Behind the Scenes of Walmart+ With Walmart SVP Venessa Yates

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back.

This is Omnitalk Retail coming to you live from Grocery shop 2024 from the viewsion group, booth number a two 10.

Come by and see us all day today.

I'm Ann Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And standing between us, we have another wonderful guest.

We have Vanessa Yates, the SVP and GM of Walmart plus.

Welcome to omnitalk, Vanessa.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

How's your show been going so far?

Going well, so far.

It's my first grocery shop.

It is nice.

It is really excited to be here.

It is, yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, tell Doug it's about your background.

So from the accident I detected, you hail from down under.

So tell us about your job, Walmart plus, what it entails and how you got to your position.

Sure.

Yeah.

I am australian, so born and raised in 2016, I moved over to the states from Sydney to Bentonville, Arkansas, and I was actually in the merchandising team.

So I've spent 17 years in merchandising and about a year, year and a half ago now popped over into the membership side of the business and haven't looked back.

It's been an awesome adventure.

And what are you all responsible for in terms of Walmart plus?

Like, lay the landscape for us.

Yeah, no problem.

So in case you don't know what Walmart plus is, maybe I'll start.

So it is our membership program for Walmart and we have a whole bunch of internal sourced benefits.

So think free shipping, free delivery from store fuel, discounts, coupled with a bunch of third party benefits.

So think video streaming with Paramount plus, pet, telehealth, a whole bunch of other third party benefits like travel, that we wrap up and bundle into a membership program for $98 a year or $12.95 a month.

So it was kind of a concept born in 2020.

If you think about where you were in 2020.

I was stuck in my house and looking for ways to get groceries to my home.

And so were a lot of our customers.

And so it really was born out of this idea of convenience and offering free delivery for our customers.

And then as things sort of opened back up again, customers were traveling differently, so we added fuel discounts, and so it's been this constant kind of evolution of what do our customers want and how are we uniquely positioned to give it to them?

How do you start to bring in things like entertainment?

I guess I'm just so curious, having worked on partnerships when I was back in my days at Target, really thinking about what's getting people to join this program.

How do you start to ideate around that?

How does your team work on starting some of those conversations?

Yeah, I think one of the, as a company Walmart, one of the things that we're known for is putting the customer first all of the time.

And so really, really proud of the team and how they engage with member and customer insights.

And so we do a whole bunch of research in terms of how our customers spend and engage with our brand, how they spend outside of the Walmart ecosystem, and really balancing those insights with what can we do best as a retailer, and then where can we partner in areas that we maybe don't have the core expertise?

That's really cool.

And so if you think about how you spend your time, you spend it probably streaming, probably exercising.

Maybe you have a pet.

Like 75% of our members do.

And so we start looking at this whole kind of variety of ways that we can bring savings, both from a time and money perspective to our members and run from there.

Yeah, you've nailed and to a t, actually.

Absolutely.

So.

For sure.

Thank you.

All right, so one of the things that we, that we, we talked a lot about on our show last week, and it's been gaining a lot of steam in the media, too, is, is Walmart's current positioning with what is what people are calling the 200,000 plus household income level that you've been gaining share at that level.

How much of an impact has Walmart plus particularly had on that statistic?

Yeah, I think the exciting thing about Walmart, first, is we're here to save customers and members time and money so they can live better.

So we've got that promise in our mission, and that starts everything for us.

At the end of the day, warm up plus is here and designed to bring value to everyone.

And so that value might look different based on the income bracket you're in or the lifestyle you have, whether you have children, whether you're a certain age bracket, whether you live somewhere different in the states than we all do.

So we try to look for ways to bring value to everybody, regardless of their income, status, and try to figure out what's the level of value you're looking for from the membership and bringing that into life as well.

The really cool thing about our members is they shop twice as much and spend twice as much, shop twice as often.

So we're seeing value from our members, and so they're really heavily engaged, really looking for ways to utilize our benefits and continuing to invest in us, which tells us we're on the right track right.

