Walmart's online grocery is thriving

XL-sized cart full of "meh"... Walmart's disappointing earnings. Physical store sales for the world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer rose barely 2% (a slowdown from last year's 4.2% growth). But there's light at the end of the aisle: ecommerce sales popped 37% for the year. The star? Walmart's online grocery biz.

• Milking it: With its 265M weekly global customers, 11.5K physical stores globally, and reputation for the lowest prices (outside Amazon), Walmart has the loyalty and locations to scale online grocery.
• Lettuce rejoice: So Walmart's speedily expanded online grocery — 3.2K locations will bag your groceries ahead so you can just pickup curbside, while another 1.6K spots will cruise the aisles, bag, and deliver to your door. But...

Walmart's overall ecommerce biz is still unprofitable... E-sigh. It's leaning into online grocery — which it thinks has profit puppy potential — while leaning out of its e-acquisitions:

• Like an Innovation Vampire, Walmart scooped up hip ecommerce startups to compete with Amazon, sucked the valuable digital lifeblood out of them, and threw them to the curb when they didn't live up to expectations. It's the Twilight Saga, but for retail.
• After splurging on innovative companies since 2015, Walmart's recently sold off ModCloth, laid off hundreds at Bonobos, ended Jet.com's grocery biz, and just announced it's shutting down shopping service JetBlack.