Following a summer of acquisitions and growth from Amazon, a larger narrative began to form for legacy retailers. They were viewed as stagnate and doomed to fall to the growing e-commerce market. However, shifts in business strategy coupled with a newfound omni-channel blend has lead to encouraging results for big-box retailers. Walmart has been one of the major companies leading the charge into this new, e-commerce-fueled era.
Walmart, who recently re-adjusted their e-commerce strategy, showed their ability to aggressively compete with Amazon. Recent earnings and growth have left many market analysts feeling as if they underestimated the legacy retailer’s ability to build a presence on the e-commerce market.
As part of their new strategy, Walmart went on an acquisition spree similar to Amazon’s. To start, Walmart purchased Jet.com, an American e-commerce company, for $3 billion in August of last year. According to a press release on Walmart’s official website, the acquisition was intended to build upon Walmart’s existing e-commerce foundation and expand upon their efforts to integrate their online and in-store shopping experience. Walmart bought other “e-commerce-friendly” companies such as ModCloth, Shoebuy and Bonobos.
“Walmart.com will grow faster, the seamless shopping experience we’re pursuing will happen quicker, and we’ll enable the Jet brand to be even more successful in a shorter period of time. Our customers will win. It’s another jolt of entrepreneurial spirit being injected into Walmart.” – Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
The aggressive acquisitions have paid off for the legacy retailer, as Walmart recently reported online sales were up 50 percent for Q3. Following such growth, Walmart has looked to continue to expand their e-commerce efforts. The company has been experimenting with new ways to integrate Walmart.com with their physical stores.
Walmart now offers lower in-store prices for food and household items, according to the Wall Street Journal. For instance, a 32-ounce bottle of Heinz ketchup which is $3.38 online costs $2.83 in-store. Additionally, Walmart now offers free two-day shipping on orders over $35 and self-service “Pickup Towers” for customers picking up online orders in-store.
Walmart and other large legacy retailers are now pursuing omni-channel routes to combine their offline and online sales efforts. However, these methods and strategies aren’t exclusive to large conglomerates. Dirxion online catalogs give both retail and B2B companies a tool to create an omni channel approach for their businesses and aids any e-commerce operation. Both versatile and optimized with HTML5, Dirxion online catalogs ensure cross-platform and multi-browser performance standards are met.
