Amazon Prime U.S. memberships may have fallen for the first time ever last year—at least according to one estimate—leaving its rival Walmart ready to lure over disgruntled shoppers. Yesterday, the retail giant unveiled a polished overhaul of its website and app to make them more engaging and personalized. Both appear to borrow heavily from Amazon. They feature a checkerboard of eye-grabbing photos, plus catchier names for categories, deals, and seasonal promotions—”Fun decor under $20″ or “Your Peeps HQ.”
The redesign is intended to offer an experience that “better mirrors the way our customers love to shop, highlighting the items that matter most to them at any given moment,” explains Walmart’s chief e-commerce officer Tom Ward. Shoppers should expect to now encounter “rich imagery,” “live video,” and “a new social-inspired scroll” that help “bring Walmart’s massive assortment to life.”
The move appears to be more than a grab for merely its Seattle rival’s disaffected consumer base. “This new experience doesn’t just benefit our customers,” the press release says. “It also provides our suppliers and Marketplace sellers new opportunities to showcase more relevant products and better tell their stories” as they “grow their businesses on walmart.com.”
Amazon’s particular e-commerce business model is increasingly turning off both shoppers and sellers. The company is facing complaints about the marketplace being overrun with untrustworthy junk, the search results being rigged, and the AmazonBasics label straight-up cloning sellers’ popular products, to name a few. More recently, it’s turned to upping prices for essentially the same service—it hiked annual Prime memberships by $20 last year to $139, while Amazon Fresh deliveries stopped being free a month ago.
All this gives Walmart a good opening, and comes as the retailer is tapping into its reputation for competitive prices, its huge brick-and-mortar presence, and the planet’s largest grocery business in a bid to attract higher earners. A redesigned app and website don’t hurt, and Walmart is expected to lay out a clearer strategy for the coming year’s growth opportunities at an investor event on Wednesday in Tampa, Florida.
Walmart has been spoiling for Amazon’s customers for years. Back in 2020, shoppers got Walmart Plus—its $98-a-year competitor to Prime—and a membership to that program now includes free same-day grocery delivery, free online shipping, a Paramount+ streaming service subscription, and exclusive Black Friday deals. (Sound familiar?)
Meanwhile, Walmart continues piling on new features. Shoppers annoyed by the $10 delivery charge at Amazon-owned Whole Foods might happily pay another $7 per month for InHome, Walmart’s over-the-top direct-to-fridge grocery delivery service. Meanwhile, as Amazon’s physical footprint is shrinking, Walmart is busy gussying up stores and breaking ground on new ones.
Finally, when you search for an everyday item like a spatula on Walmart’s redesigned website and app, you won’t get offered sponsored results for brands like IOCBYHZ and KLAQQED. At least for now, anyway.
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