Walmart's Deepak Maini: How Membership in Walmart+ Delivers Value to Engaged Shoppers

Deepak (00:00)

I'm Deepak Maini, the senior vice president and GM of Walmart Plus, and you're listening to the CPG Guys podcast.

 

PVSB (00:07)

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm your East Coast co-host, PVSB. I also moonlight as head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omnicom.

 

I'm joined as always by my West Coast counterpart. He lives in La La Land, near the home of my beloved Dodgers, as they go for their three-peat in World Series victories. He's the chief revenue officer at ThinkBlue Consulting, and he goes by the nickname of Papa Raj. That is what

 

The fans of his global pop star daughters call him. Of course, I'm referring to Rhea Raj, and her younger sister, Lara Raj, who's in the K-pop band Katseye. He's my BFF. He is the Thelma to my Louise. He's the man known as Sri. Sri, It is are are you are you getting ready to head to the airport, board the flight to to Cannes Lions? Are you ready to go hobnob on the Riviera?

 

say hey Rose and all that kind of stuff. And and then right and then you get back and no rest for the weary. We're heading up to Cornell for the the Omnicommerce leadership program that we're producing. What's going on, man? Are you must be crazy?

 

Sri (01:20)

you've jumped four weeks ahead of the curve, Peter. At the time of this recording, I got one sole purpose, one trip to make this weekend. That is to Las Vegas. Katseye and Lara are nominated for three American Music Awards. The AMAs, you know, between being nominees for New Artist of the Year, Breakthrough Pop Artist, Best Music Video for Gnarly. I have a hunch they may win one. So let's see. I'm hoping that they win one and

 

PVSB (01:28)

Yes.

 

Amazing.

 

What's it?

 

Sri (01:44)

We have a moon man at home already. We have the Grammy acknowledgement of their two nominees. I can't wait to put that on the metal piece. And then Peter from there, Grocery Lab with FMI. Then we've got Nielsen C360, where you and I will be on the main stage closing. And then we get to cor with then we get to all the way to France for Rosé Champagne boat trips. But more importantly, we got a lot of programming content looking forward to going.

 

PVSB (01:48)

Yep. Yep.

 

Mm-hmm. yeah, that's a big one.

 

Sri (02:10)

to see Mark Pritchard with Walmart Connect actually. Can't wait to do that at their location at Le Majestic. So we got our hands full, Peter, if anything. But I got one purpose this weekend.

 

PVSB (02:13)

Yep, that'll be a good

 

Yeah.

 

I know. You you're gonna go watch your daughter win an award. I think that'll be great. Thanks as always, Sri for joining us. before we get to our special guest, I want to remind our audience to follow us on their favorite podcast platform, Apple Spotify, YouTube. Whatever. Sri, do you know that YouTube is now the most popular platform for listening to podcasts? It has surpassed Apple.

 

Sri (02:45)

I would like for you to say my space.

 

Why do you not refer to MySpace anymore?

 

PVSB (02:49)

Well I know. I'm still I we do we should we take down our MySpace page or we keep that going? I don't know.

 

Sri (02:54)

What was that club

 

thing back in like May twenty twenty that you and I really wanted to be on?

 

PVSB (02:59)

my God.

 

A clubhouse, yes, where people dialed into a phone number. It was basically like a conference call. It was we we gave it a we gave it a good shot, Sri. It it was it it was a flash in the pan. But if you use Apple or Spotify in particular, we really need you to give us a star rating. Fives are by Sri, like you like the number five, don't you? Five is your favorite number. Sri's favorite number is five.

 

If you give us a nice rating, it helps make our podcast more findable by industry contemporaries who are looking to be educated and entertained by the content we are producing. So please go to the app store while you're listening to us. Just open it up, go to the app, go to the the the show, scroll down and give it a give it a star rating. All right. Today the CPG guys are joined by one of the most consequential executives shaping the future of omnichannel commerce and consumer loyalty in retail.

 

Deepak Maini, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Walmart Plus, he leads the membership program that has quietly become Amazon Prime's most formidable challenger. Under his leadership, Walmart Plus has expanded its value proposition far beyond free delivery, adding free pharmacy delivery, a peacock streaming solution, and a co-branded credit card offering 5% cashback on all Walmart purchases.

