Walmart profits soar as Target takes damage over ‘woke’ items
Walmart’s quarterly sales and profits beat expectations on Thursday — a day after Target announced that sales had fallen for the first time in six years due to “negative reaction” from customers to the Pride Month collection.
Walmart’s Earnings Release showed that e-commerce grew a whopping 24% in the 13 weeks ended July 28, driven primarily by pickup and delivery orders placed online.
Sales in stores and digital channels open for at least a year rose 6.4% – well above the 4% Bloomberg Analysts were expecting — and international net sales rose 11% to $27 billion.
Foot traffic was also up 2.8% at the portfolio of the Arkansas-based discount retailer, which has more than 10,500 locations.
The gains prompted Walmart to raise its full-year profit guidance for the second straight quarter.
“We like our position for the second half of the year,” Doug McMillon, longtime Walmart chief executive officer, said in the earnings report.
The strong revenue was due to increased grocery sales, but McMillon noted there were also encouraging results in general merchandise, particularly at Sam’s Club where membership revenue rose 7%.
The Post has reached out to Walmart for comment.
Retail competitor Target, meanwhile, lowered its full-year earnings guidance after a dismal quarter that saw sales, traffic and inventory levels fall.
The losses were attributed to consumer “negative reaction” to the Pride collection, which included “wear-friendly” women’s swimwear and LGBTQ-friendly gear for toddlers and children, which particularly outraged many shoppers.
Target CFO Michael Fiddelke addressed the Minneapolis-based retailer’s disastrous rainbow-colored collection in a earnings announcement on Wednesday, saying, “The response to our Pride range is having an impact on traffic and sales performance.”
According to Target, sales in stores and digital channels that have been open for at least a year fell 5.4% year over year Second Quarter Earnings Report released on Wednesday, while digital sales fell 10.5%.
Fiddelke said in the call that the retailer couldn’t quantify the impact of the Pride collection alone on comparable sales.
Target revenue for the three-month period ended July 29 was $24.8 billion — 4.9% down from this time last year and worse than the company’s guidance.
The number came in slightly below the $25.2 billion expected by economists, though the drop isn’t surprising given Target stock lost nearly $14 billion as the Pride Month controversy made headlines worried.
Though Walmart also offered items celebrating Pride — part of its “Pride & Joy” line — it appeared to stay under the radar of conservative pundits, who at the time accused Target of molesting children with its merchandise, which included a children’s book titled ‘Twas the Night Before Pride’ and a handful of t-shirts with LGBTQ-friendly slogans like ‘Live Laugh Lesbian’.
Target responded to the backlash by removing some of its Pride merchandise from shelves and moving its celebratory displays back into stores.
The move then prompted Pride supporters to condemn the company for falling victim to “extremists,” prompting a boycott from customers on both sides of the political spectrum.
Walmart, meanwhile, has refused to make any changes to its LGBTQ+-friendly merchandise, despite the heavy criticism Target has faced.
“We sell merchandise throughout the year that supports various groups,” Walmart chief merchandising officer Latriece Watkins said at the start of Pride Month in June. “In this particular case, we have not changed anything in our range.”
