“With regards to our U.S. pricing decisions, given tariff-related cost pressures, we’re doing what we said we would do,” CEO Doug McMillon told investors on the company’s earnings call. “We’re keeping our prices as low as we can for as long as we can.” Also helping is that consumers have proven quite resilient, he added. “Their behavior has been generally consistent. We aren’t seeing dramatic shifts.”
To be sure, the impact of higher tariffs is only now beginning to kick in at Walmart and other retailers. It’s still early and tariff hikes are more likely to be felt later in 2025 as Walmart replenishes inventory. Walmart’s finance chief John David Rainey told investors that all told, prices rose 1% in the U.S. during the quarter, and the retailer decided to take the hit to its margins on some goods, but pass them to consumers in the form of higher prices on others.
Rainey told CNBC that Walmart has been managing tariff hikes by accelerating imports from abroad and also offering temporary items, which the retailer calls “Rollbacks.” “This is managed on an item-by-item and category-by-category basis,” he told the news oulet. “There are certainly areas where we have fully absorbed the impact of higher tariff costs. There are other areas where we’ve had to pass some of those costs along.”
That ability to shield customers and keep prices low are key reasons Walmart has been a top performing retailer since President Trump announced higher tariffs on many trading partners this spring. (Tariff rates and target countries have shifted many times, adding to Walmart’s operational complexity.)
Walmart Inc, which also operates the Sam’s Club warehouse clubs and a big international business, raised its full year sales forecast on the strength of the second-quarter, and now expects sales to rise 3.75% to 4.75% this year, compared to an previous forecast of a 3% to 4% increase. And that will include that crucial holiday season.
That seems to confirm McMillon’s pledge in April that “there will be a Christmas, and people will celebrate Christmas, and they will buy items, and we will sell them those items.”
