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You might think of Walmart as Americas quintessential big box storethe place you can get everything from Hanes T-shirts to large screen TVs to cleats for your kid’s soccer uniform. But Walmart isn’t defying shaky consumer confidence because of the breadth of its offerings, which impressively stretches to 120,000 products at most stores. Customers aren’t flocking into stores to buy made-in-America T-shirts, as I wrote about in May, thanks to a novel partnership with American Giant. Or because it is adding more high-end products (at lower prices than you’d find anywhere else), as I covered in October in this profile of its chief merchant Latriece Watkins. Nor is this about breakthrough new products exclusive to Walmart such as Glen Powell’s Smash Kitchen line of condiments, which hit $10 million in revenue in just six months. (I wrote about how Powell and his cofounders pulled off that feat, revealing their growth numbers for the first time, and how products like theirs fit within Walmart’s overall strategy.) You’re getting warmer, though. If you want to understand why Walmart is beating the odds, this where you should look: the grocery aisles. Walmart has gone from a general merchandise store that also sells groceries to America’s grocery store that also happens to sell everything else you could imagine. The Arkansas-based retailer, which generated $648.1 billion in revenue last year (60% of which came from food), accounts for more than a fifth of all grocery dollars in the country. Since 2019, Walmart has been in the top position when it comes to grocery market share, with Kroger coming in at a distant second at less than 10%. Walmart’s grocery business has been key to its financial success at a time when many other retailers are struggling. Last week, Walmart posted strong quarterly results, with U.S. sales increasing by 4.5%. It has seen an increase in spending per visit, and gains among families with household incomes higher than $100,000 and $200,000. As a result, Walmart has raised its sales and profit guidance, suggesting that it expects to have a stellar holiday shopping season. In contrast, Target posted a drop in sales, and lowered its full-year profit guidance. Grocery store as Trojan horse Walmart’s grocery business has been a Trojan horse. Customers come to the store to stock up their fridge and pantry on low-priced food items, then pick up socks and video games while they’re at it. From the time of Walmart’s founding in 1962, the company’s strategy has been to leverage its enormous buying power to compel brands to sell their products at very low prices. “For most suppliers, Walmart is their biggest customer,” Rachel Slade, author of Making it in America, told me earlier this year. “It’s almost impossible for them to say no to Walmart’s terms.” Walmart’s prices are generally between 10% and 25% lower than competitors. As a result, it has put many smaller retailers and mom-and-moms shops out of business. This, in turn, increases it market share. Today, its 4,605 stores are within 10 miles of 90% of the population. But over the past five years, as the economy has gotten more volatile and inflation has spiked, Walmart’s low grocery prices have begun to appeal to higher income Americans, who feel the need to tighten their belts. The company is doing this in several clever ways. Last year, it launched Bettergoods, its first new in-house food brand in two decades, that is is perfectly calibrated to the tastes of the higher-income consumer. It has all the markers of a premium brand, with sleek, vibrant branding, but it is also designed to appeal to food preferences of wealthier consumers, including from organic milk to plant-based mozzarella to single origin coffee. Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, says that she’s been impressed with the quality of food in her local Walmart’s grocery section in New Jersey. Products are neatly organized and fresh produce is high quality and inviting. “The quality is just as good as Whole Foods,” says Kodali. This has come in stark contrast to Target, where groceries make up 23% of the products in store. Over the few years, consumers have complained about Target’s grocery and bakery sections being out of stock, messy shelves, and misplaced inventory. Kodali says she’s seen expired food on Target shelves, which is “the worst thing you can do as a retailer.” E-comm as an entry The challenge for Walmart is that many of its higher-income consumers aren’t used to visiting Walmart’s stores, and might be bashful about shopping at what is perceived as a budget retailer. But for more than a decade, Walmart has been beefing up its e-commerce capabilities. When it comes to groceries, it is now significantly ahead of its biggest competitors, capturing 31.6% of grocery e-commerce sales in 2025, ahead of Amazon (22.6%) and Kroger (8.6%). Customers can order groceries online and get them as fast as two hours. And Walmart has a subscription program called Walmart+ that offers free deliver with no order minimum, and is designed to compete directly with Amazon Prime. But just as with low-income consumers, Walmart wants to encourage these higher income shoppers to buy more than food. As I reported in the latest issue of the magazine, Walmart’s chief merchant, Latriece Watkins, has been on a mission to bring in more premium brands into the store, like Sonos speakers, DeLonghi coffee makers, and LaRoche-Posay skincare. The strategy appears to be working. The latest financial report shows that the average amount consumers are spending per transaction has gone up by 2% from a year ago. Can Walmart keep this growth streak up? That’s an open question. During the Great Recession of 2008, affluent consumers flocked to Walmart in an effort to stretch their dollars. But when financial pressures eased, the Walmart acknowledges that many of these newfound customers eventually went back to competitors. This time, however, Walmart appears to have a longer-term strategy to keep wealthier consumers coming back, from creating products that cater to their tastes to keeping them locked in with the Walmart+ subscription program. We’ll have to see if these shoppers stick around when the economy gets better.
