This massive retailer is seeking to expand its reach by taking massive steps into mobile.
The largest retailer in the world, Walmart, has announced that it is attempting to use m-commerce technology to enhance the shopping experience that it provides within its stores while it continues to focus on pleasing its customers.
This, according to the company’s global head of mobile, Gibu Thomas, in a prepared statement.
By accomplishing this goal and maximizing the potential that m-commerce has to offer the retailer, Walmart believes that it will generate an additional $689 billion in sales that have been influenced by mobile, by 2016. The company is coming to recognize that the future of retail is about returning to the past values for a personalized experience.
It feels that m-commerce will help it to provide an experience that is customized to each consumer.
According to Thomas, “The future of retailing is the history of retailing — a personalized interactive experience for every customer delivered from a smartphone.” He added that m-commerce tools will be used for addressing the needs of consumers above all else, particularly in terms of saving them time and money.
Thomas added that “It doesn’t always have to be the cutting edge whizz-bang feature to get the kind of impact you want for your customer. It could be simple things that fit their everyday needs.” As 90 percent of the purchases made at Walmart are still occurring within its brick and mortar locations – despite heavy attempts to push its online shopping experience – it is clear that it is the in store experience that holds the greatest opportunity.
Therefore, Walmart is seeking to use m-commerce tools that are “indispensable” to customers for its in store shopping, as opposed to necessarily trying to drive online sales. That said, it is Walmart’s believe, said Thomas, that it will generate $27 billion in revenues over mobile by 2016.
He explained that the company feels that the best way to introduce m-commerce tools to customers is by adding new capabilities into tools that have already been in existence and that have already been adopted by the majority of consumers, such as creating a shopping list.
Forrester Research has just released a study that suggests that it is tablet commerce that is paving the way to the future and that these devices may replace smartphones when it comes to searching for products and actually purchasing them. Their data showed that 30 percent of American tablet owners use those devices for shopping purposes.