MEMBER PROFILE

Redefining local

Walmart Canada continues to invest in Nova Scotia and its residents

TOM FLAIM REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT WALMART CANADA

If you close your eyes, you can likely visualize the entire layout of your local Walmart store. Whether it’s Bayer’s Lake, Dartmouth Crossing, or one our 18 locations in Nova Scotia, you can see the deals-of-the-day as soon as the sliding doors open. When you walk forward, you’ll probably stop to browse some seasonal apparel before heading over to the grocery aisle to grab your favorite snacks. And before you leave, you just might loop around to Electronics to catch a quick glance at that big screen TV at the top of your Black Friday wish list.

What you probably can’t picture is how these tens of thousands of diverse products perfectly found their way to a dedicated spot on the shelf. The long answer is very complicated. It involves decades of retail experience, state of the art distribution centres, artificial intelligence, telematics, robotics, and other futuristic technology.

The short answer is far less complicated. It starts and finishes with our devoted associates. Walmart’s lasting success was built from boots on the ground where our hard-working associates meet our valued customers.

Across the province, Walmart employs more than 4,000 people who call Nova Scotia home. More than 1,300 of those associates live in the Halifax Regional Municipality. Teams in operations, customer service, merchandising, pharmacy, HR, compliance, and many other departments must coordinate and cooperate to serve the needs of our customers, face to face.

When this many locals work for an organization, they develop a tremendous amount of pride for their store, their team, and their customers. They also push to give back to their community by campaigning for local charities and staying on the lookout for new local business partners.

Each year, with the support of our customers, Walmart Canada donates and helps raise money in-store for local chapters of our four national charity partners. Every local dollar raised for Children’s Miracle Network, Breakfast Club of Canada, Food Banks Canada, and the Canadian Red Cross, stays in Nova Scotia. This year, Walmart was the leading IWK fundraiser with more than $1.3 million raised to contribute to the incredible work of our inspiring healthcare professionals.

These contributions can also adapt to what the community needs. When Hurricane Fiona devastated our region earlier this fall, the Walmart Foundation donated more than $135,000 to Canadian Red Cross relief efforts and supplemented aid with food products to help those without power.

If you’re still doing some virtual shopping at that store in your mind, you’ll see a growing number of local products since your first Walmart visit. Billions of dollars in product are purchased annually from Canadian suppliers with tens of millions directly from companies based in Nova Scotia. Buying local has become a top priority for our customers and our company.

Innovation doesn’t stop at product offerings. Every part of the business must evolve to stay relevant, competitive, and a place where today’s customer wants to shop. Within the next three to five years, all five stores in the Halifax region are receiving significant upgrades. Our first Halifax store opened in 1994 and these regular investments help ensure we continue to provide the community with our signature everyday low prices for many years to come.

This is our city and our province. As new members of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, your priorities are our priorities and we’re excited to work even closer with our strong local business community. We’re proud to be a member of the Chamber and a partner in helping Halifax and the rest of Nova Scotia live better.