Walmart Pulling Confederate Flag Merchandise From Shelves

Wal-Mart CEO Douglas McMillon on the store’s decision to remove Confederate flag merchandise, the outlook for retail in U.S. and overseas, e-commerce and the minimum wage debate.

The country’s largest retailer is pulling Confederate flag merchandise out of stores and offline in wake of the Charleston church shooting, according to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon.

“We don’t want any of the merchandise that we sell to be offensive,” McMillon told FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.

According to McMillon, the company has more than 7 million [Confederate Flag merchandise] items available online or through the marketplace and wanted to take a very cautious approach to the situation.

“We want everybody to shop at Walmart. We want everybody to be comfortable coming in to our stores. And we want our associates to feel good about where they work,” he said.

The Fortune 500 company generated $486 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year and announced plans to revamp the business.

“Here in the U.S., lower fuel prices … have been helpful for the consumer. Being further behind the crisis is obviously helpful, too. Consumer debt levels are about 16 percent lower than they were at the peak. We are starting to see customers spend more money on high ticket items … I think those are encouraging signs. As it relates to consumer goods, the business is not dramatically different from an environmental point of view than it was before, and our goal is to be able to win market share,” he said.

McMillon also said the company is looking to capitalize on the e-commerce business by “serving customers in new ways.”

“In the future you’ll have access to more items … increased price transparency … and you’ll be able to decide whether you want to have an item delivered to your home … business … whether you want to pick it up in a store … and we are positioning ourselves to be able to serve our customers in all of those ways,” he said.

In February, Walmart announced it would raise wages for more than 100,000 U.S. workers. Depending on the department, employees can now earn between $9.90 and $18.81 an hour.

“It’s a business decision. We want to make sure that we’ve got strong talent for the future and that we are retaining and developing people that can become store managers and do great things within the company,” he said.