Walmart Takes On Amazon Again, Look What It's Done This Time

Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) does it again. It looks like this omni-channel retailer is leaving no chance to strengthen operations and remain in focus – as evident from its latest plans to launch “Walmart2World” money transfer service. In a move to ease payments, the company plans to introduce this “game-changing model” in collaboration with MoneyGram International (NASDAQ:MGI) , which is a money-transfer service provider across the United States and globally.

Apart from this, there was a lot of buzz about Walmart being in talks to take over pharmacy start-up, PillPack – a news that broke out just few days after sources revealed chances of the big-box retailer to strengthen ties with Humana (NYSE:HUM) . Though some analysts are skeptical about the Walmart – Humana deal, which could also be the reason behind the supermarket giant’s fall of 3.8% during yesterday’s trading session, many remain hopeful about the prospects.

In fact, Walmart’s robust headways in healthcare space seem to have rattled investors of Rite Aid and Walgreens, as these stocks declined nearly 3% and 3.6%, respectively yesterday. Moreover, all these moves highlight Walmart’s assiduous efforts to take on Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) , which dropped 5.2% on Apr 2. The e-commerce giant, which has taken retail competition to the next level, has also been making efforts to grab a hold in the healthcare space.

Walmart2Walmart to Walmart2World: Lets Delve Deep

Well, Walmart’s plans to launch Walmart2World, also marks another initiative to enhance consumers’ experience, which may help the company combat competition from Amazon. In fact, this is not the first time when Walmart has undertaken such a move. The retail giant introduced a low-cost Walmart2Walmart money transfer service about four years back, which generated customer fees savings worth about $700 million since then.

While Walmart2Walmart serves customers on a domestic level, Walmart2World will help them send money to any MoneyGram agent location across about 200 countries in a jiffy, and at a low cost. Sources revealed that this global wire service, slated to hit all Walmart stores this month itself, is aimed at serving those U.S. customers who are classified unbanked per the World Bank's Global Findex.

Further, with an exclusively transparent pricing structure; favorable exchange rate and speedy deliveries, this service stands apart from other international transfer services. Clearly, such features are likely to steer more traffic to Walmart’s stores, thus being a boost for its top line. Talking of boosting traffic, Walmart also opened its first high-tech supermarket in China, per a Reuters report issued on Apr 2. In this small supermarket, customers can use smartphones to make payments for products that are usually sold on Walmart’s stores on JD.com.

PillPack to Enhance Walmart’s Healthcare Business?

Moving to the rounds about Walmart buying online medication delivery provider PillPack for less than $1 billion, we note that both Walmart and PillPack remained silent for any comments. However, media sources, PillPack, which raised nearly $118 million as venture funds, is likely to ease Walmart’s customer orders and prescription management processes.

Apart from filling prescriptions, PillPack also sorts pills according to individual doses; provides timely deliveries of refills and offers non-stop customer service. These services, particularly the pre-sorting as per time and date, is a benefit for customers taking miscellaneous medicines including aged customers. In fact, the company also introduced a prescription management software last year, called PharmacyOS – which is a boon for customers with complicated medications. Thus, we believe that PillPack’s acquisition will help Walmart drawing customers and enhance its healthcare services. The company operates pharmacies in most of its stores and Sam Club locations, while it also has in-store clinics in Georgia, South Carolina and Texas – per media sources

Will These Efforts Keep Walmart Firm Against Amazon?

Markedly, these constant initiatives should keep Walmart well placed against Amazon, which is planning to adopt a different way to ease experiences of potential customers with no bank accounts. Sources revealed that the online giant was in talks with J.P. Morgan Chase and other such financial institutions to serve young and unbanked shoppers. In fact, there were rounds that Amazon also approached PillPack at some point, which along with other strategies underscores its quest to dominate the healthcare space too.

Nevertheless, Walmart has been neck-to-neck with Amazon, so much so that the company emerged as an omni-channel retailer officially earlier this year. In fact, with strength across its stores and online, this world’s largest retailer has rallied 21.7% in a year, in comparison with the industry’s growth of 20.9%. We expect such dedicated endeavors to help this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company continue taking on Amazon. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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