{"id":47920,"date":"2018-11-12T12:14:26","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T17:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.portada-online.com\/?p=47920"},"modified":"2018-11-12T12:14:26","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T17:14:26","slug":"walmart-bets-on-convenience-and-technology-to-grow-in-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portada-online.com\/more-features\/walmart-bets-on-convenience-and-technology-to-grow-in-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Bets on Convenience and Technology to Grow in Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

What:\u00a0<\/strong>We spoke to Jenifer Bice, Senior Director, International Communications and Pedro Mucciolo, Director, International Corporate Affairs at Walmart, in order to find out more about Walmart’s initiatives to compete in the E-commerce space at a global level, but more specifically in Latin America.
\nWhy it matters:<\/strong> As E-commerce keeps gaining ground, stores with a long tradition of brick-and-mortar retail must come up with ways of staying relevant. For Walmart, the key is making consumers’ lives easier and as convenient as possible.<\/p>\n

How can an international giant retailer that \u201chas it all\u201d at a global level hit closer to home amongst its local consumers?<\/p>\n

The greatest innovations often come from the simplest of questions. Our fast-paced lifestyles have left us with a fundamental issue: we often don\u2019t have as much time in our hands as we wish we had, and with the time we have, we still have to manage our lives and keep our fridges stocked, our homes fresh and our bodies clean. How many times haven\u2019t we wished the shopping could do itself? Or had to make time to undertake the time-consuming journey of commuting, roaming, choosing, paying and repeat again next week? We spoke to Jenifer Bice, Senior Director, International Communications and Pedro Mucciolo, Director, International Corporate Affairs at Walmart<\/strong>, in order to find out more about Walmart’s initiatives to compete in the E-commerce space at a global level, but more specifically in Latin America.<\/p>\n

Bring Technology Literally Closer to Home<\/h2>\n
\"\"
Jenifer Bice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When we asked Jenifer Bice what she thinks about the future and how Walmart will prepare for it, she comments on the importance of an omnichannel strategy<\/strong>: \u201cWhat excites me about what\u2019s to come is how we\u2019re adjusting our approach to not only focus on our traditional retail stores but to make sure we\u2019re creating an omnichannel ecosystem to serve the customers<\/strong>.\u201d With about 3,200 retail locations across Latin America, Jenifer believes that with that kind of physical footprint, \u201cWe are uniquely positioned to be able to service customers in a way that no one else can, so you can go online and order your groceries and drive up to a Walmart store, Bodega, or Sam\u2019s Club and pick them up without having to get out of your car.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she explains, the key concept today is “convenience<\/strong>“. As time seems to move faster every day, consumers are looking for companies that make it all easier. \u201cIn the US and also in Latin America, customers are wanting convenience, access, trust in the companies they\u2019re engaging with, and to know that they\u2019re not only getting great prices but also quality products,\u201d asserted Jenifer.\u00a0\u201cWe know our customers, we\u2019re innovating on their behalf, and producing solutions that we know will make their lives easier and more convenient<\/strong> so that they can spend less time walking around the store and more time being able to focus on their families or just having the convenience to shop when they want and how they want. \u201c<\/p>\n

\"\"
Pedro Mucciolo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the last mile (delivering from the store to your door) model isn\u2019t new for the Walmart group, it\u2019s been going on for a long time according to Pedro Mucciolo, who mentioned that \u201cSuperama, the supermarket banner for Walmart Mexico,\u00a0 had a service called ‘the one hour express delivery service’, that\u2019s been going up for almost 20 years and it started via phone and fax. With technology and innovation,\u00a0Superama has been able to offer the service via mobile apps, of course, and your laptop.”<\/p>\n

Then,\u00a0the idea has been there a long time, but modern times call for innovative measures<\/strong>. Now it\u2019s up to Walmart to support a great idea with the appropriate technology. A key aspect of the equation is expedited delivery, which is way the company has decided to partner up with players in the delivery industry. For example,\u00a0\u201cWe do have a partnership in Argentina with a company called Mercadoni and they deliver in less than two hours within the city of Buenos Aires,” shared Jenifer.<\/p>\n

