Assortment

Throughout the year, our Customer Insight and Analytics department evolved by creating better customer research and communication capabilities, allowing for the alignment with a more suitable assortment and the creation of differentiated, solid business plans per format, yielding great benefits for our customers. We have developed charts that compare demographic and consumption habits at store level. We have also been able to segment our stores per market niche and therefore understand the competitive environment we face with each channel, and in consequence offer our customers the merchandise they need.

We improved the product catalogs in 2014. After reviewing them, we changed them to include the items that meet our customers’ characteristics and preferences, especially in key areas such as Perishables, Electronics and Babies.

To complement the initiatives above, we improved our modular program within our Self-service division in Mexico that allows us to select the assortment and stock the shelves in a way that better addresses our customers’ needs and drives sales, while regionalizing our products.

An example of how to better address our customers’ needs with an enhanced assortment is a campaign focused on healthy items in Food, Fruits & Vegetables in our Walmart Supercenter format, in response to a trend to change to a healthier life style. Several events were also held in the stores to offer customers a wide selection of specialized products, such as items for the Feria de la Belleza (Beauty Fair). We enhanced our alliance with Gandhi bookstores to have their selection in 187 Walmart Supercenter stores; and with Lumen Stationery stores to have their business in 5 of our stores, thus meeting our customers’ need for certain solutions.

At Sam’s Club we centered our efforts on various actions that allowed us to have the products, quality, quantity, and novelty that our members expected. We reincorporated in our assortment those items that were right for the members and that had been deleted from the system; we displayed items in a sustainable package suitable for the club; we corrected inventory levels per item; we focused on the most relevant brands; and we introduced novelty items with greater frequency.

Medimart, our brand of generic medical products, has an extensive catalog to help cure both chronic and acute illnesses. In 2014, Medimart increased its price differentiation vs. patent medicine -benefitting customers who shop in all our formats- and launched 32 new drugs for nervous system disorders, inflammation and cardiovascular ailments.

In Central America, we continue improving our value proposition as we gain ever more insight into the shopping habits and needs of the people in the region. As a result, we have enhanced our General Merchandise assortment and boosted Food & Consumables. Also, we improved the supply to our stores and continue working on implementing a comprehensive modular process while increasing the sales of imported products, as compared to 2013.

We increased the catalog of our walmart.com.mx site by adding new categories this year. Moreover, apart from providing the service of home delivery for General Merchandise, we now also deliver Groceries and Consumables. We continue working to offer our customers flexible and time saving options through our call center, internet site and mobile applications. Due to the constant improvement of our superama.com.mx mobile application, visits to the site have increased 47%, whereas Sam’s Club advantage and business members have found more options for shipping and home delivery, making sams.com.mx a site used by over 400,000 people. Walmart.com.mx visitors increased 92% in 2014 vs. the previous year, thanks to a wider item catalog and an increase in the number of kiosks in our stores, that went from 65 to 156.