How Walmart uses Big Data to tremendously improve Retail Decision Making

We often tend to believe that anything that is more than a few decades old must be outdated and not caught up with the rest of the world. On the contrary, Walmart, which was founded in 1962,

is still updating themselves to cutting-edge, technology when it comes to retail decision making and customer experiences, using machine learning, internet of things and big data analytics.

That’s very fast forward for someone born almost five decades ago.

Being one of the biggest retailers in the, over 20,000 stores in 28 countries, Walmart has not decided to up the game a little. It is planning to build world’s biggest private cloud, to process 2.5 petabytes of data every hour. To make sense of all the data it encounters, the company has just finished building something they like to call the Data café– A state of the art analytics hub. 

It is connected to over 200 streams of internal and external data including 40 petabytes of recent transactional data, which is accessible to teams from all part of the business, to use it to solve their problems.

This has enabled Walmart to efficiently indulge in complex decision making, which usually involves taking into account various internal and external variables, within minutes. These decisions usually took weeks initially, when things were done manually.

Walmart vs Amazon: Retail Decision making

Although Amazon maybe its nemeses in the business, Walmart can still steal to show because it has an advantage over both online and retail stores. With over 11,000 retail stores and Walmart’s dedication towards excellent consumer experience, it may soon be at the top.

Walmart was an early adopter of RFID, to track inventory, and has an incubator called Store No. 8, to work with startups, venture capitalists and academics to develop its own proprietary robotics, virtual and augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence technology.

Providing great customer service

Not very long ago, Walmart has launched the concept of pick-up towers in some of its stores.

They are located at the entrance and retrieve online orders of the customers. All customers need

to do is sign the barcode, and within 45 seconds, their order will appear on the conveyer belt.

Another aspect in customer experience that Walmart is hoping to improve is to scan and go shopping. Even the customer sin pharmacy and money services will be able to use Walmart app

for some checkout processes. By reducing the amount of wait time in a line, Walmart has not

only gained another brownie point in customer experience, the tech. are they use is similar to

the Amazon Go concept store. This also put them neck to neck with the competition.

No more lines?

One way Walmart has been integrating more and more with tech for a smoother functioning is to use face recognition tech to identify unhappy or frustrated shoppers. As the machine detects a higher level of frustration levels, it would prompt more staff to run the check-out process when needed. This way, extra staff will only be present at the counter when needed.

A recent patent application filed by Walmart for IoT tags, it looks like they are going for monitoring product usage. This will lead to an auto replacement of products as necessary and keep an eye on expiry date and product recalls. These sensors use a variety of techs like Bluetooth, barcodes, radio frequencies and RFID tags. And provide Walmart with a huge amount of data including what time of the day are the products and where. This data could help create personalized advertising and expand cross-selling opportunities.

Looking for ways to use tech to bump up your business a little more? Contact us at Datahut, your big data experts.

#retail #retailmarketing #walmart

FAQ SECTION

FAQ 1: How does Walmart use Big Data in its retail operations?

Walmart leverages Big Data analytics to optimize pricing, forecast demand, manage inventory, and enhance customer experience. By analyzing massive datasets from online and in-store sources, Walmart ensures efficient supply chain management and personalized marketing.

FAQ 2: What are the main sources of Big Data used by Walmart?

Walmart collects data from multiple sources, including sales transactions, online shopping behavior, inventory systems, social media, and IoT devices in stores. These data points help the company make data-driven decisions across its retail ecosystem.

FAQ 3: How does Big Data help Walmart improve customer experience?

By analyzing customer preferences and purchase patterns, Walmart personalizes product recommendations, optimizes stock availability, and adjusts pricing dynamically — leading to better satisfaction and engagement.

FAQ 4: What technologies does Walmart use for Big Data analysis?

Walmart employs technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, and cloud-based analytics tools, along with AI and machine learning models. These enable fast processing of large-scale data for insights that drive retail decision-making.

FAQ 5: What are the business benefits of Walmart’s Big Data strategy?

Walmart’s Big Data strategy helps reduce operational costs, improve sales forecasting accuracy, optimize inventory, and enhance decision-making — ultimately strengthening its competitive advantage in the global retail market.