Walmart kicks off with redesigned e-commerce platform

The world’s largest retailer Walmart has unveiled a complete redesign of its North American e-commerce platform to deliver a more local and personalised experience for shoppers.

The new website, which is now live, sports a completely redesigned look and feel, as well as several new features, including specialty shopping experiences.

The move comes after Walmart disappointed the market in February with a slowdown in its e-commerce growth to 23 per cent in the fourth quarter, down from 50 per cent in the prior quarter.

The retail giant is forecasting a further 40 per cent increase in its e-commerce sales in fiscal 19.

Walmart’s president and chief executive of US e-commerce Marc Lore oversaw the changes and said that personalisation was a key focus for the retail giant, with new sections introduced that showcase top-selling items based on a customer’s location.

“The majority of the homepage will be personalised in some way,” Lore said in a post about the new site.

There will be an area of the site dedicated to customers’ local store profiles, which will provide product availability information.

Specialty shopping experiences have also been introduced, an area of the site dedicated to a specific category, designed to emulate a specialty retail shopping experience.

“Customers shopping for groceries and household essentials want to quickly re-buy what they always purchase, while those looking for a new couch want to be inspired while browsing the different options,” Lore said.

“We want each category to feel like you are shopping a specialty store and we plan to build out these specialty experiences for other categories starting later this year.”

A home specialty experience has already been launched, while a destination for fashion is on the way.

Advertising has also changed, providing Walmart’s suppliers with the ability to “better tell their stories” on the website within “seamlessly integrated” ads.