Shoppers can take a place in the queue for in-demand products and continue to shop.
Walmart
Virtual queuing is one innovation. Created by the Walmart Global Tech and e-commerce product teams, virtual queuing keeps customers’ places in line for the highest demand items during Black Friday events while they continue shopping the site.
With virtual queuing, shoppers are told their estimated wait time and how long they have to check out to guarantee an item. Walmart also will hold consumers’ place in multiple queues.
An alert for the Sony Playstation says the wait is over.
Consumers can skip the checkout altogether if they just need a last-minute gift or grocery item. They can choose to “buy now” on most items across all categories. “The button will allow shoppers to purchase an item directly from the item page so that they can get through the checkout experience quickly,” said Brock McKeel, SVP of site experience at Walmart e-commerce. “They’ll be able to view in-demand items and see in the search results which items are the fast movers to get ideas about the next great gift item.”
On item pages, customers will be able to see how many people are viewing the item and how many have the product in their carts. They can be sure to purchase before the item is out of stock.
McKeel said Walmart is known as the price leader with even deeper savings and price-matching. “When you think about gifting this year, it’s making sure that we have the broadest assortment,” McKeel said. “We’re making sure we’re enhancing our overall omnichannel shopping experience so that as the customer is making those choices, we can serve them the best way we can, giving them the best physical experience and have a little fun with it. If we go with that approach, it will be a great holiday season.”
One of the deals at Walmart is a Sony Playstation.
Walmart knows customers will feel pinched this holiday season. “In a recent survey, 78% of customers said inflation will have some or a great deal of impact on their holiday shopping,” McKeel said. “With consumers shopping earlier this year, the retailer’s new site experience makes it easy for them to find deals.”
So that consumers can easily and quickly identify sale items and their discounted price, Walmart is marking savings throughout the site with a green price tag. Walmart will maximize customer exposure to deals through multiple touch points, from the home page to the order confirmation page.
“I’m really proud that we can be in the position to offer the best in class omnichannel shopping experience with the goal in mind of enabling customers to have a simple, convenient, and flexible way to do that,” said McKeel. “If you think about how we’re able to do that, we’re able to fulfill any of those great items online from our stores, so from a speed of how fast we can get it to them, I feel like we’re up there with the best.
“Associates can deliver that experience, whether they’re brought to their house or they want to come into the store to get it, we think about how that comes to life online. We really went into this season listening to our customers to make sure that we could build a streamlined experience both in stores and online. And now, we’re bringing that together. As you enter that experience you’ll see items in store and online.
“We know that 80% of customers planning to shop at Walmart this holiday season are doing it for the low prices,” McKeel said. “We know they’re counting on us every year so we’re making sure that we’re investing in key categories, like electronics and home and making sure we can deliver that great deal to them.
“We continue to provide more value to our customers,” McKeel said. “We know that it’s at a time when they need it most at the holiday season. They want to do more for their families and we want to make sure that they can trust Walmart to offer that to them.”
Walmart is also personalizing the shopping experience in several categories. An Augmented Reality tool allows consumers to see how a TV would look on the wall in their home.
“We’ve also done some really great work in apparel,” McKeel said. “You can complete the outfit. We have visual styling with Stylitics. It helps you with apparel and accessories to build the whole outfit. We’ve now made it available in men’s, baby and kids apparel.
Be Your Own Model allows customers to see themselves in the items they’re thinking of buying. “We’re really excited about the technology our global partners were able to build,” McKeel said. “Again, it’s confidence as they buy the item and really being a fun and engaging experience.”
