Is Walmart fudging the numbers in its race to close the online shopping gap with Amazon? That’s what one former Walmart executive is claiming—and he’s filed a lawsuit to bring the accusations to light, Bloomberg reports.
Tri Huynh, who had previously worked for Amazon, was hired by Walmart in 2014 as a director of business development for its online marketplace, which allows outside vendors to sell products on Walmart.com alongside Walmart’s own products. He was terminated from his job in 2017 after reportedly warning his bosses about what he saw as questionable practices in the e-commerce division, like perceived overcharging of some merchants who sell through Walmart.com, failing to process $7 million in returned items, and per Recode, “lowering its standards to boost the size of its online catalogue.” (To be fair, if lowering standards were a crime, most of the New York City dating scene would be in jail.)
Huynh claims he was fired in retaliation for being a whistleblower and is seeking unspecified damages. Walmart denies the claim, saying Hunynh was sacked during a restructuring.
The race between Walmart.com and Amazon has led Walmart to spend billions on its web division, and while Bloomberg reports that its sales soared, all that spending cut into its overall profits and they need to save some money to invest in robot bees.
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