Walmart’s VP of Marketing, Brian Monahan addressed the crowd at the 2014 Ad Age Digital Conference, to share how Walmart is bridging the digital-physical divide in retail.
“Customers are adopting new technology, new ways of doing things,” he said. “It’s all about enhancing the in-person experience.”
Everyone is adapting to technology today. This means that companies of all sizes, but particularly brands as vast as Walmart, must adapt and find new ways to leverage technology to improve the customer experience.
According to Monahan the in-person retail experience should be deeply personal and easy. Walmart’s “Scan & Go” mobile app, which was expanded to over 200 stores last year, allows customers to scan goods throughout the store, adding items to their virtual shopping cart as they go. The app also allows customers to access and use coupons, or scan a printed receipt and receive a digitized version. Savings are automatically applied during self checkout, a system designed to make Walmart’s in-store retail experience both seamless and straightforward.
Tablets and smartphones have changed the way people shop and share information. In turn, mobile marketers must think beyond scaling websites to smaller, more portable screens and find more human, life-enhancing ways to influence sales. Besides Walmart’s aforementioned mobile app - a tool designed to compliment in-store purchases - the company recently acquired Yumprint, a recipe publishing platform for food blogs with a recipe clipping tool. Walmart plans to integrate Yumprint’s technology into their online delivery service, Walmart To Go, which also happens to deliver fresh produce. Additionally, Walmart’s new ‘Savings Catcher’ tool allows customers to scan their receipt online after purchase. Using geolocation technology, the service - still in beta - scans nearby stores to source lower prices for food and household items, with a goal of driving in-store sales as well as top line revenue.
So what does “bridging” really mean?
It’s really about connecting the digital and the physical retail divide; helping people live better and deepening the purchase funnel.
Mobile, in particular, has immense potential to impact the way people shop in stores. Because of the “show-rooming effect, where people can price check right in the store - Walmart is building an experience via their app to help customers source additional information or inventory using geofence technology.
Walmart is using this technology to place freedom into the hands of consumers - bridging the gap between on and offline retailing and giving consumers the knowledge necessary to make more informed purchasing decisions in brick-and-mortar storefronts.
Monahan and team have found that Walmart customers do not fall into the two distinct categories of on and offline shoppers. Instead, the Walmart customer desires a seamless integration of the two. Shoppers are sourcing items in transit, making purchases online, shopping in stores, and using self checkout and virtual shopping tools. While Walmart generated a whopping $466 billion in revenue last year, the company’s e-commerce sales still have a ways to climb - accounting for $10 billion of total revenue, up 30% from 2012. With Monahan and other technology and innovation executives leading the charge, Walmart will continue to nurture in-store and digital shopping experience to simultaneously grow sales, and drive online and physical purchasing traffic.
