Walmart is continuing its digital transformation efforts with a major redesign of its online and mobile customer experiences.
As part of its latest e-commerce initiative, the retail giant is launching a product-focused home page that features a new “social-inspired scroll” with rich imagery and live video. The design enables online customers to browse Walmart’s product selection on its site and app the same way they would scroll a social media app.
In addition, the new Walmart online shopping experience highlights products that are most relevant to a customer at a specific moment, such as holiday gifts or items for watching a sporting event. As a result, the retailer said its suppliers and third-party marketplace sellers will have new, time-sensitive and contextual opportunities for showcasing relevant products and storytelling.
Walmart is creating a more social media-type online social shopping experience, including a focus on video, as TikTok both becomes a more popular online shopping platform and faces a possible ban from the US government. Chief Walmart rival Amazon recently began rolling out a TikTok-like, product- and video-focused digital shopping experience called Inspire.
Interestingly, media reports indicate that Walmart, a long-established TikTok social commerce partner, may take part in creating a new TikTok operation that would be separate from its current Chinese majority owner ByteDance.
