Raul Vazquez, CEO of Walmart.com, is looking for big things from the website this holiday season.
"Customers are still spending for the holidays. Halloween was very good for us, so I suspect that Christmas is going to be great," he told Reuters last week.
Mr. Vazquez said he was looking for Walmart.com's sales to jump between 40 and 60 percent this year. Total online sales are expected to increase around 20 percent for the holiday period.
The website, like the rest of Wal-Mart, is looking to get a head start on the competition by posting deals early and often. Walmart.com plans to offer special sale prices including some web-only deals on Thanksgiving. It is also putting together special promotions for the week following the Black Friday weekend.
Walmart.com is also looking to more closely integrate its operation with Wal-Mart's stores, according to Mr. Vazquez. He said the "Site to Store" free delivery program has exceeded performance expectations and now represents more than a third of sales made by the website.
Another complement to the store environment is the website's "find in store" feature that tells consumers if a given product can be found in stock at a nearby location. Mr. Vazquez told Reuters the feature is "getting about a million uses a week."
Discussion Questions: What do you see as Walmart.com's greatest strengths and opportunities for growth? How do you explain the high expectations for the site's performance this holiday season versus online as a whole? What are your thoughts on the website's integration with Wal-Mart's store network?