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Walmart put a fresh coat of paint on its website, giving it the social media flair of a Pinterest board or Instagram feed designed to keep you scrolling and buying and scrolling and buying and scrolling and buying...

It's the latest attempt from an e-commerce giant to adapt to spending trends and entice customers to buy things they weren't necessarily looking for when they first signed on.

Just Browsing

Ironically, the new version of the website takes its biggest cue from in-person shopping, which requires you to walk past a bunch of stuff you don't want before you get to the item you were looking for. Online shoppers are hit with infinite ads for sponsored products they never intended on perusing. Imagine going into the supermarket, asking where to find the Oreos, and the clerk pointing you toward Pepperidge Farm Milano's because the Campbell Soup Company is paying more to be on the shelves: That's the annoying side of e-commerce these days.

With consumer spending showing signs of a slowdown, Walmart's website redesign suggests it's looking to diversify its revenue streams much like some of its biggest e-commerce competitors:

  • CFO John Rainey recently said the business is looking to boost profits through ad sales, B2B services, and third-party marketplace sellers. While 55% of Walmart's sales come through its grocery business, it has a small margin, but ad margins typically fall in the 70% to 80% range, Rainy said.
  • Walmart e-commerce Chief Tom Ward says the company is trying to "curate an experience when customers walk through our doors, whether they're physical doors or digital" and provide "a more engaging way to browse."

Ad-filled Amazon: That kind of seller-focused approach can rub customers the wrong way. Take Amazon. According to The Washington Post, which Jeff Bezos also owns, Amazon averages 8.5 sponsored – or "shill" – results on the first page of product search queries. And when it's not sponsored products, it's often in-house brands that lack the positive reviews and quality craftsmanship most consumers are looking for. In its latest quarter, Amazon's main e-commerce business of selling products directly to consumers was down 2%, but that doesn't matter to old Jeff B. As long as ad and third-party sales were up 19% and 20%, respectively.