Walmart will close Store No. 8, which served as Walmart’s internal startup incubator because it launched in 2017.
The large box retailer confirmed the closure in an emailed statement.
“Store No. 8 was a crucial early step forward into tech-powered customer solutions, which led to innovations which have transformed how customers shop at Walmart,” a spokesperson said. “After we stood up Store No. 8, it was the best decision at the moment. Since that point, we’ve stood up Global Technology, Product and Design organizations that work alongside the business to innovate with speed — and the responsibility to shape the longer term of retail is now shared across the corporate.”
Walmart is No. 2 within the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database rating of North America’s online retailers by web sales. The retailer can be No. 9 within the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s rating of the highest 100 online marketplaces by gross merchandise value.
What’s Walmart Store No. 8?
Walmart launched Store No. 8 in 2017 as a strategy to catch as much as rival Amazon’s fast-growing online business. The name is a reference to the early Walmart location where co-founder Sam Walton tried out recent concepts. It also has a history with Marc Lore, who took over Walmart’s ecommerce operations in 2016 when the retailer bought Jet.com for $3.3 billion. Lots of Lore’s hires went on to work on Store No. 8 projects.
The Store No. 8 website describes its mandate to “incubate startups to assist leapfrog where the client and market will go, well into the longer term. These self-contained firms profit from the perfect of each worlds — they operate on the speed of a startup together with access to tremendous enterprise scale — with a goal to complement the lives of Walmart customers and associates.”
The incubator focused on:
- Health and wellness
- Sustainability and circular economy
- Social commerce and the creator economy
- Mixed reality and metaverse
- Food and next-gen agriculture
- Customer experience and loyalty
- Web3 and decentralized commerce
Store No. 8 was releasing recent projects as recently as this month. The retailer announced a metaverse shopping integration with Unity in early January, through the metaverse commerce sector of Store No. 8.
What’s next for Walmart?
The responsibilities previously held by Store No. 8 shall be spread across the corporate, Walmart said in its statement. A few of Store No. 8’s projects have graduated and been executed by Walmart. InHome delivery and text to buy each grew out of Store No. 8 projects.
Scott Eckert, senior vp who led Store No. 8, will leave the corporate, the Wall Street Journal reported. He indicated that about 300 employees from the project moved to other roles inside the company over Store No. 8’s history.
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