The reviews are in for two new features at Walmart.com
Walmart.com is out to be “the most visited, most valued online retail site,” CEO Raul Vasquez says. To achieve this goal, the e-commerce site this year rolled out initiatives that are bolstering progress.
One of the primary additions to the site was customer reviews, site functionality that is spreading throughout Internet retailing like wildfire. For Walmart.com, the reviews are in. The retailer added customer reviews in July, and it now is reporting that 80,000 reviews have been posted to date, with shoppers adding about 1,000 reviews every day.
Reviews are lifting conversion on highly rated products and giving customers another reason to visit, the e-retailer says. A one-star review depresses sales, but that’s fine with Vasquez, who says negative reviews that prevent a sale also prevent a bad experience with the Wal-Mart brand and reduce product returns.
Also in July, Walmart.com rolled out nationally its Site to Store free shipping option that delivers merchandise ordered online to a shopper’s local Wal-Mart store for pick-up. That has already saved Walmart.com customers $25 million in shipping fees, Vazquez reports. Wal-Mart stores benefit, too: 60% of shoppers picking up items ordered online make additional purchases when in a store.
Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail strategies at AMR Research Inc., says programs like Site to Store show “Wal-Mart’s online operation is now hitting on all cylinders. Wal-Mart’s ability to execute within each store to support cross-channel capabilities will be the defining factor of its success, with the initial results impressive.”
Walmart.com is No. 13 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. Debbie Kristofferson, Vice President of Creative and User Experience at Walmart.com, will speak at the Internet Retailer Web Design ’08 Conference, Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Miami, in a session entitled Wal-Mart: Setting the pace on site design.
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