Walmart’s secret to retail domination? Becoming America’s grocery store

You might think of Walmart as America’s quintessential big box store—the place you can get everything from Hanes T-shirts to large screen TVs to cleats for your kid’s soccer uniform. 

But Walmart isn’t defying shaky consumer confidence because of the breadth of its offerings, which impressively stretches to 120,000 products at most stores. Customers aren’t flocking into stores to buy made-in-America T-shirts, as I wrote about in May, thanks to a novel partnership with American Giant. Or because it is adding more high-end products (at lower prices than you’d find anywhere else), as I covered in October in this profile of its chief merchant Latriece Watkins.

Nor is this about breakthrough new products exclusive to Walmart such as Glen Powell’s Smash Kitchen line of condiments, which hit $10 million in revenue in just six months. (I wrote about how Powell and his cofounders pulled off that feat, revealing their growth numbers for the first time, and how products like theirs fit within Walmart’s overall strategy.)

You’re getting warmer, though. 

If you want to understand why Walmart is beating the odds, this where you should look: the grocery aisles. Walmart has gone from a general merchandise store that also sells groceries to America’s grocery store that also happens to sell everything else you could imagine. 

The Arkansas-based retailer, which generated $648.1 billion in revenue last year (60% of which came from food), accounts for more than a fifth of all grocery dollars in the country.

Since 2019, Walmart has been in the top position when it comes to grocery market share, with Kroger coming in at a distant second at less than 10%.

Walmart’s grocery business has been key to its financial success at a time when many other retailers are struggling. Last week, Walmart posted strong quarterly results, with U.S. sales increasing by 4.5%. It has seen an increase in spending per visit, and gains among families with household incomes higher than $100,000 and $200,000. As a result, Walmart has raised its sales and profit guidance, suggesting that it expects to have a stellar holiday shopping season. In contrast, Target posted a drop in sales, and lowered its full-year profit guidance.

Grocery store as Trojan horse

Walmart’s grocery business has been a Trojan horse. Customers come to the store to stock up their fridge and pantry on low-priced food items, then pick up socks and video games while they’re at it. From the time of Walmart’s founding in 1962, the company’s strategy has been to leverage its enormous buying power to compel brands to sell their products at very low prices.

“For most suppliers, Walmart is their biggest customer,” Rachel Slade, author of Making it in America, told me earlier this year. “It’s almost impossible for them to say no to Walmart’s terms.”

Walmart’s prices are generally between 10% and 25% lower than competitors. As a result, it has put many smaller retailers and mom-and-moms shops out of business. This, in turn, increases it market share. Today, its 4,605 stores are within 10 miles of 90% of the population.

But over the past five years, as the economy has gotten more volatile and inflation has spiked, Walmart’s low grocery prices have begun to appeal to higher income Americans, who feel the need to tighten their belts. The company is doing this in several clever ways.

Last year, it launched Bettergoods, its first new in-house food brand in two decades, that is is perfectly calibrated to the tastes of the higher-income consumer. It has all the markers of a premium brand, with sleek, vibrant branding, but it is also designed to appeal to food preferences of wealthier consumers, including from organic milk to plant-based mozzarella to single origin coffee.

Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, says that she’s been impressed with the quality of food in her local Walmart’s grocery section in New Jersey. Products are neatly organized and fresh produce is high quality and inviting. “The quality is just as good as Whole Foods,” says Kodali.

This has come in stark contrast to Target, where groceries make up 23% of the products in store. Over the few years, consumers have complained about Target’s grocery and bakery sections being out of stock, messy shelves, and misplaced inventory. Kodali says she’s seen expired food on Target shelves, which is “the worst thing you can do as a retailer.”

E-comm as an entry

The challenge for Walmart is that many of its higher-income consumers aren’t used to visiting Walmart’s stores, and might be bashful about shopping at what is perceived as a budget retailer. But for more than a decade, Walmart has been beefing up its e-commerce capabilities.

When it comes to groceries, it is now significantly ahead of its biggest competitors, capturing 31.6% of grocery e-commerce sales in 2025, ahead of Amazon (22.6%) and Kroger (8.6%). Customers can order groceries online and get them as fast as two hours. And Walmart has a subscription program called Walmart+ that offers free deliver with no order minimum, and is designed to compete directly with Amazon Prime.

But just as with low-income consumers, Walmart wants to encourage these higher income shoppers to buy more than food. As I reported in the latest issue of the magazine, Walmart’s chief merchant, Latriece Watkins, has been on a mission to bring in more premium brands into the store, like Sonos speakers, De’Longhi coffee makers, and LaRoche-Posay skincare. The strategy appears to be working. The latest financial report shows that the average amount consumers are spending per transaction has gone up by 2% from a year ago.

Can Walmart keep this growth streak up? That’s an open question. During the Great Recession of 2008, affluent consumers flocked to Walmart in an effort to stretch their dollars. But when financial pressures eased, the Walmart acknowledges that many of these newfound customers eventually went back to competitors. This time, however, Walmart appears to have a longer-term strategy to keep wealthier consumers coming back, from creating products that cater to their tastes to keeping them locked in with the Walmart+ subscription program. We’ll have to see if these shoppers stick around when the economy gets better.

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