Your Walmart Business Should Be Outgrowing Your Total US Business
Walmart U.S. grew comparable sales excluding fuel by 4.1% in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, according to the company’s earnings release. Transactions were up 3.0% and average ticket was up 1.1%. A year earlier those same two lines read 1.6% and 2.8%. On the earnings call, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey put like-for-like inflation at a little more than 1% for the quarter, noting that egg deflation had held that figure down by close to 100 basis points. Chief Executive John Furner told analysts that growth in transactions and units was driving the top line and that U.S. transaction growth was “the strongest we’ve seen in six quarters.”
Sam’s Club shows the pattern further along. Comparable sales excluding fuel grew 3.9% on transactions up 6.2% and average ticket down 2.2%, with Walmart attributing the segment’s comp to increased transactions and unit volumes. Sam’s was already transaction-led a year ago, at 4.8% against 1.7%. What changed this year is that ticket turned negative, so the entire comp is now trips and units.
General merchandise did much of the work in the quarter. Walmart reported its strongest fashion share growth in five years and the first favorable merchandise mix contribution to Walmart U.S. gross margin in 18 quarters. The grocery signal is narrower but the company stated it directly: Walmart U.S. inventory rose 8.0%, attributed to the timing of receipts and to inventory tied to accelerated unit volume trends, primarily in grocery categories.
The composition of that quarter drew little notice in May, because nothing yet showed what was happening on the supplier side of the same shelf. Three releases this month do, and the picture from the manufacturer side runs the other way.
Price Investment Is Buying Defense At The Manufacturer Level
Walmart described the mechanism itself. Rainey told analysts the company is leaning into rollbacks and seasonal value programs to reinforce price leadership and is seeing customers respond through increased unit volumes. Walmart has roughly 7,200 rollbacks live across the assortment, up more than 20% against last year, and Furner noted the count had run in the 5,000 to 5,500 range for the previous few years.
The same instrument produces a different result one step up the chain. PepsiCo reported second quarter results on July 9 showing PepsiCo Foods North America organic revenue down 2%, a decline the company attributed primarily to lower effective net pricing, with convenient foods volume flat. PepsiCo also stated that its North American convenient foods business gained volume market share, aided by innovation and affordability initiatives. On the beverage side, North American volume fell 4% while segment net revenue rose 7%, largely reflecting acquisitions made in 2025. Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta told analysts the consumer had come in “worse than what we had anticipated,” pointing mainly at gas prices. Internationally the volume picture was different, with organic volume growth across Asia Pacific Foods, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and the International Beverages Franchise.
General Mills made the same trade. Reporting July 1 on a fiscal year ended May 31, the company posted net sales of $18.4 billion, down 5%, with organic net sales down 2%, and attributed part of that to weaker consumer sentiment and volatility that weighed on category volume growth while pushing a higher share of purchases onto promotion. Inside North America Retail, the segment closest to a Walmart grocery business, organic net sales fell 3% on organic volume down a single point against price and mix down two, and the company reported holding or gaining pound share in 65% of its top 10 U.S. categories. General Mills stated that its base price investment actions were completed during fiscal 2026, guided fiscal 2027 organic net sales to a range of down 1.5% to up 0.5%, and committed to at least $750 million in savings as part of a $3 billion cumulative cost target by fiscal 2030.
Two of the largest food manufacturers in the country made the same choice and got the same answer. Both gave up price realization, both held or gained unit share in their core North American food businesses, and both were paid in share rather than in growth. The difference from what happened at Walmart is structural rather than a matter of execution. A retailer’s price investment moves trips between retailers, which is why the rollbacks converted into unit volume. A manufacturer’s defends position among brands and cannot manufacture demand the category is not generating. Suppliers should plan the back half treating price as a defensive instrument and expect the growth argument to come from somewhere else.
Circana’s 2026 Global Snack Unwrap, released July 21, puts a category frame around the result. U.S. snacking reached $231 billion in sales, up 3.2% against the prior year, on flat unit sales, and Circana drew the distinction directly in presenting the research: the dollar growth came from higher prices and product mix rather than from people consuming more. Across major European markets Circana recorded snack unit growth of 1.1% in 2025 and 2.5% year to date through late April. PepsiCo’s segment reporting shows the same geographic split.