Category:
E-Commerce
A copy of the first Superman issue, unearthed by three brothers cleaning out their late mother’s attic, netted $9.12 million this month at a Texas auction house which says it is the most expensive comic book ever sold.The brothers discovered the comic book in a cardboard box beneath layers of brittle newspapers, dust and cobwebs in their deceased mother’s San Francisco home last year, alongside a handful of other rare comics that she and her sibling had collected on the cusp of World War II.She had told her children she had a valuable comic book collection hidden away, but they had never seen it until they put her house up for sale and decided to comb through her belongings for heirlooms, said Lon Allen, vice president of comics at Heritage Auctions. The brothers uncovered the box of comics and sent a message to the auction company, leading Allen to fly out to San Francisco earlier this year to inspect their copy of “Superman No. 1” and show it to other experts for appraisal.“It was just in an attic, sitting in a box, could have easily been thrown away, could’ve easily been destroyed in a thousand different ways,” Allen said. “A lot of people got excited because it’s just every factor in collecting that you could possibly want all rolled into one.”The “Superman No. 1” comic, released in 1939 by Detective Comics Inc., is one of a small number of copies known to be in existence and is in excellent condition. The Man of Steel was the first superhero to enter pop culture, helping boost the copy’s value among collectors, alongside its improbable backstory, Allen said.The previous record for the world’s most expensive comic book had been set last year, when an “Action Comics No. 1” which first introduced Superman to the world as part of an anthology sold for $6 million. In 2022, another Superman No. 1 sold for $5.3 million.A small, in-house advertisement in the comic book helped experts identify it as originating from the first edition of 500,000 Superman No. 1 copies ever printed. Allen estimates there are fewer than 500 in existence today.The copy was not given any special protection, but the cool Northern California climate helped preserve it, leaving it with a firm spine, vibrant colors and crisp corners, according to a statement from Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. The copy was rated a 9.0 out of 10 by comics grading company CGC, meaning it had only the slightest signs of wear and aging.The three brothers, in their 50s and 60s, did not wish to be identified due to the windfall involved nor did the buyer of the comic book, according to the auction house.“This isn’t simply a story about old paper and ink,” one brother said in a statement released by the auction house. “This was never just about a collectible. This is a testament to memory, family and the unexpected ways the past finds its way back to us.” Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Jack Brook, Associated Press/Report for America
Category:
E-Commerce
Apple said on Monday it is cutting jobs across its sales teams to strengthen its customer engagement efforts, noting that only a small number of roles will be impacted by the layoffs. An Apple spokesperson told Reuters that the company is continuing to hire and the affected employees can apply for new roles. The impacted employees include account managers serving major businesses, schools and government agencies, according to Bloomberg News, which had reported the news earlier in the day. Staff who operate Apple’s briefing centers for institutional meetings and product demonstrations for prospective customers were also affected, Bloomberg said. One of the major targets of the layoffs was a government sales team working with agencies, including the U.S. Defense Department and Justice Department, per the report. The team had already been facing tough conditions after the 43-day government shutdown and cutbacks imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Bloomberg added. In the past few weeks, companies including Verizon, Synopsys and IBM have announced job cuts. Juby Babu and Stephen Nellis, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
Only a week after experiencing a dreaded death cross, and subsequently seeing its value fall to less than $81,000, Bitcoin is showing some signs of recovering. On Monday, BTC’s price topped $89,000, and as of early Tuesday, are hovering around $87,500. To be clear, the slump is far from overthe coin saw its price top $124,000 just last monthand no one can predict what will happen next, but it’s a clear upswing in momentum. All told, when Bitcoin bottomed out at $81,000, it had fallen around 35% off its high. There were several reasons for the selloff, including outflows from large institutional investors and broader economic uncertainty, among other things. It was a wipeout of around $1 trillion in market value. Sentiment may be on the upswing As for this week, its anyone’s guess how much momentum the cryptocurrency will have, but investors appear to be felling a little better. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index from CoinMarketCap, a sentiment indicator for the crypto market, was at 15 on Tuesday. Thats still in the extreme fear portion of the spectrum, but it’s up from low pint of 10, where the index was on November 21. For context, the index hit a high point for 2025 back in May, tallying a 76 and putting it in the greed spectrum. At the time, BTC was trading for around $111,000. So there has been a wild swing in both momentum and sentiment within the past six months. And though Bitcoin has regained its footing a bit over the past week, the question is whether that momentum can be sustained and if values can start pushing back toward all-time highs. What’s next for crypto? Perhaps the next catalyzing moment for the crypto market will come after the Federal Reserve’s December meeting next month. The Fed will meet on December 9 and decide whether to cut interest rates further or hold steadya decision that has been made more difficult by a lack of economic data (such as jobs reports) in recent months due to the government shutdown. The Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, have been trying to balance concerns about persistent inflation and a weakening labor marketand doing so without data has it flying blind. Despite that, the odds of a rate cut appear to be the rise, and another cut could spur investors to put more money in stocks and the crypto markets. This story is developing…
Category:
E-Commerce
European and Asian shares mostly gained on Tuesday after U.S. stocks rallied on hopes the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon.The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%.Germany’s DAX edged 0.1% lower to 23,216.76 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.1% to 7,965.77. Britain’s FTSE 100 likewise gained 0.1%, to 9,542.55.In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 picked up 0.1% to 48,659.52 as a plunge in technology giant SoftBank’s shares weighed on the market. It fell 10.3% on concerns that returns from its heavy investments in OpenAI may be threatened by the next generation Gemini artificial intelligence model that Google launched last week.In South Korea, the Kospi gained 0.3% to 3,857.78. Taiwan’s Taiex jumped 1.5%.Chinese markets also advanced. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng climbed 0.7% to 25,894.55, while the Shanghai Composite index jumped 0.9% to 3,870.02.E-commerce giant Alibaba, which was due to report its earnings late Tuesday, gained 2.1% in Hong Kong.Australia’s S&P/ASX rebounded to edge 0.1% higher, closing at 8,537.00.U.S. markets will be closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday. A day later, it’s on to the rush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.The U.S. stock market rallied on Monday, at the start of a week with shortened trading because of the Thanksgiving holiday.The S&P 500 climbed 1.5% in one of its best days since the summer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.7%.Stocks got a lift from rising hopes that the Fed will cut its main interest rate again at its next meeting in December, a move that could boost the economy and investment prices.The market also benefited from strength for stocks caught up in the artificial-intelligence frenzy. Alphabet, which has been getting praise for its Gemini AI model, rallied 6.3% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Nvidia rose 2.1%.Monday’s gains followed sharp swings in recent weeks, not just day to day but also hour to hour, caused by uncertainty about what the Fed will do with interest rates and whether too much money is pouring into AI and creating a bubble. All the worries are creating the biggest test for investors since an April sell-off, when President Donald Trump shocked the world with his “Liberation Day” tariffs.Despite all the recent fear, the S&P 500 remains within 2.7% of its record set last month.Several tests for the market lie ahead this week. One of the biggest will arrive Tuesday when the U.S. government will deliver data on inflation at the wholesale level in September.Economists expect it to show a 2.6% rise in prices from a year earlier, the same as in August. A higher-than-expected reading could deter the Fed from cutting its main interest rate in December for a third time this year, because lower rates can worsen inflation. Some Fed officials have already argued against a December cut in part because inflation has stubbornly remained above their 2% target.Traders are nevertheless betting on a nearly 85% probability that the Fed will cut rates next month, up from 71% on Friday and from less than a coin flip’s chance seen a week ago, according to data from CME Group.In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 47 cents to $58.37 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 49 cents to $62.23 per barrel.The dollar fell to 156.30 Japanese yen from 156.91 yen. The euro rose to $1.1534 from $1.1521.Bitcoin rose 1.6% to $86,836. It was near $125,000 last month. Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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