Walmart and Amazon are the two fiercest rivals in the U.S. retail space. While Amazon often comes out on top, Walmart just got a major boost in its quest to become the shopping destination of choice thanks to a new website redesign that's surprisingly well thought-out.
This revamp only applies to the Walmart homepage with product listing pages remaining unchanged, but it’s nevertheless a useful upgrade that makes shopping at Walmart.com instantly more appealing.
Previously, the Walmart homepage was pretty cluttered, placing recommended products at the forefront of the shopping experience, but this website redesign instead focuses on larger tiles that promote seasonal and limited-time sales events. It’s a subtle tweak but it does make the Walmart website a lot more visually appealing, and it’s equally well-optimized for mobile.
Scroll down beyond the large sales event tiles and things get a little more familiar with highlighted products and categories appearing in horizontal rows. But these are no longer placed at the very top of the homepage as with the previous website interface, and that’s a smart upgrade in our books.
Conversely, Amazon’s homepage serves up a rotating banner-style advertisement at the top of the page, and underneath this, you’ll find a rather cluttered mix of recommended products based on your previous purchases. Plus, a few ads for whatever new TV show or movie has just dropped on Prime Video. When it comes to the retailer’s two home page interfaces, this is a battle that Walmart is winning right now.
In a press release, Walmart’s Executive Vice President, Tom Ward, describes the change as “a more engaging way to browse and discover” the retailer’s vast selection of products. Ward also claims that the new homepage “offers a product-focused experience that better mirrors the way our customers love to shop, highlighting the items that matter most to them at any given moment.”
When it comes to the retailer’s two home page interfaces, this is a battle that Walmart is winning right now.
We still have some quibbles over the online shopping experience at Walmart. For starters, the search function often highlights goods listed by questionable third-party sellers rather than items directly sold by Walmart. Nevertheless, to give the retailer credit where it's due, this homepage refresh is certainly an upgrade, and it's made a good first impression.
There is a possibility that Amazon will respond with a redesign of its own in the coming months. As we’ve seen in the past, when one of these retailing giants acts, the other usually responds. Just look at the ongoing battle between Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus as a great example of these two e-commerce titans constantly trying to one-up each other.
