"We're Barely Scratching the Surface" - Walmart Marketplace SVP on 26% Growth & What's Next

Welcome back, everyone.

This is omnitok Retail.

I'm Ann Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And we are coming to you live from the Walmart Seller Summit here in sunny San Diego.

And standing between us, we have a guest who was on stage a little bit earlier today.

We have the SVP of Walmart, US Marketplace and Walmart Fulfillment Service.

Maneesh, Janeja Maneesh, thank you for making the time today, stopping to join us here at omnitalk.

Thank you for having me.

I'm really excited to be here.

Yeah, you're coming.

Kind of the man of the hour on the show.

You kicked it off, you kicked off the morning, then you kind of closed it up too and invited everyone into the expo hall.

So yeah, you're the man of the hour here, I think.

I think we got royalty here, Ed.

No, no, I think our sellers are the people of the hour, not man of the hour.

Right.

Because that's why we're here, all of us, to help them basically win on Walmart.

Right.

Well said, well said.

Okay, so let's start, let's start off like we always do.

Why don't you explain your background and your role for those at home?

Sure.

My background is I've been in retail marketplace for over two decades.

I started my career as an engineer and then became basically a business person.

That was my end goal, to be able to help people live better, which resonates really well with our mission as such.

And then I was at ebay, at Amazon and now at Walmart leading our marketplace and fulfillment services teams.

Well, this is your third year now.

Have you always been the first speaker?

Every year.

So my goal is to open up the Marketplace Summit.

But then our people step in, we talk to our sellers and that's where basically the magic happens.

And super excited to basically engage with the sellers and expose them to what we see every day within our offices, which has helped people basically save money and live better.

Yeah.

Well, it's your third year now.

Do you have a favorite part of the summit?

I mean, what do you look forward to most?

Yeah, so I mean, there's so many things to look forward to.

Right?

I mean, the momentum of Walmart.

Yeah, right.

When you think about the opportunity on Walmart, the people of Walmart, when you expose all these things together, what we see every single day to help sellers win, like that comes to life out here.

What I really look forward to are the conversation on the floor.

You learn so much from sellers.

You learn so much when you talk to your solution providers.

We build Our solutions around it.

So as I shared during the summit, we basically have a seller advocacy group.

We have these sellers who talk to us, who give us feedback, who actually make the platform better for them with us.

I'm super excited.

Yeah, many reasons.

It's a must go, must attend for the sellers.

And San Diego is not a bad place either.

No, San Diego's not bad at all.

I don't mind it one bit.

All right, so I love what you did when you brought it back to the sellers right from the get go because that is why we're here.

What is it that when you step back 30,000 foot view, what is the one thing or maybe two things, couple things that you hope the sellers take away from this year's summit particularly.

Yeah, I think a few things.

Right, so think about again, think about how magic happens.

Think about the momentum of us.

Right?

So we had 26% growth, as Dave shared basically in E Commerce.

We've had double digit growth for 13 consecutive quarters in Walmart, our marketplace.

So we see that growth happen, right?

That's a momentum.

The opportunity is massive.

We talked to so many sellers out here with amazing success stories.

So we want more sellers to be aware about the massive opportunity you have.

Third part of that is the reach of Walmart.

I talked about basically my kids.

But there are 270 million customers who shop with us every week around the world.

So imagine the reach, right?

Momentum, opportunity, reach.

And the best part, I believe is the humanity of Walmart.

Every time that we talk to sellers, they know name of the people that support them to help them grow the business.

You see John walking around, you see Dave, you see Andrea, you see Latrice, you see all of us, my whole team.

That humanity, you can't fake it.

It's authentic.

Right?

Well, I imagine that's one of the ways.

But what are some of the other ways that you attract sellers to the Walmart marketplace?

And what do you feel is really your key kind of differentiator when they're exploring all their possibilities?

Yeah, so I think John put it really well, right?

We are not here to compete with you.

We want you to win.

That's basically our mantra as we think about helping these sellers win is hey, let's expose the opportunity to them.

Now we have tools that we use to tell people, hey, these are the items you can bring to the platform.

Then we have the winning formula about speed that we're investing in with wfs with multichannel inbound from China.

So we take away all the complexities from them.

There's about pricing.

We build tools around them so we have tools and incentives for sellers to come and look at their opportunity and grow.

So we, our whole effort is around helping sellers grow.

Bring the assortment that our customers have come to love.

Like we said.

Right.

We want us, our platform be not just to be Walmart, to be America's first place to shop.

We want this to be the best place that sellers want to sell on.

Right.

So that's when you combine those things together when you invest in those two factors.

That's amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

I think when John said that this morning on stage, I immediately put it on social media.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you said you win, we win.

Is that right?

Yeah.

So if our sellers win, our customers win and then we win.

Right.

It's a win win proposition all around.

All right, so you've been in the marketplace for a long time.

Technology is always changing.

It's advancing, it's changing faster than ever right now.

What are some of the ways you're looking at how marketplaces are going to continue to evolve and what do you need to do to maintain the trust of both your customers and your sellers?

You see, trust is paramount.

It's very easy to lose trust, it's difficult to gain trust.

So we want to make sure that we can serve our sellers and our customers equitably.

We want to make sure we have the right tools, we have the right processes, we have the right brand policy that we have in place.

I talked briefly about this during the speeches.

Right.

Which is more about.

We want brands to come and register on a platform.

We want them to come sell on a platform.

We want sellers to be authorized sellers that come and register.

Right.

We want to have an open marketplace, the right level of trust that we're building.

So we keep on evolving, that we want to make sure we're ahead of the curve.

We invest in technology, we invest in gen AI tools to scrape our listings, figure out like, hey, it's authentic or not.

So we invest in reactive and proactive modes.

It's multi pronged approach that we have to build trust and security in our systems.

Yeah, it's really impressive.

Really impressive.

Where do you go from here?

What are the kind of priorities that you set up for yourself and your team to continue to grow marketplace?

I would say up and to the right.

I mean that's where we want to the right.

That's a. I've never heard that answer.

That's a great answer.

You want to be up and to the right.

For our sellers.

Right.

Like I said, if sellers win, our customers win and consequently we win.

Yeah.

So we are barely just starting scratching the surface.

We are relatively a newer marketplace.

Right.

We think of the history but we've done retail for 60 years.

We know retail.

We know how to do it and that reach and that opportunity and that momentum, we want sellers to capitalize on that.

So I believe we're just starting and we want more and more sellers to actually come in on the platform.

Yeah.

Well, there you go folks.

There you heard it.

Up and to the right.

That's a great mantra to live by.

Love it.

Love it very much.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

Really appreciate it.

Having you.

Yeah.

Thank you for hosting us today at the Walmart Seller Summit as well.

And to all of you, until next.

Time, be careful out there.

Thank you.