Photo: Walmart
Has Walmart Built a Better Website Than Amazon?
Walmart earlier this week unveiled its redesigned website and app, which immediately drew comparisons to Amazon.com.
Tom Ward, chief e-commerce officer at Walmart U.S., writes on a company blog that the retailer has made “hundreds of enhancements” over the past year to improve the shopping experience for the chain’s customers.
Walmart’s new homepage features bigger photos, live video and a “social-inspired scroll so customers can browse our selection just as they’d scroll their favorite social media apps,” writes Mr. Ward.
The newly redesigned website is intended to make it easier for customers to find the products they need and want from Walmart and its growing network of marketplace sellers. The redesign will also benefit suppliers and third-party sellers with “new opportunities to showcase more relevant products and better tell their stories,” according to Mr. Ward.
A Fast Company article says that Walmart’s redesign comes when some Amazon customers may feel disaffected by increases in Prime subscription fees and grocery delivery charges. Walmart also offers product search results that are not cluttered with a long list of sponsored products at the top.
An article on The Verge also claims that Walmart has an opportunity to grab disgruntled customers from Amazon. Walmart.com’s new look, it asserts, offers shoppers more access to products connected to the current season and upcoming holidays or events. The report also highlights the site’s search function, which “yields several rows of products matching your search that you can scroll through horizontally.”
Walmart has been on a multi-year mission to improve its digital operations and create seamless shopping experiences regardless of the point of fulfillment. The chain offers customers the option of express, next-day and two-day delivery as well as in-store and curbside pickup.
The retailer is expected to lay out its strategic vision today at its 2023 Investment Community Meeting. Walmart previously forecast sales growth of two to 2.5 percent this year, excluding fuel, with the expectation that sales will slow in the second half as consumers limit discretionary purchases in the face of inflation and economic uncertainty.
The company, according to reports, has laid off over 2,000 warehouse employees at online fulfillment centers in California, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas. Walmart has been automating fulfillment to improve performance and reduce costs.
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Walmart Turns Up the Excitement and Discovery With Brand-New Walmart.com Experience — Walmart
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Walmart seems to be gunning for disenchanted Amazon shoppers with its new website redesign - Fast Company
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Walmart’s redesigned website looks better than Amazon — The Verge
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2023 Investment Community Meeting — Walmart
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Walmart lays off 2,000 warehouse workers — CNN
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Walmart Lays Off Fulfillment Center Workers as Sales Slow and Robots Go to Work — RetailWire
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What do you think of Walmart’s redesigned website and app? Do you agree with assessments that Walmart has an opportunity to attract disaffected Amazon customers?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Melissa Minkow
Director, Retail Strategy, CI&T
Neil Saunders
Managing Director, GlobalData
Amazon Prime’s customer base declined from 170 million to 168 million in 2022. That is just a blip in the numbers, but the telling part is that membership didn’t increase for the first time. Are we dealing with the maturity of a product life cycle or a growing dissatisfaction with Amazon? Or, more likely, are we dealing with pandemic-era stats? Pre-pandemic (2018), Prime had 112 million members. Despite the loss noted in 2022, growth from 112 million to 168 million is quite impressive.
The description of Walmart’s website efforts sounds like they are moving in a direction the online customer responds to. I hope that is the objective. To suggest that they are doing it to grab disaffected Prime members is inaccurate. Hopefully all the decisions were made to design a better website, as they should be doing regularly–with or without Amazon’s competition.
More retailers are focusing on making digital experiences discovery-oriented, versus simplistic and mission-driven. I think this is a great move for Walmart, but I don’t know that it would be the variable that steals customers from Amazon.
Great point. Amazon, Staples, Office Depot, etc. are great if you know the exact part number or UPC of the item you want but do nothing to facilitate discovery the way a well-merchandised physical store with well-trained staff could. As a merchant, my value lay in understanding what a shopper wanted to do, to connect them with an item they didn’t know about when they walked in the door. “Shoppers don’t know what they don’t know” is a major point of failure for most retail websites even 25 years in…
The redesigned Walmart website and app are easy to search, filter and navigate products. It is very similar to Amazon’s website and app, but I wouldn’t say it is better. The new website and app will make consumers take the Walmart Marketplace more seriously as an alternative to, or an augmentation of, the Amazon Marketplace. Walmart has aggressively added more sellers to its marketplace and now with a better user experience, it is a strong rival for Amazon.
I downloaded the Walmart app about a year ago when I got frustrated with an Amazon search. I quickly found the product I was looking for and it was delivered two days later. The “out for delivery” and “delivery completed” emails were timely and accurate. I have since been drawn into the Walmart universe to buy groceries, tools, storage containers and even a work shirt for chopping firewood. I used to visit Walmart as homework for my retail research. I’m now a shopper and buyer and it’s a direct result of a great website and app experience.
Before the redesign, Walmart’s website was a hot mess. Results from the marketplace, often with absurd prices, would get intermingled with products sold directly from Walmart and its stores. The new iteration is much cleaner and easier to shop. There is more inspiration too, which is good in terms of Walmart being able to push non-consumables. All that said, because they are mass merchants which an enormous SKU count, both Walmart and Amazon require the customer to work to find what they want. There is also a lot of clutter in terms of navigation, menus and options. Both need to simplify and personalize more.
” Both need to simplify and personalize more.” Absolutely. Neither should be copying the other. The winner will be the one that best satisfies the customer’s shopping needs.
The customer will be the ultimate judge of which website/mobile app they like better. That said, the constant comparisons between the two are interesting but the real question to me is “what about everyone else?” Amazon and Walmart have raised their game, but what about others in the mass, grocery, and club space? That’s the real topic we should be focused on in my view…
These changes, in conjunction with the Walmart Creator platform, will improve product discovery and take steps out of the purchase process. It will absolutely improve the experience for existing core and casual customers, and potentially offer an alternative to dissatisfied Amazon shoppers.
Walmart’s redesigned eCommerce website and mobile app experience reflect the changing consumer behaviors and preferences. The art of discovery across channels requires an engaging, storytelling approach to content consistent with the brand promise. However, Amazon has largely maintained its dominance in the retail fulfillment and marketplace, despite not having the best CX and UX across its website and mobile app.
The race to the consumers’ loyalty and engagement will not only center around the website or mobile app experience, but their spending will go to those companies that execute and deliver on their brand promises. Walmart has continued to invest in the capabilities, resources, tools, technology, and innovations to be a force to be reckoned with and a direct competitor to Amazon. A redesigned mobile and website experience is part of the mix
While there’s certainly nothing wrong with WalMart improving their website – indeed I both hope and expect every other retailer does the same…constantly – I don’t see a particular connection to Amazon. Does WM have an opportunity ?? Yes, but it has always had one…that’s what “competition” is all about.
I leave this to experts. But the first thing I saw is a glaring error on the Walmart website! No Walmart stores were listed near the suburb where I live near Chicago, and I am ten minutes from one. It omitted about four stores– I told an associate about it. Maybe this is a reason for declining sales. Rule number 1–let customers know the store exists.