 

At ninety-eight dollars a year versus the competitors, well, significantly more, the value equation is incl increasingly hard to ignore. Pleased to say both Sri and I subscribed the day Walmart Plus was opened up to the marketplace. Sri and I were were pioneers in getting that done. So we we're big fans. He came to Walmart from Amazon, which tells you everything about his digital commerce pedigree.

 

At Amazon, he held key leadership positions, including director of product development for Amazon Music, overseeing live streaming products. Before leading Walmart Plus, he served as Vice President and General Manager of Customer Digital Identity and Data Platform at Walmart, where he defined the vision and product strategy for new in-store and online identity experiences, building cross-functional teams, spanning product management, data science, technical product management, and privacy.

 

For brands and manufacturers thinking about where the next wave of membership driven commerce is headed. Today's conversation is a must listen discussion. Deepak, welcome to the CPG guys. How you doing?

 

Deepak (05:22)

I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Excited about the conversation.

 

PVSB (05:26)

We are as as I mentioned to you before we got the show started, we've had many a guest from your colleagues in Walmart Connect and also in Walmart Data Ventures. the area that was missing is Walmart Plus. As I mentioned to you, it's the three leg stool. So we're glad to have you here to balance it all out and give us your perspective on how you are how you're driving loyalty through through your membership program.

 

To our audience, please toggle over to the digital show notes of this episode. You're gonna find links to Deepak's LinkedIn profile, the Walmart LinkedIn page, and Walmart Plus corporate site to learn more about our guests as our conversation unfolds. So I'm going to I'm gonna kick it off. Let's just start at the start at some of the fun foundationals here. Walmart Plus has grown from three benefits at launch a number of years ago to 12 today.

 

But still at the same rate you are charging $98 a year. How does that expanding benefit stack change the behavior of Walmart Plus members in ways that matter, particularly to the CPG brand partners, in terms of basket size, purchase frequency, and category loyalty?

 

Deepak (06:41)

Yeah. So Walmart Plus launched almost six years ago as an extension of Walmart's mission to help people save money and live better. So everything we do starts with our member. We want to work to make add new benefits, create new ways in which we can add convenience to their life. We know that membership and the loyalty that it creates makes the entire ecosystem better.

 

It helps us create better experiences and at the same time helps suppliers and brands understand customer needs better, show up in relevant moments, and grow with Walmart. So with with Walmart Plus, we have so as you said that we have launched a lot of benefits, but what we know is that when they engage with these benefits, multiple benefits.

 

The way that they experience Walmart changes. Their relationship with us changes, their shopping behavior changes. And more specifically, the frequency with which they shop with us changes completely. So we know that members shop three times more frequently than non-members, with seven times more e-commerce visits and twice as many in-store visits. They shop cross-categories and they shop in ways in which

 

The way we understand them changes and it improves, and that improves efficiency, unlocks relevance, and makes everything more valuable, both for us and members. With more frequency, there are more ways to serve the customer. When there are more ways to serve the customer, there are more ways to better understand their needs.

 

And when we can understand their needs better, we can help brands and suppliers make better decisions, whether it's about assortment, promotion, and media. And we know that we take all these signals, the increased signals that we get, and the Walmart ecosystem can turn these commerce signals into better insights, into more relevant experiences, and more measurable business outcomes for our brand partners.

 

Through platforms such as Dataventures and Walmart Connect. And what that means for CPG brands and suppliers is that there are more ways in which they can show up in relevant journeys, the ways in which our members are engaging with us. Whether that's in a weekly basket for replenishment, whether it is a seasonal find, whether it is discovering things through multiple channels online as well as offline. So at in summary,

 

All that does is it creates a relationship with customer that's more predictable, more frequent, and more valuable for both Walmart and our brand partners.

 

Sri (09:36)

No doubt about that whatsoever, Deepak. Well, first of all, welcome to the CPG guys for the special C suite series leading up to episode six hundred and beyond. So the question I have for you, Deepak, is Walmart reaches about a hundred

 

50 million plus shoppers every week across e-commerce, 4600 plus stores approximately, and the data is mapped all the way down to the SKU level. How does Walmart Plus membership amplify the quality and fidelity of that first pass, first party data signal, especially given your rich background working with data as well as with the you know the consumer level information? And how should CPG brands? You kind of alluded to it a little bit.

