Walmart prepares online, mobile shopping experience for holidays
Walmart is making e-commerce easier for customers now – with an eye toward the upcoming holiday season.
During the last several months, Walmart has been making improvements to its site experience and launching new features designed to make online and mobile shopping easier, more engaging and more personalized. As a result, Walmart intends to have an enhanced digital shopping experience ready when customers begin their holiday shopping.
Following is an overview of some of Walmart’s most significant digital shopping enhancements:
Online styling
Walmart is partnering with visual outfitting and styling solution Stylitics to provide customers with a virtual view of how different items of clothing look together. Another upgrade is the “Choose Your Own Model” virtual fitting room feature launched earlier this year on Walmart.com. Walmart offers this feature using the virtual fitting room solution from Zeekit, a virtual fitting room start-up it purchased in May 2021. The Zeekit platform uses augmented reality to allow shoppers to virtually try on clothes.
Bilingual search
In another recently introduced digital offering, Walmart is enabling Spanish-speaking customers to opt in or out of a translated English language search query and search in Spanish for over 600,000 of the most commonly ordered items.
[Read more: Exclusive Q&A: Walmart combines human, AI insight for Spanish search]
Refreshed registry
Recent upgrades to Walmart’s digital registry experience include new recommended items, available on the web and coming soon to the app; as well as “Scan to Add,” a new feature rolling out to customers soon. This feature will allow customers to scan items in store using the Walmart app and add them directly to a registry.
Walmart’s registry also keeps track of who buys what item from a registry and when. The retailer says it will be launching many new registry capabilities in time for the holidays.
In an emailed commentary to Chain Store Age, two Walmart executives explained the discount giant’s strategic thinking in rolling out these digital upgrades.
“The closest Walmart store to each customer is the one in their pocket, and the new site features we’re announcing are designed to make shopping at that store simple,” said Julia Unger, VP of omni capabilities and financial services at Walmart E-commerce. “Whether customers are doing weekly errands, holiday shopping, or planning for life’s milestones, like a new baby, we’re removing the friction from our site experience to make shopping on the e-commerce site and the app easier, more engaging, and more personalized.
“As we head into the holiday season–one of the busiest times of year for our customers–our refreshed site experience will take the guesswork out of holiday shopping,” said Unger. “The new registry process, including new recommended items and Scan to Add, makes it easier for everyone in the family to choose gifts with confidence.”
“Additionally, we wanted to continue to create a more inclusive shopping experience for all customers, no matter what they look like or how they buy,” said Brock McKeel, senior VP of site experience at Walmart E-commerce. “The Choose Your Own Model features empowers all shoppers to find the best look for them, regardless of their body type. And improvements to the Spanish language experience reduce the stress of online shopping for millions of shoppers.”
Headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart operates approximately 10,500 stores and clubs under 48 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites.