May 28, 2013
Walmart is building out the features of its mobile app, according to news from last week's CTIA Wireless event in Las Vegas. Techhive.com reported that Walmart will use big data about a customer's shopping habits to create a mobile shopping list in an attempt to "improve the in-store shopping experience."
Through analyzing what customers usually buy, the company thinks it can automatically compile a list that will come up whenever the shopper opens up the app. It's designed to anticipate what the customer will need, according to the article.
"The best shopping list is the one you don't have to create, so that's the one we're working on," said Gibu Thomas, Walmart's global head of mobile.
In his CTIA keynote speech, Thomas said the mobile shopping list is just one of the features that illustrates how mobile-influenced purchases will outpace e-commerce sales.
"The future of retailing is the history of retailing, of a personalized interactive experience for every customer delivered through a smartphone," Thomas said, adding that mobile already drives about one-third of the traffic to Walmart.com, spiking to more than 40 percent during the holiday season late last year.
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