 

be thinking about activating against it differently than what they do with non-member data.

 

Deepak (10:23)

Yeah, let me speak from the member lens. as I said, members shop more frequently with us. So as they shop both in store and online, that creates better understanding of their behavior over over time. And that helps us create better benefits and better experiences. That in turn creates more opportunities to create engagement, retention, and over time that engagement drives into more experiences and better ways in which we can serve them.

 

Now that essentially is a fat flywheel that within which membership sits right in the middle of it. And i in this equation, as the engagement improves, as members shop with us more, it creates more opportunities for everybody, including our brands and supplier partners. And as I said earlier, it helps us create better insights for for brands and and suppliers. It helps us make better decisions about what we how we serve them and or and allows us to get

 

These new connections formed between customers and brands that are useful, valuable, and grounded in real omnichannel data that we have. Now, in all of this, and the app plays an important role. We know that as we are driving adoption of the app with our member population, we know that the app sits right in the middle of everything and it turns identity into seamless and intuitive experiences.

 

It's where relevant skills and discovery becomes easier. And we know that members retain two times better digitally year over year than non-members. And that means a a predictable, more persistent relationship between us and our members. So that what does that mean for our CPG partners? It means that there are more opportunities for them to serve the customer and understand their missions. Now

 

This could mean showing up at the right moment with the right solution, right offer, right product at the right time. It could be helping members discover value, assortment, or benefits that they may have not considered in the past. it could also mean removing friction from their everyday experience, whether it's a replenishment or repeat purchase. But overall, it means just making the experience more seamless and intuitive, which strengthens

 

the brand connection between c the member and customer and Walmart as well as the supplier and the brand. But the North Star that I keep in mind is that the customer experience is we need to focus on. It's like we need to make the customer experience the best so that we're creating more value for our customers and in turn creating more opportunities for both Walmart and brands to serve that and create measurable

 

and valued outcomes for both of them. So that's that's how we bring it all together with with our member you know, shopping frequently with us.

 

PVSB (13:19)

Wow, that's terrific. I was looking through all the benefits and I I it really dawned on me how much I'm I'm already using beyond obviously the delivery. there's a Burger King on the way home from my daughter's school. It's a frequent stopping point for us. So ordering digitally and gets it, getting savings off the Burger King order is phenomenal. I just switched my service.

 

From I that you have the option with Walmart Plus to have streaming from Peacock or from Paramount. I just switched from Paramount to Peacock. So I take advantage of that. It is it is such a wonderful service, important part. Sri, did you know that they have free online pet care as part of this? Are you looking after Bala? You can have on demand 247 access to a vet in case anything happens to poor little Bala. Always service there.

 

Sri (13:56)

Yeah.

 

It's

 

it's Poppy Pet Telehealth.

 

PVSB (14:10)

Okay, good. Okay. in any event

 

Sri (14:12)

And don't forget, don't

 

forget another important piece, the fuel discounts.

 

PVSB (14:17)

the fuel discounts are good. Yeah. You need those. Deepak, now I want to dig a little bit into your recent past and work you've done prior to joining Walmart Plus. Before running Walmart Plus, you led the vice president general manager role for the customer digital identity and data platform at Walmart. So, how does a logged in identified Walmart Plus member change the economics of the digital shelf for CPG brands?

 

Particularly as agentic commerce in the form of Sparky and AI-powered discovery reshape how shoppers find products.

 

Deepak (17:33)

Yeah. So when I was asked to lead the customer data and identity platform, the challenge was how do we solve for omni channel identity at Walmart scale? So when a member or a customer is anonymous, we have to rely on limited signal to create the experience. whether that is a search query, a category interest, or a contextual signal that we have, or a broader audience signal. Now those matter. They help us make the transaction go smoothly and that.

 

Help us in that transaction in the moment. But when you have logged in member behavior information, then you can go back in time and you can understand how the behavior has been evolving. How is their category interest has been evolving, how is their need for convenience is changing, how is their basket evolving. So there are richer questions that you can ask and you can use that to create better and relevant experiences. Now this matters immensely as we move forward in.

 

the the evolution or that we're going through with the agentic commerce. And in in like a framework that I use that I can and and I can talk about is that there are certain ways in which consumers and customers have always behaved. And how does that move across different technology stacks? So for example, when consumers walk into our store, they may have an idea of a product in their mind and they have a high intent for that and they walk right to our

 

The aisle where they can find the product, they look at that product, or perhaps something similar around it, and then they pick and they make a decision and they move on. But in that journey, they may be interested in something else, something that catches their eye, that could be a seasonal aisle or an end cap or something that drives this discovery behavior. And they may pick that and that turns into a basket. So that's the basket building behavior. Now, the same b framework you can take to visual app-based or web-based experiences.

 

Where people have high intent and they would go make a you know c perform a search, look for items, decide something that they want to buy. But there are other surfaces where we help them discover things that they may may not have previously thought or may have not previously considered. these are you know homepage, category pages, et cetera. Now, if you take the same model, we can apply that to to an agentic world where people still have high intent missions and they

 

may want to search things in a different way within an agent and they're asking for an agent's help to help them create the basket. Perhaps they're looking for recommendations, alternatives, substitutes. They want to get to building their baskets quickly. So per perhaps the benefit to the consumer is in reduced amount of time that they need to build that basket or reduction of cognitive load. They're you know offlaying some of that work to the agent. So those experiences are in my

 

Perspective, in my view, would start to become more prevalent. But there are also these other ways in which people want to discover things in a natural language interface. Like the ways in which they can interact with an agent. they can write queries, they can have a back and forth conversation. they may decide to use other modalities, like they could have voice-based interaction, they could have a photo of a product that they're looking for.

 

In those cases, too, the agent can help them discover things, make connections that maybe were not possible before. Now, if we look at all these three way, you know, three technologies and how consumers have been changing with the same behavior, but across applied to different technology stacks, the foundation of a logged in user is super important in this because that allows us to make better decisions and better and more relevant experiences. And the way it works is.

 

The more relevant the experience is, the deeper the engagement, and that creates this flywheel where consumers see the value, the brand see the value, and as a result of it, the experience gets better, more engaging, and we see that, you know, help our consumer and help brands and Walmart at the same time.

 

Sri (21:50)

Hey Deepak, that was awesome. So I'm gonna now wear my ex-brand head coming from the CPG universe that I spent three decades at. And one of the questions that stop a mind for CPG is the and of course the audience listening in is when brand partners think about their joint value creation with Walmart, you know, erstwhile we'd say the word JVP.

 

How should they be weighting warm or plus member households versus non member households in their investment strategies? And then is the gap in like a consumer lifetime value as dramatic as what your major online competition has seen with their loyalty subscription program?

 

Deepak (22:36)

So the way like I won't think in terms of member versus non member here. Like Walmart operates at an enormous scale. you may have heard this before, but Walmart can deliver to ninety-five percent of households within three hours. And increasingly we can also deliver to sixty percent of American households in thirty minutes or less. So for that scale, the the real question is how do we work with how

 

Brands and suppliers can work with the Walmart ecosystem to understand the missions that our members have or customers have and how are they evolving? And how can they deeply understand that and create value for you know valuable experiences in that in that process? what Walmart Plus does, and I've sh as I mentioned earlier, it is a growth and a frequency driver. So it creates more opportunity, it creates a durable and stronger signal.

 

that can be used to create better experiences. So within the Walmart ecosystem, Walmart Centella helps create or provide better ins or insights on item level, customer level and category level insights. Walmart Connect can enable activation and measurement of full funnel media. And then Walmart Plus helps create loyalty and deeper engagement that makes the entire ecosystem stronger.

 

So that's the lens through which I think I it would be the right way to think in terms of how to activate on Walmart.

 

PVSB (24:05)

So I'd referenced earlier that I was moving my my streaming option from Paramount to Peacock. the addition of Peacock to Walmart Plus streaming choices d drove a record number of signups in Q three of last year. by the way, shout out to our friend Bob Perry at NBC Universal. He's a great friend of the podcast. And we're gonna be doing a little event with him this fall at at 30 Rock. But

 

Deepak (24:15)

I think I lost them again.

