Walmart Cutting Merchandise Orders

Walmart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.) is reportedly cutting orders with suppliers this quarter until it can address the rising inventory mentioned in the company’s last earnings report.

Bloomberg News has reviewed an email sent by an ordering manager at the company’s headquarters to a supplier, saying: “We are looking at reducing inventory for Q3 and Q4.”

Other suppliers received similar messages.

U.S. inventory growth at Walmart outstripped sales gains in the second quarter at a faster rate than at the retailer’s biggest rivals. Bloomberg reports that merchandise has been piling up because consumers have been spending less freely than Walmart projected, and the company has forfeited some sales because it doesn’t have enough workers in stores to keep shelves adequately stocked.

“We are managing our inventory appropriately,” a Walmart spokesman told a Bloomberg interviewer. “We feel good about our inventory position.”

However, in a previous interview, the spokesman, David Tovar, had acknowledged the order pullback, though he had said it isn’t “across the board” and is happening “category by category.”

“In some cases, we’re going to be taking less, in some we’re going to be taking more,” Tovar said.