The 4 Pillars Of Great Customer Experience With Walmart VP of Seller Success Mohit Puthuraya

Hello everyone.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

We are coming to you live from the Walmart Seller Summit at the beautiful Gaylord Hotel in San Diego.

And we are pleased to introduce our next guest, Mohit Puturaya, VP of Seller Success Marketplace, Walmart Fulfillment Services and E Commerce.

Wow, that's a title, my friend.

Holy cow.

Welcome to omnitalk.

Thank you so much.

I was just looking for a title which is longer than my name, so that just worked.

Just.

All right, found it.

Well done.

Well, Mohit, let's talk a little bit about your role and what that includes at Walmart.

Well, firstly, thank you for having me on this podcast, Christian.

Of course.

Yeah.

And thanks for being here with us.

As part of my role, my primary objective is to make sure that our sellers are successful on the Walmart Marketplace platform.

So in order to do that, we build the right tools, the right programs and the right capabilities so.

So that our sellers can set up, manage and grow their business on the platform with success.

So, Mohit, how do you actually think about or actually do both questions like how do you actually go about creating a better experience for the customers and the sellers?

That's a great question.

Look, when we think about our customers, we work back from what our customers really are looking for when they come to shop online with us.

And customers are looking for four things.

They're looking for great assortment, they're looking for sharp prices.

They're also looking for convenience, which is I want it to be delivered where I want it, when I want it on time.

And then increasingly they're looking for trust.

They want to make sure that they're shopping from the platform which is trustworthy.

So we're really working back from what our customer experience needs to be and making sure our sellers are set up to deliver on all those four promises.

Right?

So when it comes to assortment, we're trying to make sure that our sellers are having the right recommendations as to what assortment would actually be received well by our customers.

We provide a bunch of tools to our sellers to keep the prices sharp.

We provide services like WFS or Walmart Fulfillment Services to make sure that they can ship fast and in a reliable manner.

And so I think we really work hard to work back from our customers and make sure our sellers are set up for success.

But additionally, we also make sure that our sellers have a friction free platform, they have parity with other suppliers and sellers on the platform so that there is a sense of a level playing field and we also make sure that our sellers have access to all the great people here with Walmart as well to help them succeed.

Been hearing that a lot for sure.

Well, let's talk a little bit Mohit about Walmart Fulfillment Services.

We've been hearing a lot about that today.

What do you think, like, as you race to be the fastest fulfillment offering in the E Comm industry, how do you feel like Walmart is really differentiating itself and Walmart Fulfillment Services is differentiating itself?

Great question.

Look, I think fulfillment is an increasingly critical differentiator when it comes to ensuring a terrific customer experience.

Right.

Because you could have all the assortment, great pricing, but if you cannot deliver, it's a huge miss from a customer standpoint.

So with that in mind, fotos, WFS is a key go to market sort of promise to our customers and our sellers and it's been one of the fastest growing cohorts within our business.

So a lot of our sellers love the program in terms of how we see this continuing to grow.

So one is we continue to get more and more items onto wfs.

So both our coverage of what is covered by WFS, but also our promise and speeds are continuing to get better year after year.

Right.

But not only that, the WFS cost of services is about 15% cheaper than some of our competitors, especially for our sellers is music to their ears.

Right.

And then lastly, we also have enabled WFS with multi channel solutions as well, which is you could be selling on not just Walmart but in other platforms as well.

But, but you could still use the fulfillment backbone that is WFS and make sure you're able to fulfill your orders from other platforms or marketplaces that you may be part of.

Right?

Yeah, simplify it.

So I think all of that combined has seen a really good reception with our sellers.

Right.

I imagine some of what you just said goes into this next question or the answer to this next question I'm going to ask you too is there's a lot of marketplace options for sellers, right?

I mean there's a ton of them now, more than there's probably ever been.

What do you think differentiates Walmart's marketplace for sellers relative to the competition?