 

PVSB (24:34)

What does entertainment engagement tell you about a member's overall relationship to the Walmart ecosystem? And does streaming behavior surface any insights that CPG partners can really act on?

 

Deepak (24:49)

Yeah, so I let me set the context of how we think about Walmart Plus, and then I can answer this question better. So so we think of Walmart Plus as not not as a rewards program, not as a marketing product. we we know that our our ambition is to be so consistently useful to our members that choosing us first is not no longer a decision. And our ambition as a result of that is to become

 

the most essential membership for our customers. And because we know that loyalty is increasingly is part of someone's habit. It's how it's about frequency, it's about relevance, it's about being embedded in their everyday life. So that's how we think about Walmart Plus. So at its simplest, Walmart Plus is designed to deliver convenience and value across moments that matter most in our members' life.

 

And we know that people don't or members don't live in verticals. They don't wake up in the morning and think that, I have a grocery moment now, or now I have an entertainment moment, or now I have a fuel moment. We know that they have messy real moments. And our job is to remove friction from all of them. And that's why we think of Walmart Plus as this embedded system of value that can create, that can help them, you know, across their

 

daily life, weekly life, and we can show up in different ways and be valuable to them. Now let me make it more real. Let me give you an example of how this comes to life. take it think about a a busy mom and she is planning a trip and she uses our travel benefit powered by Expedia to book that trip. And as a result of that she gets Walmart cash that she can apply on items that she may need as she for as she stocks up for her visit for a trip.

 

Then before she they leave, they place an express delivery order to get everything they need for the trip. And that avoids them in adding another stop and on a day that's already very busy. On the way, they fill up at one of our participating 13,000 gas stations to save money as part of the membership program again. Now, on the journey, if as our kids get bored and they're looking for some entertainment,

 

They have the option or she has the option of choosing Peacock or Paramount Plus as our streaming benefit, and then she saves money there as well. in the evening, if as they get hungry, they drive through Burger King and get discount on meals, and and that is another benefit of being a member. While she gets when she gets there, she realizes that she has forgotten her child's medicine. What would be a major inconvenience?

 

Otherwise, now is not a problem because she gets free pharmacy delivery as part of Walmart Plus membership. And so she gets that delivered and the problem is solved. Now she does all of that with the one-pay cash rewards guard that gives five percent cash back on every Walmart purchase. So she saves there too. So essentially, all of these benefits, of course, they are important and they work individually, but the real magic is when they come all together and they create this embedded system where she

 

Different parts of her daily life, weekly life, we are there to create value and make her life and our members' life a little bit easier. So that's how we think about it. And streaming, of course, is part of that, as you meant as you mentioned, Peter. So my way of like question of how the what CPG partners can can get out of that is like the way we think about it is we put customer and member in the middle of everything we do, and we want to create a system of

 

moments of everyday value. And we believe that the future of loyalty belongs to brands that are help working to solve the the problems of everyday everyday life and create those moments that add up to create a great experience.

 

PVSB (28:48)

moments that matter. We can't underemphasize the importance of the pharmacy service. When you've got two or three kids, the daunting thought of having to get them out of the car and into a store to go pick up the medicine and put them back is just something that that all parents dread and it's so great that that the delivery service for for pharmacy is included in Walmart plus. I'll remind our audience that today we're speaking with Deepak Maini. He is the

 

Senior Vice President, General Manager of Walmart Plus, Sri. Over to you.

 

Sri (29:20)

Yeah, Deepak, I was looking at publicly available data from the latest earnings release that's public at this point. We noticed that Walmart Connect grew approximately 33 or so percent in the US last quarter. Seth had kind of stated that. Representing along with membership fees, about a third of Walmart's operating income again publicly available. How tight is the integration between Walmart Plus membership data, the Walmart Connect advertising platform, and then if I'm a brand.

 

What does that mean when I'm trying to close the loop from impressions on Walmart Connect to the actual lower funnel activation and sale in store?

