Walmart’s Growth Fueled by Expedited Deliveries and Resilient US Shoppers
Consumers in the United States have shown resilience while prioritizing speed and convenience, according to Walmart’s third-quarter earnings call Tuesday (Nov. 19).
The retail giant reported a 5.5% increase in consolidated revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, reaching $169.6 billion — fueled by a 27% rise in global eCommerce sales and expanding delivery volumes.
Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said during the call that three factors improved the company’s eCommerce margins: delivery densification, increased penetration of paid expedited delivery orders, and automation of the supply chain.
“As we scale our store-fulfilled delivery business, we’ve seen significant improvement in batch density with orders per delivery up 20%,” Rainey said. “In addition, the popularity of expedited delivery has resulted in more than 30% of orders coming from customers and members that elected to pay a convenience fee to receive their delivery in less than one hour or less than three hours.”
Additionally, he said half of the company’s fulfillment center volume is automated, twice as much as in the same period last year.
“This has benefited in lowering the per-unit cost of delivery,” Rainey said during the call. “This is our third consecutive quarter of 40% reduction in U.S. net delivery costs per order. While we drive greater efficiency, we’re enhancing service levels with customer NPS for delivery, reaching all-time highs this quarter. People are prioritizing time and price. We want to be a great price and convenient, and we can do both at the same time.”
Rainey said U.S. customers “remain resilient, with behaviors largely consistent the past four to six quarters. They continue to seek value to maximize their budgets while also choosing convenient options to save time. We have seen higher engagement across income cohorts with upper-income levels continuing to account for the majority of our share gains.”
Walmart reported a 22% increase in eCommerce sales in the U.S., with store-fulfilled delivery services driving much of the growth. A focus on speed extends beyond Walmart’s U.S. operations. International markets, too, are benefiting from the company’s growing delivery capabilities, with eCommerce sales up 43%, largely driven by marketplace services and store-fulfilled delivery. In the past 12 months, Walmart’s global fulfillment efforts have delivered 2.1 billion items on the same or next day, with 45% of those deliveries arriving in under one hour.
Walmart posted a 5.3% increase in comparable sales in the U.S. during the third quarter, a result of performance across its general merchandise categories. Walmart’s eCommerce Marketplace saw sales grow 42% in the U.S. and an expanding seller base contributing to a 26% increase in ad revenue from Walmart Connect.
Walmart’s eCommerce growth and its Walmart+ program are closely intertwined, as the company focuses on delivering a seamless, timely and complete shopping experience for members.
“Walmart+ is a really important part of the offer,” Rainey said during the call. “Growth in eCommerce is an indicator of where the customer is headed. When someone joins the [Walmart+] program, we’re focused on delivering orders on time, full and complete. When we do that well, it opens up the business to talk to them about other things, like changing tires on their car. This is an important part of the overall equation.”
This commitment to operational efficiency and customer satisfaction is supported by the company’s strategic investment in artificial intelligence. Walmart is integrating generative AI across its operations, from enhancing its product catalog and personalizing shopping experiences to providing associates with new tools that streamline tasks. One development is the AI-powered personal shopping assistant, My Assistant.
“Our datasets are valuable, and we’re learning to put them to work to improve the customer and member experience and assist our associates,” CEO Doug McMillon said during the call. “It’s been in beta for five months, and it continues to improve. We continue to see engagement grow. Since launch, 50,000 associates have used My Assistant to ask 1.5 million questions. Our leaders can get insights into people-related metrics such as hiring and retention, and associates can get answers to common policy questions like, ‘How do I order my discount card,’ through a conversational experience. We’ll continue to build on these use cases to enable more productivity and help identify the next best task for our associates, stores and clubs. We’re racing to improve all the things people love about shopping and remove or diminish all the things they don’t.”
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