Walmart Looks To Sell ModCloth, Will Keep Bonobos

Walmart has reportedly talked about selling three brands that it recently acquired to appeal to younger shoppers, all of which are unprofitable, according to Reuters. The retail giant bought Bonobos and ModCloth in 2017 and plus-size brand Eloquii in 2018 in a bid to compete with Amazon. The talk comes after Walmart was “unable to turn around the company’s economics” in the near future.

Walmart won’t sell Bonobos, but ModCloth will probably go this year. Walmart projects $1 billion in losses for its online eCommerce division, on revenue of between $21 billion and $22 billion.

Walmart also recently announced that it was going to completely overhaul Jet.com, the online marketplace startup it bought in 2016 at a cost of $3.3 billion. The site failed to capture the sort of response that the company wanted. Jet was supposed to reach urban dwellers and millennials, but it failed to drive traffic.

In other Walmart news, the company plans to invest $1.2 billion in China over the next 10 years to upgrade logistics, per the retailer’s social media account. Walmart also plans to renovate or set up over 10 logistics centers, Reuters reported.

Walmart has been moving to integrate its China retail network amid the “smart retail” movement in the country. Merchants, along with tech firms like Tencent Holdings and Alibaba have made arrangements to bring together high-street and eCommerce shopping.

The statement comes after a meeting in Japan between Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump during the weekend, which renewed hope for a trade deal between the U.S. and China.

The news comes after Carrefour agreed to sell 80 percent of its operations in China for €620 million ($704 million USD) to Suning.com. According to reports in May, Carrefour opened its first supermarket in Beijing in 1995 and operates locations in over 70 cities in the country. Net sales, however, reportedly fell about 10 percent in 2018 to €3.6 billion, even though Yonghui Superstores and Tencent Holdings took a stake in Carrefour China last year.