When Doug McMillon became CEO of Walmart in February 2014, the future looked stormy. Amazon was eating the retail world, one click at a time. Walmart had 4,700 stores across America—but that suddenly seemed less like an asset and more like an anchor.
In fact, some analysts back then wondered whether Walmart could survive the e-commerce revolution. Today, as McMillon prepares to hand over the reins to John Furner in February 2026, that question sounds almost quaint.
Walmart didn’t just survive—it became Amazon’s only real competitor.
The numbers from Walmart’s third quarter tell the story McMillon probably dreamed about back in 2014:
- Total revenue hitting $179.5 billion.
- U.S. e-commerce sales up 28 percent.
- Seven consecutive quarters of e-commerce growth above 20 percent.
Perhaps most importantly, U.S. online sales turning profitable this year after years of investment.
“McMillon spent a decade investing in digital, supply chain, and omnichannel capabilities,” Jefferies analysts noted after his departure was announced, as quoted by Retail Dive. “His tenure was transformative.”
But here’s the key lesson for businesses of any size: McMillon didn’t win by copying Amazon. He won by figuring out how to turn Walmart’s supposed weakness into its greatest strength.
What the competition was doing
If you run a business, you’ve probably faced a moment when a competitor seemed to have an insurmountable advantage.
Maybe they had newer technology, a better business model, or were just faster and more innovative.
In 2014, Walmart’s entire premise was that having 90 percent of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart was an advantage.
Suddenly, those thousands of stores represented expensive real estate, huge overhead costs, and a business model that seemed fundamentally at odds with where retail was heading.
Amazon didn’t need stores. Amazon had algorithms and warehouses and next-day delivery.
Multipurpose, fast delivery
McMillon could have tried to compete with Amazon on Amazon’s terms. Some critics surmised that’s exactly what Walmart was doing when it launched Walmart+ in 2020, 15 years after Amazon Prime launched.
I was one of those skeptics. How could Walmart compete when Amazon had 150 million Prime members and 40 percent of the online sales market, versus Walmart’s mere 5 percent?
But Walmart under McMillon turned those 4,700 stores into multipurpose fast-delivery hubs that put Walmart within striking distance of nearly every American household.
‘Grateful’ for the stores
The transformation didn’t happen overnight. It took a decade of investment and experimentation. But piece by piece, Walmart solved the last-mile delivery problem.
Walmart can now deliver about 120,000 items same-day—including lower-margin grocery products—to 93 percent of U.S. households.
Amazon doesn’t disclose a comparable metric, but the implication is clear.
“I am very, very grateful that we have 4,700, roughly, stores,” Furner said recently. “It’s something that perhaps a few years ago people would not have expected we would have been able to deliver at scale.”
Welcome to the NASDAQ
If you’d like need more evidence of just how complete Walmart’s transformation has been, consider what the company announced this week: It’s leaving the New York Stock Exchange for Nasdaq—the technology-focused exchange that’s home to Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
“Moving to Nasdaq aligns with the people-led, tech-powered approach to our long-term strategy,” CFO John David Rainey said in the announcement. “Walmart is setting a new standard for omnichannel retail by integrating automation and AI to build smarter, faster and more connected experiences for customers.”
If that language sounds a bit familiar, it’s because back in Walmart’s fourth quarter 2023 earnings call, McMillon revealed that the company had decided to change how it describes itself.
Check out the “About Walmart” section in the company’s press releases now, and you’ll see this: “a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer helping people save money and live better—anytime and anywhere—in stores, online, and through their mobile devices.”
Next up: AI
As McMillon prepares to step down, Walmart is pushing hard into AI.
Furner has been touting Sparky, the company’s consumer-facing AI agent, and international experiments like “Carrito Listo” in Chile, where AI creates personalized shopping baskets for customers via WhatsApp.
The playbook remains the same: Take what Walmart has that many competitors don’t—massive scale, physical presence, customer data—and use it to build the next competitive advantage.
It’s a remarkable legacy. McMillon took over a company that looked like it was on the wrong side of history and turned it into Amazon’s only credible competitor—not by becoming Amazon, but by becoming a better version of Walmart.
That might be the most valuable lesson of all: Falling behind doesn’t have to mean staying behind.
Not if you’re willing to rethink everything, invest for the long term, and turn your weaknesses into weapons.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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Bill Murphy Jr.
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