Retail Intel Weekly: COVID-19 News & More from Walmart, Ahold Delhaize

WALMARTWalmart is leveraging the distinct strength of its massive brick-and-mortar network with the launch of on-demand access to omnichannel reporting for all Walmart Media Group display and sponsored products campaigns. Accessible via the self-serve ad center platform the retailer introduced earlier this year, the performance dashboards provide advertisers with real-time retail data on how their campaigns are performing both in-store and online. Walmart said in a blog post that it received "rave reviews" when beta testing the new offering with more than a dozen large advertisers including Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Mondelez and Clorox.Walmart has for the second time delayed the launch of a new subscription service called Walmart+ that will cost $98 a year and include perks like same-day delivery of groceries and general merchandise, discounts on fuel at Walmart gas stations, and early access to product deals, according to Recode. Walmart originally planned to launch Walmart+ in late March or April, but the retailer first pushed back the date to July after COVID-19 hit the U.S. in March. There is no word yet on the new target launch date.Sean Slovenski, senior vice president and president of health and wellness for Walmart U.S., is leaving as soon as this week as the retailer navigates the operational complexity of the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. Slovenski had been leading the Walmart Health openings.CLUBSam’s Club is among the retailers that have been able to enhance the user experience through a partnership leveraging Rakuten Advertising’s expansive publisher network and mobile tech company Button’s new deep linking and app-tracking technology solution dubbed Reach, which has evolved affiliate marketing into a major channel for installs and app sales.Beyond Meat is rolling out its Beyond Burger flagship product to BJ’s Wholesale Club and Sam’s Club in eight-count packages, specially designed for warehouse clubs. The plant-based meat alternative began appearing at Costco stores last year and are also sold at select Kroger, Walmart, Target, Whole Foods Market, Albertsons Cos., Publix, Wegmans and Sprouts stores.SUPERMARKETSWakefern Food Corp. is expanding its use of Inmar Intelligence’s Retail Cloud, an integrated suite of marketing technologies and services, to offer targetable and attributable offsite media at scale for its brands, according to an Inmar media release. Wakefern will work with Retail Cloud to grow its retail media network and expand into off-site programmatic advertising. With these capabilities in hand, Wakefern’s brands will launch targeted campaigns via managed services or through a self-service user interface, while being able to measure the impact on sales. “This marks Wakefern’s entry into programmatic retail media amplification to extend our reach to new consumers and drive engagement with our loyal customers,” said Steve Henig, Wakefern chief customer officer, in the release. “Expanding into Inmar Intelligence’s turnkey retail media solutions enables us to build a network for the future that will deliver an enhanced shopper experience that connects our brands to consumers in new and personalized ways.” Publix’s specialty banner GreenWise Market will shutter its only two locations in South Carolina on Aug. 29. The said GreenWise Markets, which focus on natural and organic offerings, had just opened last year. “Both locations were acquisitions that fit our needs at the time of opening,” Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous told Progressive Grocer. “However, as our concept has evolved, the locations have space constraints that will not fit our current vision for GreenWise Markets.” After the closures, Publix will have nine GreenWise locations in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, with plans to open three more in Florida.In its latest earnings call, Ahold Delhaize reported same-store sales increased 20.6% in the U.S. and 10.2% in Europe in its second quarter, ended June 28, while net sales were up 17.1% to €19.1 billion. All U.S. banners generated double-digit comparable sales growth, which the company attributed largely to higher COVID-19-related sales trends as well as the hefty profit headwind caused by the Stop & Shop strike during the same quarter last fiscal year. In addition, online sales grew by 126.8% in Q2, prompting the retailer to push its annual target (again) to exceed 75% online sales growth in the U.S. (The original goal was a 30% annual bump.) Among the U.S. brands, Food Lion grew the fastest, achieving its 31st straight quarter of positive, same-store sales.Ahold Delhaize also plans to increase click-and-collect locations by the end of the quarter from 707 to 765 and is aiming to have 1,100 locations available for the service by year-end. “Despite the high levels of market uncertainty, we are accelerating investments to support our increasing digital and omnichannel ambitions and raising our 2020 outlook due to our strong performance in the first half of the year,” Fran Mueller said during the Q2 earnings call. The retail giant has hired 45,000 new associates globally during Q2.HARDWARE/HOME CENTERSThe Home Depot will open three new distribution centers in Georgia over the next 18 months to support the growing demand for flexible delivery and pick-up options for Pro and DIY shoppers. The initiative is part of a $1.2 billion investment announced in 2017 to expand the company's distribution network with approximately 150 new supply chain facilities nationwide and expand Home Depot's existing same-day and next-day delivery options to 90% of the U.S. population. These facilities include a variety of formats to meet the unique needs of customers, from small parcel packages to big and bulky product. AMAZONReporting a 40% growth in revenue (to $88.9) last week, Amazon revealed it plans to return to higher levels of marketing spending in the third quarter after cutting expenses by roughly a third in the second quarter to deal with the surge in demand caused by COVID-19, said chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky.Amazon is now giving sellers access to the machine learning technology it has been using to weed out fraud in real time — for a fee — via Amazon Web Services' Amazon Fraud Detector, a fully managed and customizable service that helps quickly identify potentially fraudulent online activities like online payment and identity fraud. CONSUMER ELECTRONICSBest Buy has partnered with Google Cloud to leverage its cloud infrastructure and analytics services to power a data-driven retail strategy to deliver newer and more personalized shopping experiences.

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