#231 Walmart Just Declared War on Amazon | What It Means for Amazon Sellers

On February 1st, 2026, something happened that should terrify every operator who's only selling on Amazon. The number one company on the Fortune 500, the largest retailer in history, just put e-commerce executive in charge of everything. Not also in charge, but in charge. David became the CEO of Walmart on February 1st. That's a $500 billion business and 69% of Walmart's total revenue, 4,600 stores, and 1.5 million employees. And this is what actually makes that all absolutely shocking. He has never run a store, not one. He's never held a merchandising role, not at Walmart, not anywhere. He came from Amazon in 2018, but before that he spent 9 years at Amazon. At Walmart, he built e-commerce, he built supply chain automation, he built the delivery systems that now serve 95% of U.S. households in under 3 hours. And Walmart just put him in charge of 4,600 physical stores. As Fortune put it on January 29th, such an appointment would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but it's not unthinkable anymore because Walmart is in retailer that does e-commerce. It's an e-commerce company that happens to have 4,600 distribution centers you could walk into. And if you're an operator building your entire business around Amazon and ignoring Walmart, you're about to get blindsided because Walmart just declared war and they're coming with $1 trillion in market cap, ChatGPT integration, Google Gemini partnership, and 95% US household coverage. I'm Neil Twa, and this is the High Voltage Business Builders Week in Review. And today is February 20th, 2026. I'm currently enjoying a beautiful and sunny day, albeit cold out in the Ozark Mountains. So let's dive in. A recap of last week, guys. We talked about zero-click commerce and how transactions are moving into ChatGPT, TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. One thing I want to do is make sure we walk you through how to set up your business to actually complete sales in those environments, not just get recommended. So go check that out. Make sure you understand what zero-click commerce means to your business in 2026 and beyond. Now, as of February 1st, 2026, 2 leadership announcements that completely redefine Walmart's future And really maybe opened up some serious opportunity for us. First, John Fumer became CEO of Walmart. He has been with it for 32 years. He started as an hourly associate in 1993, stocking shelves in a garden center in Bentonville, Arkansas. Since 2019, he's been running Walmart US, the company's largest division. He's now running the whole thing, all 10,750 stores across 19 countries and 2.1 million employees globally. And when Walmart announced back in November, Doug McMillon, the outgoing CEO, said this about him. He's uniquely capable of leading the company through this next AI-driven transformation. AI-driven transformation, not retail transformation, AI. And that's the language Walmart's using at the CEO level. Now, his appointment makes sense. He's been at the company for 3 decades. He knows the business inside and out. He runs Sam's Club. He runs Walmart US, and he lived in multiple countries. He's a lifer. And this is what gets interesting, right? So on the same day he became CEO, Walmart would replace the CEO of Walmart US, David Gugina. And that's when things got weird. Gugina is a 40-year-old. He's the youngest CEO of Walmart US in the company's 60-year history. He's been in Walmart for 8 years, but before that, 9 years at Amazon. And here's what's crazy about that. He has zero store experience, never managed a Walmart location, not one, never held a merchandising role, not anywhere. His entire career has been supply chain, e-commerce, and automation. At Walmart, he was the EVP of Supply Chain Operations, then became the Chief eCommerce Operator and Officer. And now he's running a $500 billion business that includes 4,600 physical stores. On January 29th, Fortune ran a headline that said it all: Once Unthinkable C-Suite Appointment Solidifies Walmart's New Identity as a Tech Company. Once unthinkable. And because for decades, the path to running Walmart US was in stores, understanding merchandising and knowing the final, you know, retail fundamentals was a big component of that. And that's how every previous CEO got there, including Fuhrman, who started stocking shelves, Mike Duke, Bill Simon, Greg Foran. All of them came through the stores or merchandising earlier. Gugina came up through Amazon's fulfillment network and Walmart's supply chain automation. And Walmart put him in charge of 69% of the company's revenue. Why this would matter for you, the operator paying attention to this, or maybe the seller who wants to become an operator. Here's what Walmart said about what they announced with Gugina's promotion on the 16th. His background in e-commerce and supply chain operations uniquely positions him to continue to dive Into our goal of being America's favorite place to shop. Not a favorite place to visit stores. Favorite place to shop. Shopping happens everywhere now. Online, in-app, in-store, via ChatGPT as we've