Walmart Expands E-commerce Ambitions With New Investment Arm

The purchase of Jet, an upstart e-commerce venture, for $3.3 billion last summer was meant to give Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, a way to transform its online retail strategy. The company said this week that it has formed Store No. 8, an internal venture meant to hatch new online retail businesses. Behind the strategic shift has been a recognition that Walmart, long dominant in the world of physical retailing, has fallen far behind in the business of selling goods online — and particularly far behind Amazon. [...] Walmart already has an internal research lab, WalmartLabs of San Bruno, that has focused on developing new e-commerce applications for the retailer. The new venture takes its name from an early Walmart store, built in an old bottling plant, that the company founder Sam Walton would use to try out new retail strategies. Store No.