Here’s Why Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) Can’t Ignore Mobile: Doug McMillon

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT)’s CEO, Doug McMillon, revealed on CNBC just why his company cannot take its attention away from mobile commerce.

According to the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) boss, his company’s digital business is now overwhelmingly because of mobile.

“It is an incredible time of change in retail. There is a transformation going on. This move to e-commerce, the way e-commerce and stores work together, what’s happening with mobile. We knew for example this holiday [season that] mobile would be really important for us but it’s been 70% of the orders that we’ve taken through our digital business,” McMillon said.

According to the senior executive, this is more than double the figure for the company in the past year. Furthermore, he noted that this trend is being noticed at a global scale in all of the 27 countries that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is operating in.

“It’s just a global phenomenon that mobile is taking over. For us, finding a way to bring [retail and e-commerce especially mobile] together is a tremendous opportunity,” he said.

As an example, he said that over the recent holiday weekend, people could be at home having a meal while checking the deals that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has. These people can then go to the store or order the products they want through the company’s online stores.

Interestingly, he also noted that mobile’s influence extends from being the go-to when people are not in stores. He said that their company is seeing 10% of the people they have in the stores also online on their mobile devices. For these instances, people are looking for out of stock products or prefer to go shopping on their mobile devices to have the product delivered to their homes.

McMillon said that mobile as a percentage of all transactions for their stores is still small, but its growing fast. By having all of these channels where people can shop, the CEO said that his company is satisfying all available demands.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has recently been cited as one of the companies that are doing well with the omni-channel approach in retail.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reported owning about 60.39 million shares in the retail giant by the end of the September quarter.