Walmart launching beta of customer behavior solution for suppliers

Walmart will provide a broader range of shopper insights to its supplier partners.

On Wednesday, June 5, 2024, the retail giant’s Walmart Data Ventures division is rolling out the beta version of Digital Landscapes, a new self-serve insights solution within the Walmart Luminate comprehensive data analytics product suite, designed to help suppliers understand shoppers better.

Until now, Walmart suppliers were able to make decisions based on insights gathered after a purchase had been made. Now, Digital Landscapes provides the ability to track online shopper behavior before a purchase.

According to Walmart, with Digital Landscapes, suppliers can learn where customers start their journey to find a product, when customers find a product, how a product compares to others in the category, and what a customer’s path to purchase looks like.

Suppliers can utilize the solution to analyze daily engagement trends and tracking sources that are driving traffic, such as searches on the Walmart e-commerce site and mobile app, external search engines, and social platforms. 

Walmart first launched Walmart Luminate, which provides a unified picture of category performance and consumer trends at scale, in 2021. The company recently announced the international expansion of the Walmart Luminate platform, beginning with Walmex in Mexico, followed by Walmart Canada later this year.

Walmart has continued to update Walmart Luminate with new features, the most recent being the ability to let suppliers combine insights from Luminate with the Walmart Connect retail media network.

Following initial beta release, Digital Landscapes will be put into general availability later in summer 2024.

Linda Lomelino, group director, Walmart Data Ventures, emailed exclusive commentary on Digital Landscapes to Chain Store Age.

"Many suppliers struggle to understand how customers find their products online,” Lomelino said in the email. "With Walmart Data Ventures’ beta launch of Walmart Luminate Digital Landscapes, we aim to provide full visibility to the customer journey by unlocking insight into pre-purchase behaviors. To date, we’ve provided actionable insight into post-purchase shopper behavior and omnichannel performance for suppliers. 

"Now with pre-purchase behavioral data powered by Walmart.com and the Walmart mobile app, we can lend new insights into how customers find, consider, and choose products, informing new retail strategies to put businesses in a better position to drive conversions and succeed with Walmart customers," Lomelino said.

Headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart Inc. operates more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites in 19 countries.