The States Quo of Walmart and Challenges and Opportunities of Their Online Transformation in China Based on SWOT Analysis

This study aims to analyze the opportunities and challenges that Wal-Mart has encountered in its online transformation in China and propose some practical suggestions based on Walmart’s current situation and our results. Questionnaires and comment analysis are the main methods used for data collection. A total of 110 valid questionnaires were received, and trends were analyzed through different age groups. There is a number of age-related shopping habits being found. The younger people pay more attention to product prices and shopping convenience, while older people pay almost no attention to imported products. Comment analysis obtains the attitude and evaluation of the Wal-Mart app by analyzing the frequently used words of consumers for the Wal-Mart shopping app. "Garbage" is the most frequently mentioned word by customers, which means that the customer experience of WalMart's online shopping app is very unoptimistic at this stage. Then, SWOT analysis is used for a detailed analyse of outside challenges of Chinese e-commerce and the internal situation of Walmart’s online shopping platform. Finally, we provide several marketing strategies based on strength-threat and opportunity-weakness, which could provide some practical suggestions of online transformation for Wal-Mart.