8th & Walton

Terry Clear, Director of Replenishment and Sales Insights at 8th & Walton, discusses the impact of ongoing trade uncertainty on Walmart suppliers for 2026. Terry provides actionable advice on how suppliers can prepare for volatility, manage shipping rates and cargo demand, balance inventory and cash flow, and make effective sourcing decisions amid shifting tariffs and AI-driven market changes.

Lainie: How should suppliers be planning for 2026 amid so much trade uncertainty?

Terry: Uncertainty—or volatility—is the new normal. It’s going to continue for an extended period. Who knows how long? Suppliers need to be more nimble and take more factors into consideration in their sourcing decisions.

Are you a Walmart supplier in need of guidance? Get in touch!

Lainie: One thing that’s been coming up in the media is that shipping rates and cargo demand are dropping right now. What can suppliers do to protect their margins?

Terry: This is another area where it’s not as straightforward as it used to be. Suppliers need to look at the cost savings they can get from lower transportation costs. Do they want to bring in more inventory now? They have to balance that with inventory carrying costs and cash flow.

This is where I talked about the many different decisions suppliers must make in an unsettled or volatile environment—timing, sourcing costs, inventory control, inventory carrying costs, and other related factors.

Lainie: If tariffs continue, what is the best move for suppliers to keep their products affordable and on the shelves? And there’s a second part to this question: I’ve been reading about AI agents recommending alternative products. Competition could be happening in this new way of consumers being introduced to and finding products. So what can suppliers do?

Terry: This also ties back to the sourcing decisions suppliers need to make. One thing to look at is whether there are countries less susceptible to higher tariffs being imposed—and whether suppliers can shift sourcing there. They also need to consider how much of those tariff costs they can afford to absorb.

There are many more complex sourcing decisions that suppliers need to evaluate, but they don’t have to do it in isolation. All suppliers are facing the same challenges. The one that wins is the one that figures out this puzzle the best.

Heather Reid, Director of Education Canada and Accounting Insights at 8th & Walton, joined us to discuss the critical importance of supplier invoices matching purchase orders.

Lainie: Heather, when it comes to supplier invoices and purchase orders, what does Walmart mean by a perfect match? And why does this matter so much for timely payment?

Heather: It’s a great question, Lainie, and it has to do with the fact that if your invoice does not match a purchase order and a receiving, there are going to be delays in payment. That purchase order and invoice need to mirror each other. If there are any differences, the system does not know enough to do an auto-match and it puts the invoice into a research mode.

Lainie: That does not sound good.

Heather: No, it is not a good thing because that means a person has to get involved to reconcile and work the invoice and try to match it up. What we really want to happen is for the system to do all the work for us from both the Walmart side and the supplier side.

Lainie: You were talking about how they do not mirror each other and that this can delay payment. You get a person involved and that makes things even more difficult. So what are the kinds of things that suppliers should be doing before invoicing to make sure they are going to have that perfect match?

Heather: The first thing you want to do is, when that purchase order comes in, make sure you agree to the terms and check whether anything is wrong with the costs or quantities. Anything with incorrect UPC codes needs to be fixed before you do anything related to shipping. There are applications within Retail Link that suppliers can use to request a change to a purchase order if it is incorrect. One of those is NOVA, and another is in Supplier One under Orders in the menu on the left-hand side. So you want to make sure you get that purchase order corrected before you even submit an invoice.

Are you a Walmart supplier in need of guidance? Get in touch!

Lainie: Now, when despite everyone taking precautions and trying to do things right, the invoice ends up in a manual review, what steps can suppliers take to get the payments back on track?

Heather: We really want to find out what the root cause is. Why did it not match? Was it a receiving problem? It could be, and sometimes that is out of our control.

But if it is something that we did not include on our invoice, we want to go back, look at the purchase order, and compare it to the invoice. Are we missing an allowance that we were supposed to give to Walmart?

Sometimes the invoice is not structured in the same way line by line, so the lines do not actually line up. Line one on the purchase order needs to be line one on the invoice to get that mirror effect. If there are still issues after that, we need to reach out to Walmart and ask what else we can do. After we have done everything we can on our end, the goal is to find out how to ensure that payment runs through in an automated and smooth way.

In this episode of 3-Minute Insights, we speak with Heather Reid, Director of Education Canada, and Accounting Insights for 8th & Walton, about the common confusion between Walmart’s Demand Forecast and Order Forecast.

