Walmart gets close to $3 billion in tariff refunds

“We’ve taken a disciplined approach to investing these funds back into customer experience and price leadership, prioritizing investment in grocery and general-merchandise categories,” Rainey said.

Walmart CEO John Furner said the company is deploying that into lowering prices, similar to what Target executives said when disclosing their almost $1 billion in refunds Wednesday. The companies did not mention any direct payments to customers.

“Importantly, our underlying profit growth was where we thought it would be, excluding this benefit,” Furner added. Rainey said operating income growth without the refund was at the top end of its expectation of 7-10% year-over-year growth.

“We expect the financial impact from the tariff refund receipts and reinvestment will be largely contained within the current fiscal year, with the objective of driving sustained customer benefits and share gains in the second half and into future years,” Rainey said. A large portion of the refunds were invested in price at the end of the second quarter, so the impact of the investments will be more pronounced in the third quarter, he added.

“We’re very thoughtful about those investments, the categories they went in, the timing of those investments, and we’ll manage them across the two quarters,” Furner said. “Our merchants have a lot of experience delivering value, mixing out.”

Furner said there will be a combination of rollbacks across categories such as food, general merchandise, consumables and fashion.

“We’re not trying to take the investment and heavily weigh it to a certain category. We know customers are looking for a variety of things across the basket,” Furner said, adding that the company will communicate this through signs in stores and on its website. “We’re proud of the reductions, and it’s helpful for customers as we get into the back half.”