Walmart's Growth Chief Seth Dallaire Aims to Turn Shopper Data Into Profit

what happened

According to a Wall Street Journal profile, Seth Dallaire, Walmart's chief growth officer, has built his reputation on monetizing shopper information and advertising. He translates tech-industry ad strategies into terms store staff understand, emphasizing lower prices for customers. Dallaire, 56, spent most of his career at Amazon and was working at Instacart when Walmart hired him five years ago.

He now runs most of Walmart's fast-growing units worldwide, including its advertising arm, the Walmart+ membership, a third-party marketplace and the Vizio smart TV business. Those units account for about a third of the retailer's operating income, the company's figures show. Walmart says it reaches 280 million people weekly across 19 countries and sells anonymized behavior insights to manufacturers. Its ad revenue was close to $6.4 billion last fiscal year, compared with $68.6 billion at Amazon.

Pressure is building. Domestic in-store sales have slowed, and Amazon overtook Walmart in annual revenue earlier this year to become the largest US company. Dallaire also led the $2.3 billion Vizio purchase in 2024 and the $1.4 billion acquisition of Vibe.co this year.

why it matters

For investors, the piece shows how Walmart leans on high-margin advertising to offset razor-thin grocery margins of 2% to 3%, while digital ads can reportedly earn 70% to 90%. It is an executive profile rather than a financial disclosure, so it offers no new earnings figures.

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