Walmart reportedly making new price changes on 7,000 items

According to a report by Business Insider, Walmart is making significant price changes on thousands of items last week, the company's CEO said.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a second-quarter conference call that stores would cut prices on 7,200 items in various categories, Quartz wrote Thursday.

“We're lowering prices when it comes to value,” McMillon said. “It's great to see prices coming down. We're committed to lowering prices and we'll continue to work to get more price reductions so customers and members can save money.”

One of the reasons for this price drop is inflation. Walmart had previously announced that it would cut prices on 7,000 items, Quartz reported.

However, prices remain high for some dry and processed foods, namely dairy, eggs, sugar and meat, CNBC reported. Prices also remain high for items such as tea, coffee and frozen pizza.

Other items such as pet food, apples, potatoes, strawberries, sporting goods, and lawn and garden items are seeing prices drop.

At Walmart, profits rose faster than sales, but according to CNBC, this was due more to growth outside of retail in higher-margin business areas such as advertising than to higher product prices.

“We're not raising prices. We're lowering prices,” McMillon said on the conference call, according to CNBC. “We don't want product margins to increase. When we talk about margin improvement in our company, it's about the business mix.”

In the second quarter, Walmart's gross sales rose 4.87% to $169.34 billion, while in-store sales rose 4.2%, Yahoo News reported. Online sales rose 24% year over year and account for more than a fifth of total sales.