Denise Incandela, EVP of Walmart Fashion: How Walmart Became a True Fashion Destination

Walmart's apparel business has traditionally been about basics and value.

When you

look at the business today, what convinces you that Walmart is becoming a

true

fashion destination rather than just a place to add a T to your basket?

Yeah.

So I'll back up before I answer that question, which is one, you know, at Walmart, our purpose is to help people save money and live better.

We do this in fashion by working to democratize fashion.

Everyone should have access to beautiful clothes, no matter what their budget.

And we want to be our customers' first choice for fashion and position fashion as the halo for all Walmart brand and stores.

And we've got... 145 million people that walk through our stores and e-commerce website every week, which is mind blowing, almost half the country.

And to be able to capitalize on that traffic and put credible fashion on top of that is we believe is a huge opportunity in competitive moat.

And so, you know, we've been focusing to create this credible fashion line by one, overhauling our assortment to cover more of our customer's closet.

Two, significantly enhancing our fashion shopping experience and then changing perception of Walmart fashion and broadening our customer reach.

And so your question, what convinces us that we're making progress there, I will say, is one, we're taking exceptional market share.

You started the call asking about our performance and our earnings calls would confirm that.

Our customers are responding to our store remodels with high NPS scores, huge improvement over the last two years.

We're capturing new customers, and our 100K household income customer has increased dramatically as a penetration of our total customer base.

And customers, influencers and media and equity analysts are all taking notice and giving us credit.

So we feel really good about the progress in the strategy.

But I would say the number one report card marker that we're most keen on is market share.

And that's where, you know, we're we're super pleased.

It's impressive when you take a look at all that's happening in fashion today and who you're competing against, you know, from the fast fashion players of Shein to, you know, the majors that are out there.

Obviously, Amazon's the biggest apparel brand.

vendor or biggest apparel player in the space walmart is number two but the apparel piece of your business has grown rapidly over the years and i know that you have focused on the fashion piece of the business let's talk a little bit more about that let's talk about some of the brands that you the private brands that you've developed from free assembly and scoop and avia along with the marketplace sellers that are bringing more and more products to the Walmart customers because 145 million people a week, that's a lot, but they also want a lot.

Walmart's apparel business has traditionally been about basics and value.

When you

look at the business today, what convinces you that Walmart is becoming a

true

fashion destination rather than just a place to add a T to your basket?

Yeah.

So I'll back up before I answer that question, which is one, you know, at Walmart, our purpose is to help people save money and live better.

We do this in fashion by working to democratize fashion.

Everyone should have access to beautiful clothes, no matter what their budget.

And we want to be our customers' first choice for fashion and position fashion as the halo for all Walmart brand and stores.

And we've got... 145 million people that walk through our stores and e-commerce website every week, which is mind blowing, almost half the country.

And to be able to capitalize on that traffic and put credible fashion on top of that is we believe is a huge opportunity in competitive moat.

And so, you know, we've been focusing to create this credible fashion line by one, overhauling our assortment to cover more of our customer's closet.

Two, significantly enhancing our fashion shopping experience and then changing perception of Walmart fashion and broadening our customer reach.

And so your question, what convinces us that we're making progress there, I will say, is one, we're taking exceptional market share.

You started the call asking about our performance and our earnings calls would confirm that.

Our customers are responding to our store remodels with high NPS scores, huge improvement over the last two years.

We're capturing new customers, and our 100K household income customer has increased dramatically as a penetration of our total customer base.

And customers, influencers and media and equity analysts are all taking notice and giving us credit.

So we feel really good about the progress in the strategy.

But I would say the number one report card marker that we're most keen on is market share.

And that's where, you know, we're we're super pleased.

It's impressive when you take a look at all that's happening in fashion today and who you're competing against, you know, from the fast fashion players of Shein to, you know, the majors that are out there.

Obviously, Amazon's the biggest apparel brand.

vendor or biggest apparel player in the space walmart is number two but the apparel piece of your business has grown rapidly over the years and i know that you have focused on the fashion piece of the business let's talk a little bit more about that let's talk about some of the brands that you the private brands that you've developed from free assembly and scoop and avia along with the marketplace sellers that are bringing more and more products to the Walmart customers because 145 million people a week, that's a lot, but they also want a lot.