A Flat Walmart Unit Trend Is Underperformance, Not Stability
Bain & Company, analyzing NielsenIQ data in a report released July 16, found U.S. grocery units down nearly 2% year over year in June, the fifth consecutive month of negative unit growth. The category is shrinking. Walmart’s grocery unit volumes are accelerating by its own account, and the company says it is gaining share. The reading those facts support is that Walmart is absorbing unit volume from other retailers while the total pool contracts.
That has a specific consequence for how a supplier should read its own numbers. If the category is losing units and Walmart is gaining them, a brand’s Walmart unit trend should be running ahead of its total U.S. unit trend by a visible margin. Category teams should treat a Walmart unit trend that merely matches the national trend as underperformance rather than as stability, because it means the brand is flat in the one channel adding trips. The comparison runs against Retail Link and Scintilla on the Walmart side and syndicated Circana or NIQ data on the national side. Suppliers without syndicated coverage can approximate it by setting their Walmart unit trend against their own total shipped units across the account base, a rougher proxy since shipments and consumption diverge on retailer inventory timing, but directionally usable. Either way, assume the merchant has already run some version of it before the line review starts.
The obvious counter, that private brands absorbed the difference, does not hold cleanly at Walmart. Rainey told analysts that private brand penetration was down about 40 basis points in the quarter, with food down a little more than 100 basis points, which he attributed largely to egg deflation given how large a private brand item eggs are, while general merchandise private brand rose almost 200. Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina separately pointed to the recent Great Value refresh, the brand’s first major redesign in more than a decade, alongside bettergoods and Freshness Guaranteed as brands drawing new and higher income customers. Walmart is investing in its own brands and still posted a food private brand decline, which means the branded unit shortfall needs an explanation other than private label.
Where the units are going instead points at basket construction. Bain found that among Americans actively cutting grocery spending, more than half are moving to lower priced brands, over 40% are leaning harder on coupons and promotions, and half are simply buying fewer items, with online shoppers generally carrying smaller baskets. Circana separately found GLP-1 users shifting toward nutrient-dense foods rich in protein, nuts and grains while pulling back on chocolate, sweet and fried options, and framed that shift as an opening for products built around smaller portions and greater nutritional density. The implication for brand and category teams is that pack architecture and price-pack ladders belong in the JBP conversation alongside the promotional calendar, because trip frequency is growing while basket size is not.
The read differs by segment. For 1P suppliers in grocery and consumables this sits at the center of the planning cycle, since comp composition, price gap, modular decisions, and promotional funding all follow from it. For 3P Marketplace sellers the connection is narrower and worth naming honestly, because the Circana and Bain data describe grocery and snacking, categories most sellers are not in. What carries across is the shape of Walmart’s growth. Walmart U.S. eCommerce contributed roughly 530 basis points to comp in the quarter, up from about 350 a year earlier, so the incremental trips are increasingly digital. Sellers built around a repeat purchase occasion rather than a large single basket are aligned with the trip pattern Walmart is generating.
One variable could scramble this by the back half. Rainey told analysts that elevated fuel costs are a real impact to cost of goods sold for Walmart and its suppliers, and that if the current cost environment persists, the company would expect somewhat higher retail price inflation in the second quarter and the second half. Should that arrive, average ticket will start moving on inflation again and the headline comp will get harder to read. The transaction line will not, and when Walmart reports in August, that is the number that will show whether real demand held.
Winning With Walmart
Winning With Walmart is an independent platform for suppliers, sellers, solution providers, and industry experts.
Articles are developed by staff editors, contributing experts, and trusted partners.
Some are researched and drafted with the assistance of AI tools and are reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by Winning With Walmart editors before publication.
Editorial judgment, sourcing decisions, and final approval rest with the publication's human editors in every case.
We are committed to accuracy and fairness. If you believe this article contains an error, we welcome your feedback.