business of Walmart can
change to a faster ecommerce web hosting solution, get a CDN service that distributes
the content from the nearest server, Install server-level cache on the ecommerce
platform.

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• Solution for Marketing Issues: As marketing issues one of the main concerns for Walmart,
so it should be addressed properly. Walmart can either hire professional digital marketers who
can make use of the data available, or start polishing their own paid marketing skills.
• Solutions for Logistics problems: Supply chain & Logistic problem is an important issue to
address for any company. They can use an inventory management application like Trade
Gecko or Order hive – that automatically records each order, get third-party logistics (3PL)
companies to outsource shipping and delivery. For the job of logistics, distribution, and supply
chain, Walmart should hire a team of experts in relevant fields to spearhead this division.
• Solutions for Payment issues: Here are a few ways to reduce the risk of payment frauds-
i. Add verified payment processors to their ecommerce stores
ii. Monitor latest payment fraud trends
iii. Encrypt transactions and emails with confidential information.
• Building Customer Loyalty: To aid customer retention, Walmart should write correct product
descriptions, use high-quality images and provide a personalized experience to buyers. Also,
it can provide returning customers with exclusive offers and discounts.
• Order fulfillment: An extremely effective solution for order fulfillment concerns is a shipping
solution like ship rocket, first, they get to ship with over 17 courier partners and they can easily
reach out to 26000+ pin codes. Also, Walmart can get a powerful platform where they can
import orders, link them website and marketplace and ship conveniently.
• Handling product return efficiently and refund policy: It would help if Walmart also had a
return policy on their website, which should suggest the terms and conditions for returning the
products after purchasing. Also, they should make sure to mention the products that are non-
returnable to avoid any confusion for the buyer.
• Omni channel Shopping Experience: Customers nowadays expect a very efficient and timely
shopping experience while shopping online. In that case, it is useful to combine the online and
in-store shopping experiences to provide an Omni channel solution to buyers. For example,
Walmart can offer customers the option of store pickup or buy online, return in-store. This
creates a level of unique shopping experience for customers and helps drive better sales.
• Privacy and Security: It is recommended that Walmart should adopt an online security
mechanism to save their customers and data from such crimes and frauds.

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• Creating a Single Account for Online and Offline (in-store) Payments: To tackle the issue
Walmart can make use of cloud-based tools. Whether they are getting paid in-store or online,
they will be able to keep track of and organize the whole payment process. This will also help
them immensely while calculating taxes.
• Competitor Analysis: Walmart should improve their ways of competitor analysis process and
should more focused on their potential competitors arising in the market. Research &
Development department can be more technology based on collecting data as well as consumer
opinion about their competitors.
• Latest and unique way of approach to selling: Walmart can encourage their marketing and
innovation team to invent different and unique ways to approach the target and potential
customer. So, they can reach their potential customer. And to achieving this, Walmart should
create any possible online and offline way to approach them.

7.0 SWAT analysis of Walmart

Strengths Weaknesses
• Diversity in products & services • Brand image-weak reputation
• Convenient prices & locations
• Strong market presence
• Low global presence
• Customer loyalty • Behind rivals in ecommerce
• Strong financial performance
• Cost and pricing advantages over rivals
• Good supply chain

SWAT
analysis
Opportunities Threats
• Global Expansion: new geographic areas • Intense Competition
• Increasing online sales • Laws and Regulations: Trade policy
• Strategic alliances Acquiring rival firms • Cultural barriers
• Current economy
• Slow market growth
FIGURE 4: SWOT ANALYSIS OF WALMART

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8.0 Conclusion
Walmart which is a big retail giant in the world. Their yearly revenue cross GDPs of more than
170+ countries. They build their own warehouse & bought in volume at attractive prices. Their
stores located in isolated rural areas & small towns which every other retailer ignored. Walmart
used technology effectively to reduce inventory costs & increase sales. Walmart entered the
growing economies of the world to grow their business globally. Their (cross docking) logistic
technique make the distribution process more efficient. Their business and marketing strategies
make them top ranked among other retailers. They have many huge warehouses to keep products
available to the customers. Advanced IT systems enable the organization to trace products
regardless of whether they are in transit or inventory. Their efficient supply chain allows retailers
to pass down cost savings to their customers, especially when middle-men are eliminated. Because
of lowering the prices of commodities, the pressure of competitors is huge. Through their e
commerce site, customers get products to their home fast. The e-commerce industry is at war.
Surviving it requires outstanding strategies to solve the common ecommerce problems. Walmart
need to be prepared for challenges and strive for growth at every stage of the business.

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