Lainie: When you’re working with new suppliers, what’s the biggest mistake you see when they confuse Walmart’s demand forecast with the order forecast?

Heather: Absolutely—there’s a lot of confusion between these two because they’re actually different data sets within Walmart’s reporting. One looks at actual consumer sales—what Walmart’s customers are going to buy in stores—and that’s the demand forecast. Then there’s what’s called the order forecast, which is Walmart’s best projection of what they’re actually going to order from a supplier before the official purchase order is issued.

Are you a Walmart supplier in need of guidance? Get in touch!

Lainie: Can you provide an example of when the demand forecast and the order forecast would differ?

Heather: Excellent question, because they always differ. They never match up—and that’s where the biggest confusion comes into play. Everyone assumes the demand and order forecasts should align, but they really shouldn’t.

Think of it this way: if you’re having a dinner party, you’ll buy your food in advance. That’s planning for demand—how many people are you inviting, and how much will they eat? Suppose you have twelve guests. You plan for twelve meals based on your experience, trends, or seasonal preferences. That’s the demand forecast.

But the order forecast is when you actually go out to shop. You consider what you already have in your fridge or pantry—what’s in your existing “inventory.” You also account for practical factors like minimum order quantities or packaging requirements. So, the order forecast takes into account what’s on hand, what’s inbound, and what’s needed to meet the planned demand. These two numbers will never perfectly match.

Lainie: Given that they always differ, how should a supplier respond to those differences?

Heather: The key is to look at both forecasts. Many suppliers focus only on the order forecast because that’s tied directly to what Walmart will purchase. But the demand forecast tells the story behind the order—it reflects the rate of sale, past performance, and special events like rollbacks that may not repeat.

Understanding both gives suppliers the full picture. When an order forecast comes through, knowing the context behind the demand helps suppliers respond more accurately and avoid missteps.

Lainie: So when a supplier pays attention to both, they’re better prepared to respond and less likely to make mistakes.

Heather: Absolutely, Lainie. For sure.

This week on 3-Minute Insights, Lainie is joined by Terry Clear, director of Replenishment and Sales Insights at 8th & Walton. We’re discussing the impact of Walmart’s technology investments on this year’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales and the need for Walmart suppliers to update their mindset regarding Walmart’s tech capabilities.

Lainie: There were a lot of media reports about how tech, including but not limited to AI, was a major driver of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Do you think there are gaps between how suppliers perceive Walmart’s tech capabilities and their use of technology, and what is actually happening?

Terry: Oh, absolutely. And as is common with most things, perception lags reality. Walmart is aggressively moving ahead with technology, updating its website and its app, using AI, and looking for other ways of delivery, and yet many suppliers still think of Walmart as that big box that you drive to, navigate through, buy a product, and leave.

Terry: While all that’s true, Walmart is aggressively moving ahead with technology and customers are embracing this technology. So suppliers need to find out how to participate in that.

Are you a Walmart supplier in need of guidance? Get in touch!

Lainie: What would you say are the top two or three capabilities that you would urge suppliers to build so they can plug into Walmart’s tech and Walmart’s tech goals?

Terry: Primarily, it is around their item content and being able to understand that. Discovering and purchasing items today is different than it was even five years ago. Previously, it was a search: you searched for an item, much like you did a Google search for a term. Now it is much more conversational.

You might say, “Make recommendations for a holiday party,” and it would give you things to purchase. Think about using AI: you can now purchase Walmart products from a ChatGPT prompt. Over the holiday weekend, 10 million shoppers used the Walmart app while they were in the store. Although some of that was “just help me find where this is on the shelf,” people are using the apps to find items.

Year over year, home delivery increased 57%. So that’s another way shoppers are purchasing products in different ways. What you need to do is have your product set up so that the customer can find it—whether they are doing a traditional search on the website, using a search on the app, or doing a prompt through ChatGPT or some other AI platform—and so that your item is discoverable by the picker at the store, so they can get the item picked and delivered to the house.

Those are just incremental or add-on capabilities to “I’m just going to drive to the Walmart store and make a purchase.”

We’re joined this week by Terry Clear, director of Replenishment and Sales Insights at 8th & Walton, and we’re discussing how Walmart is seeing a lot of traffic through ChatGPT, unlike Amazon. In addition, we’ve learned that Target has partnered with OpenAI, indicating a broad embrace of AI across the retail industry.