Absolutely.

Look, I think the first four things which I said about the assortment, pricing, convenience as well as trust, those have actually become table stakes right?

Now if you're going to be a marketplace of note that people want to take seriously, they come to expect that these things are going to be there.

Right?

Right.

But I think over and above that the differentiators That I see that we hear a lot from our sellers about as to why they love selling on Walmart Marketplace.

I think the first is the ability for Walmart to leverage our physical footprint.

Right, okay, makes sense.

And in a lot of different ways.

One is you could potentially start as a seller and eventually assort in the store.

So that's there.

Migrate in.

Yeah.

And then it works both ways as well.

A lot of our suppliers typically might have started in the store, but they also want to sell on the marketplace.

Oh yeah.

Broaden their store.

But also there are like advertising solutions like what we're doing with Visio for example.

How could we potentially leverage our physical footprint?

And you might have heard about even with our in store shoppers, we provide them QR codes and other digital tools so that they can shop the endless aisle as well.

So this integration between the physical world and the digital world is something which I think Walmart is uniquely positioned to deliver.

So that's a clear difference.

Great point, great point.

I think the second one for us is about this access.

See a lot of our sellers, when they come to us, they're like how can I grow?

Right.

So having one of the largest install base of customers to each is amazing.

That's a great point.

But in addition, you can also sell internationally.

Right.

So our presence and our footprint outside of the US as well I think is a huge selling point.

And then the last one is as much as we can build all of the technology, we are ultimately a human led, rather people led organization which I think is, which is in this day and age, I think is music to a lot of our sellers because many of them come and tell us like we just don't want to be another like automated, like sort of like workflow.

Right, right.

And we want to talk to somebody we want to like engage with.

So that has been a huge differentiator for us as well.

Let's talk a little bit more about the technology too because that's something that really struck me today when we were listening to all the presentations.

There's a lot that you're doing to invest in new tools, new technologies to help sellers be successful.

What are some of those for our audience who wasn't there this morning to hear them?

Yeah, absolutely.

Look, I think when you think about not just E commerce, but certainly marketplaces.

Right.

Technology is a necessary lever for you to scale.

Right.

Whether you're a seller or whether you're a platform like us, technology allows us to ultimately scale the business model.

Right.

And when we think about how to Leverage technology.

We use it in a couple different ways, right.

So one is to obviously simplify what you're able to do.

Another is to get and glean more insights so that you can actually grow your business faster.

But yet another way for us is to do more with less, which is to say this notion of scaling your work and reaching more customers, reaching more countries.

And so whether it is, for example, on the customer experience side, we've leveraged our technology to have chatbots to help our customers shop on the platform, but also simplified shopping experiences like search as well as if you're looking at the ratings and reviews for an item, you provide you a summary so that you don't have to down scroll scroll through a bunch of reviews and stuff like that.

Right.

Similarly for the seller, lots of different tools and how we've leveraged the technology, right.

Things such as if you want to set up an item, we use Gen AI, for example, to enrich the item and improve the content quality.

Right.

We've provided new tools like an incentives manager so that in one place you know exactly all the different, like incentives and programs that you're enrolled in.

And that's a huge like simplifier, but.

Also missing what you're not capitalizing on, right?

Absolutely.

And also during like, let's say the upcoming holiday season, right.

We've got tools for our sellers to upload your items, manage your prices, manage the quality of what you're selling.

All of that in bulk, right?

Yeah.

So these are one of, you know, some, some of the examples through which we're actually like making an impact on our sellers using technology.

That's a great answer, my friend.

Great answer.

Well, thank you for joining us today.

It's been a real pleasure getting to know you.

Yeah.

I want to talk to you a little bit more after we close the mic down here too, potentially.

But, but yeah, and so thank you to Walmart and all the folks here at the seller summit for providing us the avenue to bring you these, all these interviews with these great Walmart executives.

And until next time, Ann, be careful out there.