Our associates are working hard to bring Diwali – also known as the festival of lights – to life in our stores, including Anshul Punetha, manager, global foods, who is responsible for sourcing the South Asian products that make their way onto Walmart’s shelves.
Anshul arrived in Canada from India in 2018, landing a job with one of Walmart’s suppliers. In 2021, Anshul joined Walmart Canada as a category manager for our East Asian portfolio before moving to the South Asian desk, leveraging his familiarity with the category and the customer.
“Many mainstream Canadian retailers are now embracing Diwali and other holidays like Eid, Ramadan, Lunar New Year, and Rosh Hashanah,” shares Anshul.
“Everyone is trying to solve different parts of the shopping puzzle, but Walmart is best equipped to complete the entire shopping basket across categories, whether in store or online.”
During Diwali, families light diyas (oil lamps), candles and lanterns throughout their homes, and come together with loved ones to celebrate through traditional food, games, and festive decor.
Anshul thinks that our customers will be delighted to discover our expanded Diwali offers on these and the many other products they’ll be looking for during this festive season.
Walmart Canada’s Diwali footprint has increased more than 20% since last year and is now in more than half of our stores.
We have 80% more offers as a total one-stop shop this year, with participation from almost every part of the business.
“The product range is quite large, as we tried to think of all the things the customers would expect,” Anshul says.
“We’re a one-stop-shop for all Canadians and that is true for Diwali as well – we have everything from the delicious food customers are looking for to the decor, gifting and even cleaning products to make their holidays shine.”
Supporting local and global suppliers
All year round, we’re proud to support local suppliers while also expanding our global food and product offerings so we can best serve all our customers.
This year, we have exclusive Diwali celebration solutions from some of our local suppliers as well as products from top international brands.
Verka Foods, one of our leading suppliers in global foods, worked closely with Walmart to conceptualize and design a Diwali gift box, which includes lamps, oil, an incense stick, and wick. This British Columbia-based supplier is family owned and operated.
On the decor front, our customers can find traditional idols made of brass, lamps, and Diwali paper products from Also Sophia, a local Canadian, woman-owned supplier.
New to Walmart this year, Anshul and his team have brought in sweet-and-savory snack gift boxes from Haldiram’s, a top Indian snacks brand.
Overall, Anshul said it’s been heartening to see how Walmart is working hard to serve Canada’s multicultural customers. And this goes beyond our food team. He pointed to how the toy team sprang into action last year when they learned playing cards is a popular activity during Diwali. The team promoted playing cards in stores and customers loved it!
“We sold twice as many decks of playing cards than what we would have done during other times of the year,” Anshul said.