Walmart enters shoppable TV via exclusive deal with Roku
Walmart is partnering with a major streaming platform to sell products via a new digital touchpoint.
The discount titan is collaborating with Roku Inc. to enable consumers to buy items with just a click on their Roku remote while streaming television programs. The partnership will combine product discovery with a “seamless” checkout experience, the companies said.
“No one has cracked the code around video shoppability,” said William White, chief marketing officer, Walmart. “By working with Roku, we’re the first to market retailer to bring customers a new shoppable experience and seamless checkout on the largest screen in their homes – their TV.”
To purchase a Walmart product via Roku, viewers can press “OK” with the remote on a shoppable ad and proceed to checkout with their payment details easily pre-populated from Roku Pay, Roku’s payments platform. From there, tapping “OK” on the Walmart checkout page places the order. A Walmart purchase confirmation is then emailed with shipping, return, and support information.
OneView, Roku’s ad-buying platform for TV streaming, will have the exclusive capability to activate and measure these shoppable ads. Future iterations of this pilot will look for opportunities to build deeper customer relationships and new commerce touchpoints.
“We’re making shopping on TV as easy as it is on social,” said Peter Hamilton, head of TV commerce, Roku. “For years, streamers have purchased new Roku devices and signed up for millions of subscriptions with their Roku remote. Streaming commerce brings that same ease and convenience to marketers and shoppers.”
Walmart aggressively pursues livestream shopping
Walmart’s new partnership with Roku can be seen as an extension of its active efforts to build up livestreaming as a major digital commerce avenue. In February 2022, the discount giant launched eight livestream shopping events with Talkshoplive, a livestream shopping solution that enables consumers to interactively shop and make purchases within the video player on any embedded site.
And since hosting a successful holiday-themed shoppable livestream event on TikTok in December 2020, Walmart has tested at least 15 shoppable livestream events across five platforms. These have included multiple events hosted on the TikTok short video platform, as well as partnering with social/TV influencer Ree Drummond, also known as “Pioneer Woman,” and her daughter Alex Scott to demo some of their favorite products from the Walmart-exclusive Pioneer Woman collection in a livestream shopping event on Facebook.
In addition, the discount giant kicked off Cyber Week 2021 with a 30-minute livestream shopping event that was fully accessible on Twitter’s new livestream shopping platform. It marked the first time that a U.S. retailer has leveraged Twitter for livestream shopping. Walmart was also the first retailer to pilot livestream shopping on YouTube, and has launched its own Walmart Live livestream shopping platform.
Walmart Inc. operates more than 10,500 stores and clubs under 46 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites.