April 21st, 2025: Walmart Investor Day shows strong tariff headwinds, is 2025 the year to eat the entire enchilada, Shop for Brands on Amazon seen in the wild and Amazon surveys its sellers on tariffs
Is Walmart More Exposed to Tariffs Than They Are Admitting?
In a recent investor day, Walmart indicated that only one-third of its products are not made in the USA. Are we sure about that number? Given the fact that there is no universal definition of made in the USA, I think that number could be a lot higher than the company is letting on.
Learn about this and more in this week’s Watson Weekly podcast, headed straight to your earhole every Monday morning, wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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It’s April 21, 2025 and this is the Watson Weekly - your essential eCommerce Digest!
Today on our show:
Walmart Investor Day Shows Strong Tariff Headwinds
Is 2025 The Year to Eat the Entire Enchilada
Shop for Brands on Amazon Seen in the Wild
Amazon Surveys Its Sellers on Tariffs
- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.
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To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
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[PAUSE]
Before I get into the first story, I thought I would speak from the heart for a second here as I record this on Good Friday. If you’re a business owner right now, things can look a little dark if you are unsure if you are going to get merchandise this year, or even what price you might pay for it.
Even if you are not a business owner, things are uncertain because employees depend on these businesses for their paychecks. Not just brands and retailers either. Software companies and service providers, warehouses and shippers, customs inspectors and payment providers. Even teachers and educators are feeling distressed. We are all connected.
Take a deep breath.
Regardless of WHY this is all going on and how you feel about it, we are all affected in different ways. On Good Friday as we head into Easter Weekend and the end of Passover, let’s remember to be sensitive to each other and remember we are all just trying to provide for our families in our own way.
While we may not be able to make a long-term plan, we can control how we act towards each other, and so smile a little longer at those you meet today. They might need the reassurance.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
BUT FIRST in our shopping cart full of news….
Walmart Investor Day Shows Strong Tariff Headwinds
One week into the tariff regime, Walmart essentially admitted to investors "we're still working through what this means for us". Translation?
Who the hell knows what is going on. Not us.
When asked about the tariff situation, Walmart's CEO said he has a great CTO Suresh. Huh? Confusion abounds in Bentonville... But frankly, who can blame them?
A few learnings from the recent investor meeting, many I have not seen anywhere:
* Not immune to current environment, but feel better positioned than most.
* Confident in their strategy. Prepared to play offense.
* Two-thirds of what Walmart sells is US made. One-third is sourced all over, but the highest source is Mexico/China.
* Q1 sales guidance should be in the range of 3-4%. Operating income guidance is unclear and a wider range due to "unfavorable category mix." Retail speak for people aren't buying our higher margin items, trading down.
* "Our customers want pretty much unlimited choice." Some statement!
* "More than 2/3 of our marketplace assortment is general merchandise."
* "We have 21 billion-dollar private label brands"
* 66% of Marketplace top sellers use Walmart Fulfillment Services.
All these are statements I had never heard before.
* Walmart built a new shopping assistant named "Sparky". Cue groans.
* Seth Dallaire said Walmart is exploring how it can license its (recently acquired) Vizio TV operating system to other TV OEMs. Sounds like a media network strategy to me.
* Walmart has a new Chief Commerce Officer, David Guggina. Their background is running Amazon warehouses, as well as EVP at Walmart Supply Chain. Wonder where Walmart's focus is?
Let's analyze deeper, however:
* Saying two-thirds of the inventory is "US made" is a very slippery term in that there is no definition of that. It does not mean there are no foreign-sourced materials or that the supplier does not have a complex international supply chain.
* I have never heard Walmart say before that customers want virtually unlimited choice/selection. It's a strong statement and points marketplace up and to the right. Question is, where does supply come from in this environment? Amazon grew on the backs of Chinese sellers.
* Although sales and operating income guidance for the full year was "unchanged", I feel like anything on the table now. The CEO even said as much with this statement:
"We just don't know enough to say we're not going to make this year."
This does not make me feel good.
This was a very "rah rah" style event - more than I usually see out of Walmart. This makes me incrementally more cynical about reports out of Bentonville.
My read is that Walmart is much more exposed than they are letting on. And if the "good old American" Walmart is this exposed, what hope do the rest of us have? Make your guidance cautious, and your employees nimble.
[References:]
Our Second Story
2025 Could the Year to Eat the Entire Enchilada
From the uncertainty alone this could be the most challenging consumer environment in since 2008. Depending on your situation this could give you a tremendous opportunity.