talked about. Walmart just signaled that e-commerce isn't a department anymore. It is the strategy. Fortune frames this as Walmart signaling that it now sees itself as a tech company as well as a retailer. A tech company. That's what they're positioning us for. So 2 weeks ago, Walmart hit $1 trillion in market cap for the first time in the company's history. Stock closed at an all-time high of $127.71 per share and up 28% last year, 14% in 2026 alone. That's double the S&P 500 growth. And it puts Walmart in a club that's almost entirely tech companies. So Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Broadcom, Tesla, and now Walmart. And when I say Walmart just declared war, this is what I mean. They're not trying to be a better version of old Walmart. They're trying to be an AI-first, e-commerce-led omnichannel infrastructure that happens to own 4,600 Physical relocations, and that's where this gets big. So it's positioning as a tech company. What does that actually mean? Let me walk you through the three biggest tech bets that Walmart has made in the last six months. First, ChatGPT on October 14th, 2025. Walmart announced a partnership with OpenAI that lets customers shop Walmart products directly inside GPT. If you're in GPT, you ask what's a good blender under fifty dollars. It'll show you options from Walmart. You tap buy now, Apple Pay, done. You never left the checkout. You never opened walmart.com. You never saw a search bar. And that's what the experience of Walmart is building, zero-click commerce. The day Walmart announced this, their stock dropped 5% and hit a 52-week high. And here's what Doug McMillon said about that. For many years, e-commerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses. That is about to change. This is native AI experience coming to multimedia personalization and contextual searching. Questions, basically a native AI experience. You talk to it. So they're going to be adding AI features and really the experience is going to become AI itself. It's not just customer It's rolling out across the enterprise, all teams company-wide using ChatGPT. They're among the first to embrace all the OpenAI certifications for employees. They're using AI internally to cut customer service and resolutions by 40%. They're using it to shorten fashion production timelines by 18 weeks. This isn't a plot. This is infrastructure. Second, they did a Google Gemini partnership on January 11th, 2026. Just over a month ago, Walmart announced a partnership with Google. So now you can shop Walmart products directly inside Google. Google Gemini. Someone asked Gemini, what camping equipment should I get for a spring trip? And basically it responds including Walmart and Sam's Club products in the response with the prices, availability, and the ability to add to cart and check out all inside Gemini. So Walmart's not just planning with OpenAI, they're partnering with Google too. They're using Walmart products to show up everywhere. AI-driven shopping is happening. Third, Vizio. Walmart acquired them in 2024 for $2.3 billion in cash. That's the TV company in case you missed it. And not, you might be thinking, well, why would I buy a TV from Walmart? Well, a lot of people do. Vizio announced 19 million active accounts on its SmartCast operating system. That's up 400% since 2018. And here's the key. Vizio built an advertising business on top of that. People stream content for free on Vizio TVs by watching ads. And Vizio's advertising business, it accounts for about 100% of the company's gross profit. So Walmart didn't just buy a TV brand. They bought a connected TV advertising platform with 19 million active users. So Walmart's Chief Operating Officer Seth Dalier said Vizio has expertly changed their business over time, like building and quickly scaling a profitable advertising business and pairing it with Walmart Connect will be impactful. And Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail business. It's their advertising arm, in case you didn't know. And it's integrating with Vizio so Walmart can now sell ads to reach customers in store, online, and in their TVs at home. And it's working according to a report from Talk Business and Politics in December 2025. The first year of acquisition, 80% of the households already shop on Walmart. Vizio OS is the fastest growing TV brand in the US and streaming makes up 63% of all TV viewing on their platform. And it was said by Seth, this is a clear sign we're capturing attention like never before. So let's recap what Walmart's done in 6 months. ChatGPT integration, Gemini integration, a $2.3 billion acquisition in cash of a connected TV advertising platform. And the results are in Q3 of fiscal quarter 2026, Walmart advertising growth has grown 53%. E-commerce sales grew 27%. And the first time ever Walmart's e-commerce became profitable in the first Q1 of fiscal 2026. So what this means, advertising and membership offerings are gonna make up a quarter of the company's profits. That's a quarter. It's a lot. So when I say Amazon is competing now against Walmart and Walmart's positioning itself as a tech company, this is what I mean.

