From the beginning of next month, Walmart Inc. (WMT.N) will charge some of its suppliers new costs to ship goods to its warehouses.
The move comes more than a month after Walmart, the biggest store in the country, cut its benefits for the whole year, citing rising costs of work and fuel. In particular, it spent more than $160 million more on fuel than it had planned.
The Wall Street Journal has already written about the details of the update, which was sent to “Esteemed Collect Suppliers” at Walmart.
“This programme is a response by Walmart to the huge changes and rising costs in the transportation industry over the past few years,” said the notice sent out on Friday.
It said, “The changes made… allow us to give cost responsibility to our collect providers, which helps us meet our usual low-value obligations to our clients.”
In June, Walmart’s U.S. President, John Furner, said that the company would have to pass on higher costs for fuel or shipping “to fairly price and protect the margins where appropriate.”
He also said at the time that a few providers were responding strongly to what the store was doing.
A Walmart representative confirmed the subtleties of the reminder and said, “The Collect programme puts Walmart and taking-interest providers in a position to adapt to the current economic climate.”