Situation A:
- You have new investment or ownership in the last 2 years.
Situation B:
- You need to execute nearly perfectly in order to generate an outcome in the next 2 years.
Situation C:
- You have insulated yourself from the current environment either by luck or good planning.
If you have insulated yourself from the current situation: congrats, this message is not for you.
Are you trying to get an exit for you or your investors in the next couple of years? Your job is to give yourself more breathing room. Don’t do anything rash. And continue to execute on your top small and medium ROI-generating priorities for the moment.
It’s situation A I want to speak with - those who have newly invested money in the last 18 months. Sit right down next to me.
You likely were already considering major transformation and prior to this year might have been considering not making as major changes so soon - just try to goose performance instead of going for the whole enchilada of difficult changes.
Even if you execute perfectly 2025 might be a shit show. You are likely already seeing negative comps. How long can you chase this without making the structural changes you know are needed?
I am advising my clients, never waste a good crisis. It’s possible:
- You need to reposition your brand majorly from a price / quality point of view.
- You need to take out an order of magnitude costs compared to today.
- You need to execute improvements and changes much more quickly.
- Your technology platform is more limiting than you are letting on.
- You must find a much sharper point to your marketing creative.
If you have new ownership or recent investment you are in an extremely fortunate position. You can afford to make the investments you truly need if you can just get the buyin.
Oh that pesky buyin. Everyone knows what needs to happen yet no one has the case made. Worse, it doesn’t seem to be even on the table. Last years burrito is not gonna get you to the promised land.
How to start? Create that burning platform. “Even if” we do all these things the same way, we are not going to get to the promised land. If you can create that perception, at least you can start thinking about that enchilada this year.
[References:]
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ecommercestrategyconsulting_2025-could-the-year-to-eat-the-entire-enchilada-activity-7317514044796538881-l6kv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAABzTYBMEkpgbpDWbI9miv0bkNA3W2mE1I
Our Third Story
Shop For Brands on Amazon Seen in the Wild
While Amazon's Shop Brand site is in testing, I was able to find it in the wild on my mobile app. Here's what I did:
Search for "iqbar". Scroll forever. It was very far down.
I get the sense this will be what we used to call "backfill" listings in comparison shopping search. In other words, any paid or higher priority marketplace or first-party item will go up higher but this could potentially add a lot of selection where Amazon is thin and give brands behavior data.
3 items appeared: a coffee mug, a mini sampler, and a blender.
Two of the items worked as intended. I clicked through, Amazon gave me a Terms of Service Pop-up, and it went to the page of the website that matched the price.
The mini sampler did not even bring me to a product page, it was kind of a broken page with no item on it. It's possible Amazon's feed or crawler was out of date.
What else did I learn?
The treatment of "Buy for Me" (AI assisted Buying) and Shop the brand site is the same on Amazon in terms of the box that it appears in. I haven't seen an AI assisted one live personally. For the AI assisted buying, Amazon will authorize your card not more than $10 above what Amazon quotes you before the AI bot goes off and do it, likely for credit card authorization purchases.
How will brands get their products up?
I haven't seen any news yet, but if it's like other shopping services, I expect sellers will send Amazon a feed to get their products there, ideally. That would give merchants control, and of course Amazon would likely accept a Google feed (like everyone does).
This type of data would also be useful for Amazon's AI. You could even imagine that Amazon get brand review data in a feed too potentially, or integrate with popular providers -- depending on how much leverage or interest there is.
[References:]
[PAUSE]
And Our Last Story
Amazon Surveys Its Sellers on Tariffs
"I'm From Amazon and I'm Here to Help"
With credit to Ronald Reagan, Are these the 8 Scariest Words in the English Language?
Vanessa Hung posted yesterday about a new seller survey from Amazon about how tariffs are impacting Amazon sellers. As if Amazon does not know!
Amazon plays on all sides of the fence. They buy inventory and negotiate with suppliers. They have intimate knowledge of manufacturer financials and sourcing. They understand the impact of margin on seller's ability to market.
The same Amazon that says they are maniacally obsessed about the consumer, yet the top of search results is completely pay to play.
The same Amazon who when they lose your inventory in their warehouse that they are responsible for, tells you you just lost your margin too - trust us with your cost of goods so you can get a little bit of money back.
The same Amazon who celebrates when one year they don't happen to raise your fulfillment fees.
