Grocery Helps Walmart US eCommerce Sales Surge 26%

Walmart’s eCommerce momentum continues unabated, as price-conscious customers pivot to digital channels for everyday items, notably grocery.

The company’s Thursday (Aug. 21) earnings release indicated that eCommerce sales were 26% higher than a year ago and digital sales for grocery were up double digits. Store-fulfilled delivery of grocery items were up 50%.

Though a slight miss on earnings—where costs are rising in the wake of tariffs—sent shares lower by about 2% in intraday trading, the retail behemoth raised its full year guidance. Net sales are projected to grow in a range of 3.75% to 4.75% for the fiscal year. That’s higher than the 3% to 4% range that had previously been in place.

Comparable sales in the quarter were up 4.6% in the U.S., outpaced by Sam’s Club growth of at 5.9%.

During the conference call with analysts, CEO Doug McMillon said that all segments posted eCommerce sales growth north of 20%, and overall, “sales were stronger than we expected when we started the quarter.” Sales were positive across all general merchandise categories.

As for the marketplace, McMillon said: “Globally, we grew our marketplace by 17% and membership 0income by 15%. We grew global advertising by 46%, including VIZIO. Walmart Connect in the U.S. was up 31%, and that excludes VIZIO. These strong growth rates in our newer businesses continue to change the shape of our income statement,” and boosted profits, in a move that overcomes tariff impacts.

With a nod to those tariffs, McMillon said: “We’re doing what we said we would do. We’re keeping our prices as low as we can for as long as we can. Our merchants have been creative and acted with urgency to avoid what would have been additional pressure for our customers and members. They’ve done a terrific job managing pricing and mix across merchandise categories. They managed to generate rollbacks.”

McMillon told analyst that spending by U.S. consumers has “been generally consistent. We aren’t seeing dramatic shifts. The way things have played out so far, the impact of tariffs has been gradual enough that any behavioral adjustments by the customer have been somewhat muted. But as we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we’ve continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters. Not surprisingly, we see more adjustments in middle- and lower-income households than we do with higher-income households.”

He noted too, that “in discretionary categories where item prices have gone up, we see a corresponding moderation in units at the item level as customers switch to other items or, in some cases, categories.”

McMillon also told analysts that artificial intelligence (AI) remains a key focus, as the digital assistant Sparky, tied to the company’s app, will develop agentic capabilities over time.

“As we improve and scale Sparky, we’ll make it even smarter and more personalized. It’ll be the primary digital vehicle for discovery, shopping and for managing everything from reorders to returns … The other super agents we’re building include one for associates that’ll bring everything into one place, from scheduling to sales data. [There’s also] one for our suppliers, sellers and advertisers that they will use to manage things like onboarding, orders and campaigns.”

CFO John Rainey said that the comp sales growth reflected “ongoing share gains across key categories and all income cohorts, with upper-income households contributing the largest gains” and said later in the call that membership fee income was up 15% across the enterprise. Sam’s Club continued to see steady growth in member counts, renewal rates and increased penetration of Plus members, resulting in 7.6% membership income growth, while Walmart Plus membership income grew double digits, according to commentary.

“I’m also really excited about the upcoming launch of our new One Pay Cash Rewards credit card, which should be available before the holiday” shopping season, Rainey said.

The CFO added: “It is a kind of a nuanced earnings report given some of the cost pressures. But when you dig into the details, particularly of the eCommerce business, you look at things like membership growth of 16%, advertising growing 50% year over year, 30% in the U.S … You can go line by line and you can see why we’re excited about the momentum in the business.”

As he told analysts, “we are more than just a standard brick-and-mortar retail business. We have a much more diversified set of profit streams now that are both higher growing as well as higher margin.”

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