Products
Wal-Mart’s product portfolio is wide, allowing the retailer to serve diverse client needs to boost its market share. Various stores stock different products. The corporation consists of ten operating divisions that specialize in different products. Wal-Mart discount stores fall under one division. They stock general merchandise, such as clothing, household items, and food products, among others, and include a pharmacy, a restaurant, and a photo studio.
Wal-Mart’s Supercenter is a large self-service store that offers a range of groceries, including fresh produce and baked products. Neighborhood markets sell small volumes of general merchandise compared to supercenters, but offer the same product range as those carried by the discount stores. On the other hand, Wal-Mart Express targets small towns and urban centers. It offers a range of products and services, including gasoline service to customers. Other Wal-Mart divisions carry vacations, pharmacy, and optical sections.
The ten divisions stock several products, including apparel, electronics, jewelry, footwear, toys, and furniture, among others. Besides general merchandise, the retailer stocks groceries and pharmaceuticals in the food and drugs division. As Stebbins (2) notes, restaurants such as McDonald’s and Subway sell food products within Wal-Mart stores.
The wide product range makes Wal-Mart a one-stop shop where customers can buy all products they need. The corporation also collaborates with other companies to expand its product offerings. For example, its partnership with McDonald’s has ensured that each store provides restaurant services to customers. Wal-Mart has also formed partnerships with Hollywood firms to carry out promotions within its stores. Through this strategy, Wal-Mart creates new retail sectors within its stores.
In recent years, Wal-Mart has introduced new product lines into its stores. Thus, Wal-Mart’s strategy is to expand into different locations and international markets before introducing new products to compete effectively with businesses in that sector. Traditionally, Wal-Mart specializes in the retail of household products, such as apparels, toys, and sportswear (1).
Other products stocked by the retailer include stationeries, cosmetics, confectioneries, and artworks. The firm branched out into the electronics, jewelry, photo production, and medical supplies markets. Besides product diversification, Wal-Mart has also opened new stores in international markets, where it offers similar merchandise as those sold by local retailers.
Services
Wal-Mart runs gas stations, where it competes with smaller business through regular price cuts. It has entered the home electronics market that is dominated by retailers like Best Buy. Wal-Mart also offers entertainment products, including films and music, in partnership with producers. Wal-Mart also runs non-retail business through its Sam’s Club warehouses in the US (1).
Sam’s Club is a warehouse chain owned by Wal-Mart for providing items to customers who buy in bulk. In this sector, Wal-Mart competes with major warehouses, such as Cost, and supermarkets that sell bulk items.
Sam’s Club supplies fresh produce to its members at low prices. This allows the giant retailer to compete with other businesses, including warehouses and supermarkets. Sam’s Club is a discount plan that allows members to cut costs by purchasing bulk items. Wal-Mart has over 700 Sam’s Clubs distributed within the US. The members can access all items carried in Wal-Mart’s warehouses. They also benefit from services such as drug supplies, tire center, and vision shop.
Website Features
Wal-Mart launched its revamped website in 2002 after the first site was found to be less user-friendly. The new website (walmart.com) features a help desk and information about the physical address of stores, promotions, discounts, and product return guidelines. It also contains photo-sharing services to the users. Users can browse over a million products displayed on this website with ease and place an order by hitting the ‘buy’ button.
Customers may find features, such as order status, useful, as they can track their purchases in real-time. Additionally, through the help desk, customers can seek answers to their problems and queries regarding product features. Another useful feature is the clear return policy indicated on the website.
This feature gives the website a clear advantage. Clients dissatisfied with their purchases from the online shop can take them to nearby stores. The online shop boasts of over 900,000 products drawn from 24 different product lines ranging from groceries to clothing. Thus, users can access different products stocked in Wal-Mart’s stores across the country.
According to some e-commerce analysts, Wal-Mart’s website facilitates personalized shopping through its ‘broadvision’ technology. The website uses the ‘broadvision’ technology and thus, provides a range of personalization features that are user-friendly.
These include physical maps, customer profile, store locators, and past online activity. Customers can also find information about discounts and promotions that Wal-Mart offers on this site. Another notable feature is the online travel link, which customers can use to book hotels or buy travel tickets.
There is also a photo center in the website. This feature combines online and offline versions of Wal-Mart’s business model. Using this feature, clients can give films to a conveniently located store and retrieve their pictures from the online store. They can then send them to friends through email or post them online.
The online pharmacy at Wal-Mart Website allows customers to order prescription and non-prescription drugs online. They can then pick the drugs from local Wal-Mart stores. This section also keeps track of a customer’s online drug purchase history. Customers can personalize it in a way that it sends a reminder for a refill in advance.
Customers can also select replacement tires from the website and pick them from local stores. The vision center contains a range of contact lenses. It also sends reminders to customers and keeps a history of their online visits to the center.
The site also gives item recommendations, which helps personalize online shopping. It suggests products based on the customer’s past or present purchases.
This feature also customizes the webpage of a customer to reflect his or her location and previous online activity (1). It recommends products that typically go with the item purchased. By relying on past searches, the site is able to make accurate and relevant product recommendations to clients. The personalized search tool makes the site user-friendly and enriches the online shopping experience.
This feature has contributed to a 20 percent rise in online purchases. Due to the enhanced usability of the website, Wal-Mart online sales stood at $473 in 2014, representing a 30 percent increase from the previous year (3). Other changes that have had a significant impact on online sales include the modification of the site to make it viewable in devices like tablets. Customers can browse Wal-Mart’s products through their tablets because the images can fit small screens.
E-Commerce Technology
Wal-Mart’s online shop has over 900,000 different products. Its main competitor, Amazon.com, offers more diverse items than Wal-Mart. To compete effectively, Wal-Mart’s online shop should sell new items, such as movies and music videos, alongside other product categories. Since the company already has partnerships with Hollywood movie firms, it can easily provide movies to customers through its website at a fee.
Another product that Wal-Mart should sell through its website is digital games. Users can play games online or download them to their computers from the website. This will require the corporation to enter into partnerships with movie distributors like Netflix. Wal-Mart can also set up an online bookstore where customers can shop for new books. Since it has stores distributed over different locations, customers can receive books from local stores after placing an order online.
Wal-Mart can also diversify into the technology market. It can offer web services or infrastructure to developers interested in creating new business solutions and tools. It can also collaborate with technology firms, such as Apple, to sell devices like Smartphones and tablets through its website.
The grocery product line in the online store should be expanded to include organic food, which is increasingly becoming popular because of its health benefits. Wal-Mart can also consider selling refurbished household items through its website. It can sell them at reduced prices to target the low-income clientele. Industrial items, such as machines, form another category of products that Wal-Mart can sell through its website.
The firm already has a warehouse chain (Sam’s Club) for handling bulky items. Wal-Mart can also allow small retailers to sell their items through its website. This will increase the product range that customers can access by visiting the site. Additionally, the firm can charge a fee for allowing retailers to access its large client base.
References
Our business [Internet]. [place unknown: publisher unknown]; [date unknown] [cited 2020 Feb 6]:[about 10 screens].
Stebbins S. Broad appeal: McDonald’s, Walmart top list of 25 most popular stores in America. USA Today [Internet]. 2018 May 24 [cited 2020 Feb 6]:[about 10 screens].
Walmart introduces exclusive money transfer service, cuts fees by up to 50 percent for customers [Internet]. [place unknown: publisher unknown]; [date unknown] [cited 2020 Feb 6]:[about 3 screens].