Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is relying on the relaunch of its website – which features a less cluttered and more interactive approach – to convert more browsers to buyers this holiday season.
The makeover was unveiled earlier this week and marks the site’s biggest redesign since 2000. It allows customers to navigate walmart.com with fewer clicks, offers bolder photos of products using zoom technology, bundles products to create an outfit or show how they look in a room, and emphasizes the company’s low prices.
“This offers a point of view. … We want to make it easier for customers,” said Carter Cast, chief executive of walmart.com, which spent 13 months redesigning 930 mini-categories such as digital cameras.
Customers looking for a flat-screen TV, for example, will learn what type of TV to buy based on the size of their room and the difference between plasma and LCD screens.
Walmart.com’s sales and online traffic have been robust – up 40 percent so far this year from a year ago, but officials acknowledged they started to see the site’s defection rate worsening. In 2000, 30 percent of customers who clicked onto Wal-Mart’s site left without buying an item. That figure fell to 11 percent, but started creeping up over the past year.
“We started adding too much. It was hard for customers. We had to strip it all down,” Cast said.