They're not just selling stuff, they're building an If you're earning $150,000 or more a year, chances are you've already mastered the art of high-level investing— IRAs, 401s, real estate— but what about the single best asset class in the world, the one you completely own? Your own business. For the highly successful operator looking to diversify beyond Wall Street, the ultimate wealth builder isn't another stock pick, it's a 7-figure exit. But you don't need a hard, complicated business to get there. Neil Twa and the team at Voltage are opening up Business Builders 2026. This is an invite-only 12-month coaching program designed to take successful, high-earning individuals and help them launch, scale, and position a new business for a 7-figure exit in 2026. This isn't about working harder; it's about building smarter. Want to see exactly how? We invite you to watch a free 45-minute presentation right now. It details how real people, including Ashley, David, and Daniel, are using proven systems to build genuine wealth outside of traditional investment vehicles. If you're ready to start building your own equity asset in 2026, get access to the free presentation at voltage dm.com/businessbuilders. All right, back to the episode.

All right, so what does this actually mean for you as an operator? Single-channel Amazon strategies are dying. If you're building your entire business on Amazon and only Amazon, you're exposed. Here's why. Walmart now has 95% of US households covering delivery in 3 hours. They got 4,600 stores that double their fulfillment centers. Okay. They got ChatGPT integration. Gemini integration means customers can now actively buy those products really fast. They have the $1 million, excuse me, $1 trillion market cap and the resources to keep investing in infrastructure. They're being aggressive and they're betting everything against Amazon as a massive platform risk. So that begins to give us an understanding is that, you know, Amazon is not going away, but it should not only be the place in which you play. It's a great place to incubate, but you're gonna have to move very quickly because you're leaving money on the table and ignoring the number 2 player who's investing billions to close that gap. So second thing here is Walmart isn't a backup option anymore. For years, playbook was dominate Amazon, then expand to Walmart if you have the time. That's kind of backwards now. So we've moved, we're changing, we're evolving, guys, and we're pivoting. So look at the numbers with a trillion-dollar market cap 2 weeks ago, their stock's up 24%. Amazon stock is actually down about 1%. Walmart's e-commerce business just became profitable for the first time. Their advertising business is growing 53% year over year. And their chief commerce officer said Walmart has such a deep bench, their retailers are struggling to find a leader to set a direction for. Walmart just reloads and makes it a dynasty style. Dynasty style. Isn't that interesting? That was the strategy officer at Publicis. Okay. And this is how analysts are taking it now. Walmart becomes the distribution advantage Amazon can't replicate. 95% of US households are within a 3-hour delivery range. We use it at our house all the time. You might know that as well. For what you're doing with Walmart Plus, with those 4,600 physical stores, you can get stuff in hours. It's incredible, right? Basically everything you want to get access to. You can order online, you pick up in store, you return the products. We get them here. We have them delivered the same day. It's pretty cool. Amazon's opening more physical stores, but they're not even close to Walmart's footprint. Here's where this gets interesting for you as a seller or a person as an operator. Okay. Walmart Connect, their advertising business, now can reach customers in store, online, and their TVs. This is a closed loop system Amazon doesn't have. They have something competitive to it with Prime. But they're not as integrated. And that's what the, that's kind of what's important here. You can run ads and reach someone while they're on TV, while they're browsing in walmart.com, and while they're walking through the store, even while they're chatting with these AI systems. Quite crazy. So the 4th thing is Walmart's making the biggest AI bets in retail with the integration between them and ChatGPT, the Google integration. They are using AI to speed up production, improve customer service, and optimize supply chains. And that's moving extremely, extremely fast. But here's the kicker. Okay. The new CEO is known for being obsessed with emerging tech. And according to Payments in January, he is an early proponent of drones. He chats with artificial intelligence during his commute to work and he visits companies in Silicon Valley to better understand emerging technologies. That's the CEO. So Walmart's not just experimenting, it's going to become the core of their strategy. So Neil, what do I do about all this? So here's your playbook, guys. Audit your channel, you know, audit your channel concentration, pull your numbers. What percentage of your revenue comes from Amazon? If it's over 70%, you got a massive platform risk. Walmart does not become the nice to have anymore. It becomes strategic insurance. Second, learn Walmart's 3 key advantages. Their fulfillment system and services handle 3 things Amazon can't match right now. In-store pickup within hours, returns processed in the store, and a 3-hour delivery to 95% of US households. Those are very competitive advantages if you leverage them right. Number 3, test Walmart Connect advertising. It's growing 31% year over year. You can run ads that each customer gets in store, online, and concentrated on the TV ad viz. This is a full solution. It's less saturated than Amazon's. Okay. And if your product data is messy, you won't show up when people ask ChatGPT or Gemini for recommendations. Ties back to episode 221. Clean your titles, accurate pricing, real-time inventory. Go check out that episode. If any of that's wrong, you're invisible. Okay. Get that wrong. You're not going to be seen. Number 5, start small and iterate. Don't try to dominate Walmart overnight. Pick one product, test fulfillment, test ads, learn the platform, then scale what, you know, scale what is going to work. So as Walmart just showed you their hand, let's zoom out just a little bit. They're not trying to beat Amazon. They're trying to be the AI-first omnichannel advertising-powered infrastructure that connects physical stores, e-commerce, and connected TV. Amazon is still the biggest, no question, but Walmart will be making the boldest moves. So here's the opportunity. Walmart growth is your opportunity. They're investing billions in that commerce, AI integrations, and advertising. Right now it's less competitive than Amazon. If you get in early, you can test, you can build a presence before it gets saturated. If you wait 2 years, you're going to be late. But then everything we figured this out as we've pivoted over the years we've done this, competition will become fierce and ad costs will be higher. But right now, You have a window. Okay. And what does that mean? If you are with Voltage and you're one of our partners, we have a Walmart channel partnership integration in place where people who work with us can get directly white gloved into it. There's a $75,000 bonus for 1 year of working with them with all kinds of support from their channel partnership and program with us. So if you are already on Amazon and want to get into Walmart, you can come work with Voltage in our business builders. We can talk about that more and get you on Walmart extremely fast and help you Work directly with our channel partnership with Walmart out of Bentonville. Okay. So in summary of everything we've talked about, February 1st, Walmart put a commerce e-commerce executive in charge of a $500 billion business with zero store experience. That's fascinating, right? It's not a problem. That's a statement. E-commerce isn't a department anymore. It becomes the strategy. So here's what you need to do. Again, audit your channel concentration. If you're over 70%, you're exposed. Learn their fulfillment model. Okay. WFS. There's 3-hour delivery. There's something called BOPIS, B-O-P-I-S. You'll know more about that when we speak about this to test Walmart for connecting advertising. That's in-store, online, concentrated, and connected TVs. And structure your product data for AI discovery. Very important. You know that your product data meets ChatGPT, Gemini, et cetera. That is something that's going to work within Amazon and within Walmart as well as in your structured content files. Which used to be your website, but now just becomes a giant flat file for your product information. We'll probably talk about that more in another episode. But remember, as you got products that are selling on Amazon and you want to test small, iterate, and then scale, you will be positioned for where e-commerce is actually going, not where it was 5 years ago. And when I say going, I mean in 2026. So if this episode helped you understand why Walmart should matter in your business as an operator in 2026, Share it with another seller who needs to hear this, someone who's not an operator but needs to understand where they're going. If you're on the fence, remember this: the funnel is moving, the platforms are changing, the buyer behavior is shifting. You can wait and see how it plays out, or you can build a system strong enough to win no matter where the next sale actually happens. So as we say, get started imperfectly and something solid tends to happen along the way. I'm your host, Neil Twa, and on behalf of the whole team here at Voltage, We are grateful for you joining us on another episode of the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast Week in Review. I'll see you on next Friday's episode. Ask you this: if you're serious about building an e-commerce business starting on Amazon FBA, what if myself and my team worked with you one-on-one to execute the steps outlined in the podcast while helping you discover what the heck to sell, how to make sure it's profitable, and how to successfully launch a brand? Plus, how to do it under a consulting plus performance-driven model where I put a $10,000 skin-in-the-game guarantee for those that show up and are serious about building a real business done with us? If yes, text keyword profit to +1-417-413-4209. That's 1-417-413-4209. And I will personally respond with a few simple questions. If you're not in the US or Canada, please visit voltage dm dot com. That's voltage dm dot com. Click get started and book a no-pressure discovery call with me or a member of my team to learn more about the business builder. One-on-one coaching and mentoring for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and those looking to build an empire or retire using the power of e-commerce. Once again, thank you for listening, and be sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the High Voltage Business Builders podcast.