Walmart will unveil a new website next month, calling it a dramatic step change. The site will have a new look and feel and will feature more local and personalized elements.
One major change will make each category unique so that they feel like specialty stores. Walmart previously launched a home store, and the new site will debut a destination for fashion that will include content, with the previously announced Lord & Taylor flagship store a part of the new “fashion destination.” Walmart will build out specialty experiences for other categories starting later this year.
Take a look at the changes Walmart made to its home category, announced in mid-February, to get a sense of the type of features the new fashion category site may include:
– A Home destination page that features curated collections guided by design trends and in-house stylists.
– Nine shop-by-style options, including modern, mid-century, traditional, glam, industrial, bohemian, farmhouse, transitional and Scandinavian (my personal favorite is a combination of modern and mid-century).
– Editorial-style imagery and design tips that will enable customers to discover different styles and how to pull together a complete look.
With over 5,000 stores and clubs in the US, Walmart signaled its intention to ramp up its ecommerce capabilities in 2016 when it acquired Jet.com for $3 billion. It later named Jet founder Marc Lore President and CEO of Walmart US eCommerce, who penned Tuesday’s announcement.
Lore said the revamped website would include changes making the majority of the homepage personalized in some way.
“We’re introducing a new section that showcases top-selling items in a customer’s location (did you know that air mattresses recently trended in Dallas?). This area of the site will also feature a customer’s local store profile, including availability of services such as Online Grocery, order status, and Easy Reorder, which lets customers easily repurchase the items they buy most frequently in stores and online.”
Lore ended the announcement by stating more changes were on the way: “Introducing the new Walmart.com is an important step as we continue to build the customer shopping experience. Today’s announcement is just the beginning. There’s more to come.”
Here is a prime example why Ebay should never try and challenge the big players. These companies also carry their own merchandise. WHAT A CONCEPT!
Until they decide to open warehouses and purchase their own goods, Ebay needs to realize that they are NOT Amazon or Wal-Mart, and to just “Stay In Yo Lane” (LaVar Ball quote).
Memo To Ebay: Just embrace your seller base of folks who procure, warehouse, list, ship, and do all your dirty work for you. And get back to the basics of allowing smaller businesses to flourish. Then you can perhaps enjoy double-digit revenue growth like every other company in your market sector.
Wal-Mart closed many Sam’s Club outlets just for the purpose of turning them into eCommerce shipping centers. And they have unlimited funds to squash the competition. Since WM has no interest in selling used and collectible merchandise, this gives Ebay a clear advantage in these categories.
But, no, the suits at the Bay still think they can beat Amazon and Wal-Mart on prices of new & commodity items. The ends just will not meet if they think they can successfully combat the Goliaths of retail.
Walmart and Amazon continue to innovate, while eBay continues implement harebrained schemes that usually backfire on them. eBay should return to what made them famous in the first place: offering rare, out of production and hard-to-find items that you couldn’t purchase locally.
Our family loves shopping on line with walmart. We haven’t had a problem in over a year with the site and with free shipping to our doorstep its great….Ebay well bye bye.