Walmart (WMT) stock jumped Tuesday after reporting a fourth-quarter earnings beat. CFO John David Rainey joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss serving inflation-wary customers.

Rainey notes shoppers remain “choiceful" and are "using discretion" on bigger-ticket items. However, he says Walmart loyalty persists, with customers shopping "more frequently" despite being more careful with their spending.

While prices are lower versus last year in some categories, Rainey acknowledges lingering inflationary pressures in categories like food and consumables. He explains it's a “mixed bag,” as some areas see inflation while others experience deflation. Overall, Rainey says that "prices are still high for customers" due to inflation.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: John David, you think about the mindset of the consumer and the read through that you're getting to the consumer from this earnings period. And what that spells out about how they are also continuing to engage with Walmart versus some of your competitors. What would that read through be?

JOHN DAVID RAINEY: Well, it's been pretty consistent, Brad. We've seen that customers are continuing to be choiceful. They're using discretion with some of these larger ticket items. And when we look at the composition of the basket of when they're shopping with us, they're putting fewer items in that basket, but they're actually shopping with us more frequently. And we see that we're gaining share relative to others.

Which I think illustrates that this omnichannel retail model that we have that has a strong physical footprint but also a growing and thriving e-commerce arm to it is really resonating with customers.

SEANA SMITH: John David, when you take a look at the fact that we are starting to see and have started to see inflationary pressures begin to abate just a bit. If we do see more of this deflationary trend take hold, what exactly this means for Walmart and ultimately demand that you expect to see from the consumer in the longer run?

JOHN DAVID RAINEY: Well, prices have come down. We've seen certain categories like general merchandise as an example that is deflationary right now, prices are lower year over year. There are other categories, food and consumables, where we still see low single digit inflation fundamentally. Though we want lower prices for our customers and we're trying to do that working with our suppliers, even focusing on our own private brand.

Prices are still high relative to where they were a couple of years ago. But it's interesting because it's difficult to generalize right now about where some of these price pressures are. If you take a category like pet as an example, pet food is actually much higher year over year but pet supplies is actually much lower. So it's a bit of a mixed bag as we look out over the coming quarters, but prices are still high for customers.