You get the idea. So Amazon is asking =questions about tariffs and how they affect your business. Do you think they are looking to subsidize the impact of tariffs for its sellers? Hell no.
So what do I think is going on? Amazon (and similarly eBay) has at times lobbied Washington DC on behalf of sellers in an olive branch. I think this data could potentially be used in such an effort.
I wouldn't be surprised if I see similar behavior from Shopify soon, but I have not yet. So, should you answer?
Unclear. Amazon has millions of sellers. Chances are, if they are going to learn something, they are going to learn it one way or the other. Can it hurt too bad to tell them? The cynical side of me says yes, of course.
The pragmatic side says, what can it truly hurt? So today, perhaps the pragmatic side wins. Amazon is going to learn what it wants to know one way or the other -- if you're feeling proud and stubborn, go ahead. Give Amazon a piece of your mind.
If you're feeling generous and helpful, you can answer the survey as completely as possible. Let me know if you're a seller and get the survey!
[References:]
It’s That Time Friends, for our Investor Minute. We have 5 items on the menu today.
First
Food Delivery Startup Wonder Acquires Media Company Tastemade for $90M
Virtual food hall and delivery platform Wonder has acquired Tastemade, a media company, for a reported $90 million. Wonder has created a food ecosystem that contains a virtual food hall, a delivery platform (Grubhub), a meal kit (Blue Apron), and now a media company that enables them to offer customers content that could lead to purchases. Wonder founder, Marc Lore, wants to create a mealtime superapp that utilizes AI to help customers order food that they see in Tastemade videos. A consumer company buying a media network - where have we seen this?
Second
Spangle Emerges From Stealth Raises $6M In Seed Funding
Spangle, which develops self-optimizing landing pages for paid traffic, has announced that it has raised $6 million in seed funding. The company develops a proprietary platform, ProductGPT, that decodes customer interactions to improve conversion and revenue for retailers. We are in the early stages of artificial intelligence and automation through models, and currently, AI agents are all the rage.
Link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/18/bolts-former-ceo-is-launching-a-new-e-commerce-startup/
Third
Customer Data Platform Chord Raises $5.5M Seed
Customer data platform, Chord, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding that will be invested in product development and customer growth. Chord evolved from being Arfa, a headless commerce platform, to become Chord, which aims to create data that is ready for AI. Chord enables marketers to utilize insights and attribution in one platform, to enable performance optimization across channels, predict customer behavior, and drive revenue. The CDP sector is an opportunity for AI.
Fourth
StubHub Files And Then Delays IPO
Ticket resale marketplace, StubHub, filed for an initial public offering (IPO). The company reported a net loss of $2.8 million on revenue of $1.77 billion for 2024, compared with a $405 million profit on $1.37 billion in revenue for 2023. The company was acquired by eBay in 2007 for $310 million in 2007 and acquired by co-founder Eric Baker in 2020 for $4 billion through his new company Viagogo. StubHub reportedly wanted to raise $1 billion at a market value of $16.5 billion. Interestingly, StubHub spent 48% ($828 million) of its revenues on sales and marketing while it spent just $59 million on operations and support. StubHub has since delayed its IPO due to the current market environment.
Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/21/stubhub-files-for-ipo.html
AND FINALLY …
Guess? Receives Going-Private Proposal from WHP Global
Fashion brand, Guess? has announced that it has received a non-binding offer from brand management fund WHP Global via its WHP Investments fund to acquire 51 million outstanding Geuss shares at $13 per share, which would value the company at $751.5 million. In April 2024, interestingly, WHP's offer excludes shares owned by Guess? co-founders and its current CEO. WHP Global and Guess? partnered to acquire Rag & Bone. Guess? has formed a committee that will work with legal and financial advisors to determine whether the offer is in the best interest of Guess? shareholders. Whether this leads to an agreement or a definitive offer is not guaranteed.
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Did you know that RMW Commerce has another podcast? Check out The Watson Weekend for an unfiltered and lively eCommerce chat each week with me, Rick Watson, my co-host Jess Lesesky, and an array of interesting guests and topics. All focused on eCommerce. You can find the Watson Weekend by searching for it on iTunes, Spotify, or Youtube.
That’s all for this week! Till next time Watsonians.....
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Hi, I’m Rick Watson, CEO and Founder of RMW Commerce Consulting and host of the Watson Weekly podcast - your essential eCommerce Digest.
Our production partner for the series is Podcast on the Fly. This podcast is produced by RMW Commerce.
To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
