chief executive craig menear said walmart executives emphasized the need for adaptation noting that sales in the us tapered off near the end of the quarter as the lift from stimulus spending faded expanded federal unemployment benefits ran out at the end of july and the white house has failed to agree with democratic leaders in congress on a new emergency spending package the backtoschool season has started sluggishly with weak demand for backpacks and some apparel as many school districts around the country moving tentatively towards reopening with many teaching online or a using a hybrid model the outlook for the holiday season is also fluid said walmart us chief john furner were still learning daytoday which schools are open or planning to open and i think every one of the holidays well have to decide as we get closer furner said walmart is making contingency plans and making sure we are ready for the customer in any way they want to shop he added neil saunders of globaldata retail said walmart has done a good job of boosting its ecommerce operation but suggested the company could be vulnerable if washington continues to fail to enact more stimulus as robust as these results are they are more a consequence of external factors than a function of things walmart has done to engineer growth saunders said this means that as the impact of enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks fades walmart is likely to see performance drop back walmart shares dipped 03 percent in afternoon trading while home depot fell 12 percent afp published on aug 19 2020 at 1243 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etretail app get realtime updates save your favourite articles scan to download app walmart grocery retailer online sales jdcom coronavirus ecommerce walmart stores pandemic retail homenewswalmart profits boosted by ecommerce us stimulus payments