Walmart Yearns for More Cheap Products From China to Boost Online Sales

Boosting Walmart's online offerings means turning on its 'Made In America' campaign.

Author:: Kinsey Grant
Publish date:: Jul 27, 2017 1:16 PM EDT

Walmart Inc (WMT) - Get Report is looking to vendors in China and other overseas countries to increase its offerings online in a bid to better compete with Amazon.com (AMZN) - Get Report , Reuters reported.

Walmart is turning away from its "Made In America" campaign out of both financial and customer-focused need, as it costs less to find products overseas and not all the things Walmart shoppers want to buy online can be manufactured efficiently in America.

Walmart sells roughly 50 million items on its Walmart.com online marketplace, compared to Amazon's 300 million products. Walmart wants to increase its competitive edge online to shrink the gap with Amazon.

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Walmart pledged in 2013 to sell mostly American-made products in an attempt to win customers and satisfy unions, but this new focus outside of the U.S. could alienate domestic vendors. The retail giant started courting manufacturers from China, the U.K. and Canada to sell goods on its online marketplace in February.

The foreign entities can sell through the marketplace on an invite-only basis. Walmart said foreign manufacturers make up less than 5% of its seller base.

A Walmart spokesman added that,"Walmart is committed to American manufacturing and is on track to source an additional $250 billion in products that support American jobs by 2023. We believe we are uniquely positioned to contribute to the conversation on renewing US manufacturing and just yesterday outlined 10 policy recommendations to support domestic manufacturing and help recapture $300 billion in consumer goods production."

Walmart stock traded up midday.

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