 

Deepak (29:59)

Yeah, so it's the entire ecosystem here and and all of these parts come together to make a whole. so as you said, Centella or Data Ventures provide great insights on customer behavior, whether it's customer level, item level, category level, and they create insights then can be activated by using the Walmart Connect platform, which provides full funnel media activations with closed loop measurement.

 

And so I'll let the data ventures and connect team talk about their products and how they are using that and build building that. But powering this flywheel is members membership and the frequency and the and the purchase frequency and visit frequency we get from our members, essentially. And as I said, members shop three times more frequently than non-members with seven times more e-commerce visits. So that translates to more opportunities, more and more, as I said, stronger and durable signal that we can use to create.

 

great experiences for our members. So when it all comes together, essentially it works like a flywheel where better frequency or increased frequency gives us more opportunities to serve. When we get more opportunity to serve, we can create better experiences that drive engagement. With those engagement we get better insights and those insights can be used to activate and create better connections between members and brands and and and create those moments, everyday moments where

 

Members get value as well as brands create valuable, measurable business outcomes. So that's the whole flywheel that it enables and membership sits right in the middle of it.

 

PVSB (31:39)

Walmart tested its first advertising formats tied to the Sparky AI shopping agent in the fall of 2025, with 81% of surveyed Walmart customers saying they'd used Sparky to check product availability, review specs before buying. How do you think Walmart Plus membership is a foundation for agentic shopping?

 

And what does that mean for how CPG brands show up in those AI mediated discovery moments?

 

Deepak (32:11)

Right. So agentic commerce, it's all about trust, context, and continuity. And those are relationship attributes. And membership is all about relationship. So they kind of go hand in hand and they work together. So but as I as I mentioned earlier, with agentic commerce, the ways in PTL people have always behaved, those will continue to persist, but the different technology will make things better in different ways.

 

And the point about natural language interface is a key one here where members or consumers, as they're interacting with the agent or or the agent is interacting or or acting on their behalf, they're able to start with problems that they're looking to solve for, not necessarily a solution that they have in mind. Of course there will be times when they're looking for a solution directly, but there are times when they have a problem they're looking to solve and it's a back and forth between the member and the agent.

 

In those cases, I think the kind of content that brands, CPG brands create become important. And perhaps there's a change in which it it it or way in it which evolves. like back in like with search engines and search queries, there's a certain type of content they create that is useful, whether it's it's product description, it's imagery, there's there's other details that they provide. But when the the model changes more into a back and forth QA, maybe there is a a way to anticipate.

 

Those questions and understand those and provide content that could be useful for the ecosystem, for the agent to understand, so that the agent can act on behalf of the consumer. So those are the kind of things in my view, in my perspective, that will change, that will evolve. And with membership, I the role that membership plays is that a logged in member gives us, you know, a trusted relationship that lasts not just in the moment and that has been there.

 

And that you have a better understanding or deeper understanding of their needs and how it is evolving. So you overlay that on top of how this the the the the commerce relationship is evolving. I think those things kind of come together really well with membership playing an important role to mediate that you know consumer experiences.

 

Sri (34:27)

The one thing I'll certainly say is AI is here to stay. And it's great to see that y'all are right on top of that and understanding the difference between agentic AI and just AI available commonly in the marketplace today. And shopping certainly sh the consumers are on AI, hunting everything from deals, bundles, meal kits and whatnot. So y'all are right in the middle of all that and on top of it to be fair.

 

Another thing in the publicly shared data we noticed was the highlight of games with upper income households as a strategic priority. Does Walmart Plus actually in its membership skew towards those households? And if so, what does that mean for premium CPG brands that may have historically underinvested at Walmart and should be thinking hard now about how they can actually reach those households with such a large distribution opportunity for them, both

 

In store and online.

 

Deepak (35:24)

Yeah, so Walmart Plus represents the the entire spectrum of Walmart customers. And it it is well representative across all cohorts, income groups, demographics, you know, family size, et cetera. So so the broader appeal is across all income cohorts, and that's an exciting place to be. and like increasingly what we are seeing is that convenience is a key driver here. So we know that.

