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The news: Walmart-owned Sam鈥檚 Club will integrate its Scan & Go checkout technology into all 600 of its stores, the company announced at its 2025 Investment Community Meeting. Scan & Go will gradually replace traditional checkout. Here鈥檚 how it works: Scan & Go lets customers scan their purchases with the retailer鈥檚 mobile app.

Walmart partners with Burger King to beef up Walmart+ perks: While the retailer focuses on appealing to its core customer base, Amazon makes a move for holiday and grocery sales.

This article was contributed by Walmart Connect.

Unified ID 2.0鈥檚 rising popularity: Warner Bros. Discovery and Walmart Connect have adopted UID2, heralding a shift in advertising toward privacy-conscious personalization.

The challenge: Even before the Trump administration rolled out its sweeping 鈥淟iberation Day鈥� tariff policies, retail executives from Abercrombie & Fitch to lululemon athletica to Walmart had been ringing the alarm that consumer spending was weakening. With tariffs likely to push costs higher, spark inflation, and further dampen demand, the outlook has grown far more precarious.

Consumer pessimism is spreading: Dollar General鈥檚 view of the strain on lower-income consumers echoes similar observations from Walmart, McDonald鈥檚, and Kohl鈥檚, to name but a few. Walmart CEO Doug McMillan noted in a February interview that stretched consumers are switching to smaller pack sizes by the end of the month because 鈥渢heir money runs out before the month is gone.鈥�.

The opportunity: The deal will let DoorDash provide a more personalized experience and give Ibotta, which partners with grocers like Kroger, Walmart, and Publix, access to a broader consumer base.

Streaming ads will enable Walmart to reach consumers beyond its website and stores, positioning it as a more competitive ad partner against Amazon and Google. The acquisition allows Walmart to build an in-house advertising and media platform, similar to Amazon鈥檚 Fire TV and Prime Video ad strategy.

Walmart bets on AR: The retailer experiments with several use cases for the technology that it hopes can make shopping online as immersive, interactive, and social as in-person experience.

Amazon will pull in over 80% of US retail media search dollars this year, per our forecast. But Walmart will continue growing its share of non-Amazon retail media search ad spending over the next two years.

Amazon and Walmart reinforce the value of their membership programs: Amazon now offers free Grubhub+ membership as a permanent Prime perk and Walmart+ announces its member-exclusive sale.

Walmart is undergoing a 鈥渕uch broader shift,鈥� said our analyst Sky Canaves on our 鈥淏ehind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail鈥� podcast. Where Walmart was once seen as primarily a retailer, it鈥檚 pivoting into tech and services. Walmart鈥檚 business remains rooted in grocery, but through its retail as a service and Walmart+ offerings, it鈥檚 expanding that flywheel.

Walmart may be playing catch-up to Amazon when it comes to ecommerce and retail media, but recent moves like its $2.3 billion acquisition of VIZIO are giving the retailer momentum. But what are some other big moves that Walmart can make to grab more attention, loyalty, and customers?

Amazon is not as competitive in digital grocery, but Walmart commands nearly 30% of sales. More than a quarter of digital grocery sales dollars come from third-party delivery companies鈥� apps and websites. Challenge 2: Retailers must meet customer expectations around price, selection, and convenience. Retailers need to manage operational costs without raising prices for customers.

Walmart taps B2B to grow its margins: The retail giant is adding new products and tools to Walmart Business to attract more B2B customers and drive loyalty.

Walmart Connect is teaming up with NBCU to power ads in sports livestreams: The partnership is part of Walmart Connect鈥檚 growing CTV ambitions, which includes an expanded deal with Roku.

Walmart Marketplace is thriving: Black Friday and Cyber Monday were the two best-selling days on the platform, and those strong results are providing a boost to Walmart Fulfillment Services.

On today's episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss the power of Walmart: how Walmart is trying to stay in the online shopping race with Amazon, how Walmart+ is getting on, and what to make of its retail as a service offerings. Then for "Red-Hot Retail," our analysts give us four of their very specific鈥攁nd potentially risky鈥攑redictions about the future of Walmart. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts analysts Sky Canaves and Blake Droesch.

On today's podcast episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss Walmart's purchase of Vizio, its brick-and-mortar strategy, and whether they can attract more upper income shoppers. Then, in a mini "Shark Tank"-style segment, we predict what the next big move for Walmart will be. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts senior director of media content Becky Schilling and analyst Zak Stambor.

Walmart lags behind Amazon in total ecommerce sales, retail media ad dollars, and retail subscriptions. But there may be ways for it to minimize the gap in certain areas, namely search and AI capabilities.

Recently, Walmart rolled out a suite of new features at its first-ever seller summit, including enhanced fulfillment and logistics services for merchants. As Walmart attempts to challenge Amazon鈥檚 marketplace dominance, integrating fulfillment allows it to take advantage of its physical footprint for a more comprehensive marketplace offering.

This year, we forecast that Walmart鈥檚 digital ad revenue growth will outpace Google, Meta, and even Amazon. This success is driven by updates made to Walmart鈥檚 retail media platform as well as partnerships to help advertisers activate across channels like social and connected TV. 鈥淵ou know [how they say] crawl, walk, run? We鈥檙e getting to that walk/run phase now where our platform is maturing,鈥� said Rich Lehrfeld, senior vice president and general manager at Walmart Connect.

Walmart is shuttering four stores in Chicago: The retail giant says that the stores lose 鈥渢ens of millions of dollars a year,鈥� and their annual losses nearly doubled in the last five years.

Walmart is opening a pet services center: The move positions the retailer to grab a share of some of the most lucrative areas of the pet industry: health and other services.