\"\"And all the efforts have paid off. The results in Latin America speak for themselves:\u00a0\u201cIn Chile, online sales have doubled in the past year, so that tells us something about customers wanting convenience and being able to shop wherever they are\u201d, said Jenifer. And customers keep coming back for more, as data shows a customer who tries the service is very likely to use it again<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the strongest element in people’s idea of convenience today is being able to download an app that can solve an issue in a matter of minutes, Jenifer told us that \u201cIn Mexico, we developed from the ground up and have launched an application called Cashi<\/strong>, and it was created to serve our customers in mexico who are unbanked<\/strong>, so they have an option to be able to go in our stores, use cash, and apply that cash to their app. It gives them a digital wallet so that they can then purchase products in our stores, they can pay utility bills, or they can order Netflix all though their app so that they don\u2019t have to rely on a bank or carrying cash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buy Local, Think Global: a Global Company Catering to Local Needs<\/h2>\n

\u201cBecause Walmart has operations around the world, we\u2019ve been able to get different ideas from different places<\/strong> and roll them out either in a chain-wide app like Cashi or transfer that to other markets,\u201d said Jenifer. \u201cFrom an international strategy perspective, we\u2019re really trying to make sure that our businesses in the local markets are solving the local needs of their customers<\/strong>. So you have all the beauty of a local business with all of the benefits of being part of a worldwide company.\u201d<\/p>\n

[comillas] We’re really trying to make sure that our businesses in the local markets are solving the local needs of their customers. [\/comillas]<\/p>\n

The basic ingredient to keep in mind: represent your audiences. Consumers want to see themselves and their culture represented<\/strong> in what they buy and whom they’re buying from, so brands need to take that into account when reaching for audiences in different markets.\u00a0\u201cFrom a marketing perspective, the insights for each country are quite different<\/strong>,” asserted Jenifer.\u00a0“For example, on Big Billion Day, which is the biggest shopping week of the year in India, the marketing is focused on making sure that they have key Indian celebrities who are helping tell their story and encouraging people to shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about how they do this to target US Hispanics, for example, Pedro Mucciolo explained that Walmart does their best to represent their Hispanic audiences in the store: \u201cFor the holiday season, we know that food is a very important part of Latin culture and US Hispanic culture,\u00a0so the multicultural marketing team teamed up with our team to offer US Hispanic customers a series of shows that would have just Hispanic staff cooking recipes around the season and catering to the Hispanic customer<\/strong>, likely to purchase those products in order to make those delicious dishes from Mexico or Colombia or Venezuela.\u00a0It was very successful, so\u00a0every year we have a new campaign around holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Give Back to the Community<\/h2>\n

\"\"In the end, it doesn’t matter how many initiatives you have in terms of growing your business if helping the community isn’t one of them. \u201cI\u2019ve been in Walmart for 10 years but what continues to amaze me every day is how we focus on being this society and supporting the communities where we live and work,” shared Jenifer. “Whether that\u2019s through the women\u2019s economic empowerment initiative, giving grants to local farmers in India so they can make a life for themselves in their communities, focus on more sustainable practices in Latin America, recycle our bags or any other number of things. The more you dig and the more you learn, the more you\u2019re proud to work here and to be a part of the company, so coming back to work with international, I feel I\u2019m just starting to peel the onion again on the more important social things that we\u2019re doing that seem to fly under the radar sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a large number of suppliers, for example in Central America, that start off really really small, and thanks to a variety of programs powered by Walmart, they become larger suppliers, so families get better lives, and we create more jobs and more opportunities for the communities as a whole,” added Pedro.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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We spoke to Jenifer Bice, Senior Director, International Communications and Pedro Mucciolo, Director, International Corporate Affairs at Walmart, in order to find out more about Walmart’s initiatives to compete in the E-commerce space at a global level, but more specifically in Latin America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,5896,5902],"tags":[3604,13704,13705,660],"yoast_head":"\nWalmart Bets on Convenience and Technology to Grow in Latin America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.portada-online.com\/more-features\/walmart-bets-on-convenience-and-technology-to-grow-in-latin-america\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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