 

That people, consumers, when asked, they value convenience more than they in the past. And we know that more than half of the consumers answer that way. And Walmart Plus is situated right there to meet that need, to provide convenience at great prices that Walmart has to offer. So we know that we are working and up, you know, serving the needs of customers from all income groups. Now, this idea that that

 

Walmart is not a place for premium brands. I would challenge the CPG brands and anybody who has that idea to, you know, revisit it because increasingly we know that Walmart is an omnichannel platform with you know we can serve 95% of American households within three hours and 60% of households within 30 minutes. So we are able to do things for all income cohorts.

 

So this I think this this challenge has to be revisited because it's it's a great place for premium brands to to thrive and connect, and it could show up in different places. Like these premium brands can show up in a weekly grocery basket, or it can show up in a health and wellness mission, or they can show up in a beauty regimen or routine, or better for you, food discovery items. So there are a lot of different places where premium brands can thrive on on Walmart platform.

 

So so increasingly like we know that we are providing different choices rooted in convenience and our physical proximity plays an important role in that. Like we can serve our customers however they want. So we provide choices to them. If they want to walk into our store and shop that way because it fits better into their routine, they can do that. Or if they want to drive to curbside and have us load the groceries and other items in the the back of their trunk, we can they can do that.

 

Or if they want us to deliver to them and and deliver to their doorstep, as well as, you know, with our in home service in their fridge or garage, we can do that. So we provide a number of options and choices that resonate with people from all income groups.

 

PVSB (37:53)

Terrific. I want to also go back a little bit to your time at Amazon where you had the experience of running Fire TV, Alexa Skills, Amazon Music. Those are all businesses that basically live at the intersection of media, identity, and commerce. From that experience, what are you bringing that?

 

is really directly shaping how you are enhancing Walmart Plus going forward. What did what did you learn that you really think is going to going to work well in terms of adapting Walmart Plus for for Walmart shoppers?

 

Deepak (38:29)

So the common through line in in the things that I've worked on in the past is that I have worked at the intersection of commerce, media, and customer behavior/slash data. And that continues to drive what I'm doing. But the unique thing of working at Walmart is the the role Walmart plays in our customers' everyday life. And that scale and that that opportunity is really exciting. the way I've always approached my work is through a scientific rigor.

 

take a very experimental approach. And for me, the experimental mindset is important. And what framework I use to look at opportunities that we're working on, new experiences, for example, we're building, et cetera, is that we look at the uncertainty of something and the reward or the the the the magnitude of impact something is going to have it if it works. So we look at all the opportunities and we

 

put that in this framework and we s decide what we pursue and what we don't pursue. but if the things that are gonna have impact, but we think it's certain that we will have that risk is low, then we just go do those things. But in some cases, if the the impact is going to be low and the uncertainty is low too, then we may not want to do it. So the thing that I'm really passionate about are the things that we we focus a lot on is things that are highly uncertain.

 

And they, if they work, they will have large impact on on that. So we take the scientific rigor to everything we do. And that's something that I bring from like you know, my education and I've always worked and built platforms and customer experiences in the past. And so we have we continue to apply that. we're focused on creating more choice and more options for our customers. And you mentioned with streaming, we provide that choice. We also

 

provide that choice with our fulfillment services. So we're always thinking about how we do things differently. how do we create unique differentiated experiences for our members? And we'll continue to iterate and we'll continue to get better.

 

Sri (40:31)

You know, I'm gonna reflect back on when we first had sat on the show. It was May eighteenth, twenty twenty two. It's been give or take four years at this point. Walmart Plus was just one year old at that point. Now we look back, it's like the five year anniversary is already here.

 

Now, if you fast forward another five years, Deepak, what is the relationship between Walmart Plus membership and CPG brand investments look like? AI is going to be squarely leading the way for a lot of us as consumers, and what should brand and agency leaders be doing right now to position themselves for the future? Remember that AI will also help make the whole creative experience, the optimization of the investment dollars, all of that feasible.