And you're giving, especially that higher income demographic, you're giving them a reason now to more easily get the goods that they may have gone somewhere else for in the past.

And now they're.

You're giving them reasons to kind of seek out Walmart.

Yeah, they might not have before.

Right.

And kudos to our e commerce team, too.

Right.

They're continuing to find ways to turn the physical shelf into a really extensive digital shelf.

And when you do that, you broaden your appeal to many more customer cohorts.

And so where we might not have had consideration in the past, we do now.

And that just continues to bolster the program for us.

Well, that was the unlock for us in talking about.

It was the digital angles that Walmart has been exploring with Walmart plus and through other things is really the conduit by which it reaches these new customers as well.

Right?

Is that how you think about it?

Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, I think we've had tremendous success and growth as a brick and, brick and mortar retailer, but we're having incredible growth in our e comm.

And you will have heard that in our earnings releases most recently as well.

And so wherever we can bring both experiences, items, assortment, and suppliers and sellers together for our member community, I mean, it's a good thing.

Our number one benefit is delivery, and closely behind that is free shipping.

No minimum.

So if you think about the millions of items that you can get access to and not have to pay a minimum, it's a pretty big bet for.

Us, particularly with the marketplace in place.

Right?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk a little bit about you're going to be on stage here at grocery shop.

Let's talk a little bit about what you'll be talking about and kind of what your hope is that the audience takes away from that session.

Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited, actually.

So it is my first time here at grocery shop and I'm sharing the stage with a couple of folks who I'm really excited to partner with.

And we're talking about convenience and affordability.

So I feel like that's a great tag into what Walmart does every single day.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the history of Walmart plus and where we've been and, you know, how we've evolved over time, talking a little bit about the insights that help us create the program that it is.

And I hope from a takeaway perspective, I hope folks are inspired in the room to think about how they can uniquely meet the needs of their customers as well.

But also think of Walmart plus as something that they might be interested in investing in and paying attention.

Some attention to.

Yeah.

I think the other part that is really unique about the Walmart plus offering is just, it's not just about convenience being the delivery aspect of it, too, but really the number of us that are so close to Walmart that it's also the curbside benefits, you know, like all the things that come from that, not just the, you know, the convenience being you save a little bit of money or it's a little bit more affordable option.

Yeah, 100%.

And we recently, you would have seen, we launched a partnership with Burger King.

You know, a third of their stores are located near a Walmart store.

So we can give you lunch and your grocery experience all in the one trip.

And it practically pays for the membership.

We did the math.

One day it pays for the membership.

At my house if you ate enough burgers.

I just went to Burger King the other day, actually.

Thank you 100%.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

All right, well, let's get you out of here on this.

You know, we've, Ann and I have both been astonished by what it appears that Walmart plus is doing.

And we said on a recent podcast, too, that right now it kind of looks like a better value than Amazon prime.

So do you agree with that statement?

I'm curious.

And if so, if not, here's what I would say.

Okay.

I would say we're in the business of providing undeniable value to our members.

Okay.

And that means millions of items available at everyday low prices within as little as 30 minutes in most instances.

So we're doing that for $98 a year or $12.95 a month.

That has been the price of our membership since launch.

Yes.

So I feel like that's undeniably valuable, and I do think it's an incredibly valuable program, for sure.

I like how she said that price since launch.

Yes.

As we've seen that the competition tends to create look at things a little bit differently.

Yeah.

More offering in the membership.

Same price.

Yes.

Right.

That's the key message there.

Nicely done.

Nicely done.

Well, that wraps us up.

Thank you so much to the fusion group for making all of our coverage here at grocery shop possible again.

Chris and I will be here for the next couple of days at booth a 210.

Thank you.

Especially to you, Vanessa Yates, Walmart plus.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing the details that you did today with us.

And please, for all those who are at the conference, make sure to check out your session.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.

And until next time, be careful out there.