News

Walmart.com getting a big overhaul

Walmart is looking at online as a growth opportunity in the face of some disappointing quarters.

August 4, 2014

It has long been the case that anyone visiting Amazon.com on more than one occasion will receive a voluminous amount of recommended products, based on previous search and purchase history. This sort of personalization of the web experience has become par for the course with many online retailers, but Walmart.com has not been one of them.

That's changing next year, according to the Associated Press, which reports that the retailer's online presence is about to be completely overhauled. According to the report, Walmart is looking at online as a growth opportunity in the face of some disappointing quarters.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s e-commerce sales increased by 30 percent to over $10 billion in its fiscal year that ended Jan. 31. By comparison, Wal-Mart's U.S. discount division has had five straight quarters of sales declines at stores opened at least a year. Wal-Mart sees big growth opportunity in the online business: Online sales still are only a fraction of the $473 billion Wal-Mart generated in overall annual revenue, dwarfed by Amazon's $60.9 billion in annual sales.

One other big change will be coming to Walmart.com: It currently takes six clicks to complete a purchase, while the new design promises something closer to Amazon's single-click purchase functionality.