 

Deepak (41:15)

Yeah. So let me start by saying what will not change. So like we are driven by Walmart's mission, which is to help people save money and live better. That will stay the same. and we also know that people care about convenience, people care about assortment, people care about value. Those things will continue to be a North Star. They'll continue to stay the same. But things will change as you know, consumers behave behavior changes and their expectations change. I from my perspective, I think there are few things that would change or

 

will continue to we'll keep an eye on as they're evolving. one is that, and specifically for the CPG partners and and suppliers, that as the world becomes more personalized and more agent assisted, the f the f importance of awareness and visibility will always be there. But beyond that, I think there would be a customer expectations around trust, relevance, utility and performance that will increasingly get bigger and bigger. So that's one change.

 

the second thing is it's consumers are gonna be looking to as a cell looking to solve problems. So they will show up to these platforms with certain problems in mind. And this means some how we anticipate those needs and create information that can be you know understood by agents as well as by consumers to solve those problems. So I think that could be another way in the world is gonna evolve. And then and then finally.

 

I think as these new technologies evolve and the consumer experiences evolve as well, the brands that serve, as I said, the everyday needs the best. And they are working to create information that is well and easily understood and it's valuable to consumer as well as to to agents, they will have a way to create additional value or more value than than others. So I think those are some ways in which things are gonna evolve.

 

And Walmart Plus would continue to play an important role all in all of that, because we'll continue to create you know, work on our mission, which is to be America's most essential membership for our customers and meet their, you know, everyday needs and continue to create more value and we'll continue to iterate on that experience and we'll continue to make it better.

 

PVSB (43:26)

Wonderful way to close that out. To our audience, we are incredibly grateful for the fact that you turn to us for education and entertainment in the areas of commerce and technology. Over 45,000 followers to date on LinkedIn tells us at least that our community is pretty strong. We appreciate everyone who likes, comments on, rates all of the content we produce for LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, wherever.

 

you choose to engage with us. Sri, this was really helpful and I'm so glad we finally got the the third leg of the stool out to our audience to hear what Walmart Plus is all about. What's your big takeaway today?

 

Sri (44:08)

Peter, a couple of things stood out in my mind. I don't think the discussion on the upper income shopper to one twenty five K plus whatever that number is is publicly declared is often heard enough by premium CPG brands. We kinda addressed it head on today. That's very, very, very important 'cause

 

Even now in my daily business, Peter, when I and you and I talk to the industry a whole lot, I don't think brands have cracked that code of I need to partner with Walmart when it comes to open cam having the right set of solutions in store and online. The second that points us us in the face repeatedly, again and again and again again, is just the reach. Super Bowl every day. That's what Walmart Connect is. Literally, Super Bowl everyday online.

 

Now think of that for a second, Peter, because traditional agency wisdom and advice would say if you've got big enough of a budget, Super Bowl should be a first choice for the reach. But here you have Super Bowl every day. What should you do if you're an agency? Like take a minute to ponder. And of course, Peter, not to mention all the benefits we've already talked about, including your visit to Burger King. Mine is going to be pet care, telehealth.

 

PVSB (45:18)

Bala is eternally grateful for that, Sri. Yeah. For me, it's the fact that the the while they should not necessarily be positioned as benefits, they are part of what the Walmart membership experience is all about. these are these enable, as Deepak said, moments that matter to resonate in their relationship with Walmart. And back to your point on

 

the economics and the income that people sh who shop at Walmart are. You know, you don't even need to look at the the income breakdown. Just drive into a Walmart and see the cars that are parked in the parking lot. Y you have everything from an economy car to a a very expensive foreign SUV. Everyone shops at Walmart because at the end of the day, everybody wants value. Everybody wants value. So

 

Absolutely. Thank you for that, Sri. That was great. Deepak, thank you for taking time out of your day today to to come on the CPG guys and tell us all the great stuff that's going on at Walmart Plus and we wish you continued success. Thanks for joining us.

 

Deepak (46:26)

No, thank you for having me. It was great talking to you and good luck.

 

PVSB (46:32)

All right, that's all we have for you today. we hope you see you if you're in Cannes. Make sure you reach out to the CPG guys, let us know you're gonna be there. and hopefully we'll see some of you at Cornell Omnicommerce. And and of course, the Nielsen C360 conference is coming up. We look forward to continuing our community conversation on the next episode of the CPG Guys podcast. Goodbye.