Walmart’s e-commerce business has become a meaningful contributor to the retailer’s growth, now comprising roughly 20% of the company’s revenue. Last year, Walmart’s e-commerce sales exceeded $150 billion, with 27% U.S. growth in the fourth quarter.
Online grocery continues to be a huge growth driver, marking 15 straight quarters of 10% or more annual growth.
Online sales, including Marketplace, a sales platform for third-parties sellers, are also growing at a faster clip than legacy parts of the business. In-store comparable sales remained basically flat in the back half of 2025. Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey, recently said looking at in-store sales in isolation provides only a partial view, at best.
“We have 5,000 stores in the U.S., and those are fulfillment nodes, delivery nodes for our customers,” Rainey said at the J.P Morgan retail conference in New York on Wednesday. “That enables the e-commerce business that we have. It enables us to serve 95% of America in less than three hours. … You’ve got to look at the whole picture and look at what we’re doing from an e-commerce perspective as well. At roughly 20% of our business right now, e-commerce is a very meaningful and fast- growing part of our business.”
Rainey said the Marketplace also is providing revenue growth opportunities for Walmart.
“I’m really pleased with the progress of our Marketplace business,” he said. “It’s growing from a total revenue perspective at roughly a 20% rate. I feel really good about that. But just as importantly, it’s also providing benefits to our customers. We see categories like home, hard lines, and fashion that are all growing north of 30%.”
Hardlines include toys, tools, small appliances, consumer electronics and sporting goods.
Rainey said some general merchandise categories have been weaker in stores in recent quarters, which prompted Walmart’s need to grow its assortment through marketplace offerings. He said during the holiday period, Walmart had about three times the number of sellers it had a year before. Rainey said Walmart has roughly 500 million items listed on its marketplace.
“We want to continue to grow that number to provide a broader assortment,” Rainey said. “And there are specific brands that we’re targeting. There are about 300 brands that we think of as ‘must-haves’ on our platform. We’re about halfway into that, and probably 75 of those have happened in the last year. There can be a bit of a halo effect with some of these brands as well. When you begin to add Apple products, then maybe another product follows on because of the perception that goes with that. This is a big initiative for us, and a growing marketplace is a major pillar of strategy going forward.”
Rainey Marketplace growth brings more eyeballs and that brings more advertising revenue. He said the broader marketplace assortments also help the retailer attract more affluent consumers, which also brings more advertisers.
He said there is still opportunity for growth in durable goods categories, and growth continues in apparel and baby products.
“Including first-party and third-party inventory, everything we sell in the fashion category has grown in the low teens percentage year to date,” he said. “People don’t think of that as being a strength of Walmart. But it shows the quality in the assortment that we have, as well as the broader assortment overall, is allowing us to grow by double-digits year-to-date, which is a really encouraging sign about how our business is changing.”
He said the U.S. e-commerce business is profitable when including advertising and fulfillment revenues. Fulfillment services alone are not profitable, according to Rainey. He said the infrastructure costs in the fulfillment services for the third-party Marketplace have prevented that segment from being profitable. He said roughly half of the merchandise sold on the Marketplace is handled by the company’s services, leaving room for growth.
“I think the economics around that will also influence and help us with the overall profitability of the marketplace in the future,” Rainey said.
Rainey said Walmart is scratching the surface with advertising revenue potential in its e-commerce business. The retailer’s advertising business charges suppliers and sellers who seek to promote their products on Walmart platforms using Walmart’s unique shopper data. He said AI adds another layer of opportunity.
Last year, Walmart’s global advertising business grew 46% to roughly $6.4 billion. The U.S. advertising business increased sales by 41% year over year, helping to drive higher operating net income. Rainey attributed the U.S. gains to the acquisition of Vizio and the growth of its Marketplace.
