Wal-Mart spent years in the e-commerce doldrums as Amazon steadily continued its retail incursion and rivals pivoted to meet the challenge. All that changed last summer when the retail giant changed course with its $3.3 billion acquisition of Amazon agitator Jet.com.
The payoff has been swift: In its most recent quarter, Wal-Mart’s e-commerce sales ballooned 63% with an attendant 69% rise in digital gross merchandise volume, as same-store sales increased 1.4% and traffic to stores rose 1.5%.
