Walmart and Eko are expanding their partnership to bring interactive and immersive elements to product pages on Walmart.com.
The two companies first launched their partnership in 2018 as a way to bring customers a more engaging shopping experience. Walmart has been building out its video presence as part of the shopping experience for some time. Walmart hired Eko to develop original, interactive programming, including cooking shows and toy catalogs, while investing more than $200 million with Eko.
“It’s inspiring to see how our associates are leveraging Eko’s technology to make shopping with us more enjoyable and convenient,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a press release promoting the partnership.
Walmart, Eko partnership adds immersive elements to PDPs
“Eko’s technology creates richer, more engaging shopping experiences that directly impact conversion and sales,” Eko CEO Yoni Bloch added. “This is accomplished by empowering customers to explore product features through interactive videos, thereby enhancing their confidence in their purchases.”
The video offerings on the product pages allow consumers to see a consumer using a drill or constructing a Lego set. These are engaging features for consumers but also a boon to B2B, sending products coursing through the ecosystem faster.
Last year, Walmart launched Realm, another immersive, interactive shopping experience.
At it’s launch, chief marketing officer William White emphasized Realm’s futuristic shopping experience.
“It’s fantastical, it’s inspirational, and simply put, it’s a lot of fun,” White stated. “At Walmart, we’re embracing innovation with e-commerce experiences designed with the virtual world at the heart.”
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is No. 2 in the Top 2000, and falls under the Mass Merchant category. The Top 2000 Database is how Digital Commerce 360 tracks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual web sales.
Excited customers are good for B2B
Martin Balaam, ecommerce expert and CEO of PIM vendor Pimberly, said this is all part of the trajectory successful businesses need to follow to build out their digital presence.
“Walmart’s expanded partnership with Eko is an inspired move that combines the composability of cloud infrastructure with AI-driven personalization to make interactive shopping scalable and responsive in real time,” Balaam said.
He adds that with the partnership, Walmart can deliver immersive, customized product experiences that boost engagement and, in turn, conversions.
“As consumer expectations rapidly evolve, we can logically expect other major retailers to follow suit, using AI and cloud-based architecture to turn static product pages into a dynamic, experiential shopping journey,” Balaam said.
He says this is all part of Walmart’s journey in taking AI and cloud adoption to a new level by leveraging multi-cloud strategies and generative AI to optimize everything from inventory management to how merchants source their products.
“While other major retailers like Amazon and Target are integrating AI, Walmart’s scale and comprehensive focus on operational efficiency in so many facets of the business set it apart,” Balaam said, adding that partnerships like Walmart and Eko’s allow for more personalized shopping experiences, as well as faster fulfillment and greater inventory accuracy.
“These augmentations come together to make shopping at Walmart as seamless an experience as possible.” Balaam said.
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