Walmart’s Price Transparency Play: Courting Customers—and Trump—With Open Ledger Rhetoric

Retail giant Walmart makes a show of cracking open its pricing playbook—just as election-year inflation rhetoric heats up. Because nothing says 'trust us' like a corporate promise during a political firestorm.

No hard numbers? No problem. The move reeks of PR calculus—what better way to hedge against populist backlash than performative transparency? Bonus points for timing: a masterclass in crisis prevention, conveniently rolled out before the next CPI report drops.

Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts yawn. 'Retailers always swear they’ll stop juicing margins... right after one more quarterly earnings beat.'

Confident Investing Starts Here:

• Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions
• Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter

Facts Not Politics

“We don’t aim to be a political figure. We are providing facts as they come,” Dan Bartlett, executive vice president of corporate affairs, said indiscussion about tariffs at the company’s annual shareholders’ week in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Last month, the world’s largest retailer said it WOULD increase prices on a broad range of products, citing higher costs from tariffs on Chinese and Latin American imports.

This infuriated the President, who blasted Walmart, declaring it should “eat the tariffs” rather than pass its increased costs onto consumers.

Mind the Gap

Bartlett said that Walmart aims to be consistent with what it shares internally among employees and externally to the public. He said it has an obligation to tell investors and customers how it was thinking about future guidance.

Walmart has said that price changes will become more pronounced as the year progresses. It said that some prices won’t change, thanks in part to production moves and some suppliers changing materials to mitigate tariffs.

The company vowed to maintain price gaps with competitors and keep prices as low as possible.

That is vital for Walmart as it is seen as a value retailer for shoppers feeling the pressure on their budgets from rises in the cost of living.

Is WMT a Good Stock to Buy Now?

On TipRanks, WMT has a Strong Buy consensus based on 28 Buy and 2 Hold ratings. Its highest price target is $120. WMT stock’s consensus price target is $109.71 implying an 12.02% upside.

See more WMT analyst ratings