Walmart launches Walmart Realm, and immersive shopping experience
Walmart's new digital shopping experience, "Realm," is designed to make e-commerce more immersive. The platform employs gamification and integrates physical and virtual retail, attracting customers with engaging online buying options. The retail giant tapped a trio of influencers to help curate products and design the experience. The activation is in part a response to consumer demand for entertaining and interactive shopping experiences, leveraging social media trends to enhance engagement and sales.
Consumers increasingly want immersive eCommerce journeys, and Walmart is launching new digital shopping experiences to meet this demand.
In an interview with PYMNTS following the retailer’s launch of gamified marketplace Walmart Realm, Justin Breton, the company’s director of brand experiences and strategic partnerships, discussed this demand for more engaging online buying options.
“Steeped in data, we followed these three trends: customers enjoy brands they shop with more when they have unique virtual experiences; customers want to be entertained while shopping; [and] customers enjoy and are inspired by virtual games where they can immediately purchase items they discover,” Breton said.
A share of shoppers is voicing demand for more immersive purchasing experiences. For instance, PYMNTS Intelligence’s “How We Will Pay Report: How Connected Devices Enable Multitasking Among Digital-First Consumers” found that among most consumers who own connected devices, 1 in 3 would be interested in using them to buy items that appear in streamed content while they watch. Plus, 28% would want to be able to make purchases based on products that show up within friends’ social media posts.
Last month, Walmart introduced a store in the Roblox virtual world, allowing consumers to purchase virtual items and receive the corresponding real products shipped to their homes. Breton noted that this move is part of the retailer’s push to create shopping journeys that “intersect both the physical and virtual retail worlds.”
Full story at PYMNTS.
Or see the LI post below from Justin Breton:
