Neil Ashe, president and CEO of global e-commerce, says Walmart's unique strengths include a global network of 10,000 stores, 200 million customers weekly and a commitment to building a next generation global technology platform. With that it hopes to gain a disproportionate share of a worldwide e-commerce marketplace McKinsey & Co expects to reach $1.3tr by 2015.
"It is a fascinating opportunity that we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of," Ashe said, adding that he is focused on "how do we do it differently and better than anyone in the world."
Of course, any of his predecessors could have said the same thing over the course of the past decade, but the big difference between then and now is Walmart has shown through its internal actions and acquisitions that it is serious about more aggressively pursuing the e-commerce opportunity.
