Walmart’s attempt at crowdsourcing product selection has come to a close. The company has announced the winners of its Get on the Shelf contest, which was launched out of @WalmartLabs, the digital technology division of the retailer, earlier this year. You may know of @WalmartLabs as the startup-like group within Walmart which is now home to a number of acquired startups itself, including Kosmix, OneRiot, Grabble, and Small Society.
After 4,000 submissions and 1 million+ votes, the winners of the contest include charitable bottled water company HumanKind Water, San Francisco-based kitchen product PlateTopper, and the SnapIt Eyeglass Repair Kit. → Read More
Walmart.com is launching a new way to checkout, targeting customers who don’t have credit or debit cards…or money in the bank for that matter. The company is now allowing customers to buy online and pay with cash. The change reflects the current economic conditions in the U.S., as Walmart states (citing FDIC figures) that one in four U.S. households is “unbanked” or “underbanked” – meaning they rely on cash for their purchases.
In addition, Walmart says the majority of its own in-store transactions are cash or debit, and only 15% are paid for using credit cards.
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Walmart is announcing this evening that it has upped its investment in Yihaodian, a massive B2C e-commerce company based in China. Walmart, which originally funded the retail giant last year, has made another undisclosed investment in Yihaodian to bring Walmart’s total ownership stake to approximately 51 percent. Closing of the transaction is subject to Chinese government regulatory approval, according to the two companies.
Launched in July 2008, Yihaodian offers more than 180,000 products ranging from clothing to grocery to consumer electronics. Less than 3 years after launch, the company boasts a whopping 5,400 employees and logistics operations in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu, and delivery stations in 34 cities across China.
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@WalmartLabs, the digital technology division of the world’s largest retailer, is launching a contest today which uses crowdsourcing techniques to determine which items the company should stock in its stores and on its website. The contest, called Get on the Shelf, will be heavily promoted by all of Walmart’s social media presences, including Facebook, Google+ and, most importantly, Twitter.
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@WalmartLabs, the retailer’s digital technology division, has acquired Portland-based mobile agency Small Society. The company helped businesses create, develop and launch iOS applications, and has served a number of high-profile clients, including DoubleTree, Starbucks (the original app), Amazon (the Amazon Deals app), Whole Foods, the Democratic National Convention, WordPress, ZipCar and others.
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Retailing giant Walmart is launching its first-ever social gifting platform tonight, dubbed “Shopycat.” The service, previously in beta, is initially available as a Facebook application where it will also be promoted to the nearly 11 million Facebook users who have “liked” Walmart’s fan page. The app, which suggests gifts for friends based on their Facebook use, was built with technology Walmart acquired from social media startup Kosmix (now @WalmartLabs) earlier this year.
And here’s the interesting part: the new app won’t just point you to pages on Walmart.com for its gift recommendations. It also recommends products from nearly two dozen other retailers, including Barnes & Noble, ThinkGeek, RedEnvelope, NBC Universal, Hot Topic and more. (Just not, of course, Amazon). → Read More
Startups thrive on discontinuities and disruption. NPR and Kaiser Health News broke a major story that Walmart intends to become the largest provider of primary care in the country. While Walmart backed away from some of what was reported in their Request for Information, there’s enough wiggle room in their statement to drive a truck through. In my view, this is the biggest news in healthcare since health reform. Regardless of how one feels about Walmart, it’s indisputable that they have a massive footprint and ripple effect that is good news for healthtech companies.
With 1.4 million employees and hundreds of millions of customer visits every month, Wal-Mart’s impact is without parallel. It’s one reason that the Sierra Club partnered with Walmart on its Sustainability Program. At one time, Walmart would have been a target of scorn by the Sierra Club but they saw the impact they could have. The effect of Sierra Club’s partnership with Walmart may have had a more positive outcome on the environment than just about any other Sierra Club initiative. → Read More
Walmart is launching an updated iPhone application and a new iPad app, in an effort to better connect customers’ offline and online shopping experiences. The iPhone app in particular brings a number of new features, including voice-enabled shopping list creation, barcode scanning and integrated manufacturers’ coupons, while the iPad app offers the ability to find items both online and at the local store.
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If you’re the kind of person who would much rather text or email someone rather than actually talk to them, Walmart and T-Mobile would like to have a word with you. The two companies have announced Monday morning that T-Mobile will introduce a new no-contract 4G rate plan exclusively at Walmart. → Read More
Walmart is planning to launch several new projects this holiday season based on the technology it acquired from the social media startup Kosmix back in April. Kosmix’s platform previously powered multiple services, including a Twitter search site called TweetBeat, a health vertical called RightHealth and a homepage where users could search the Web by topic.
But the core of what Kosmix was building was something called the “social genome” – a way to organize the content in social networks in order to connect people with the information that mattered to them.
Now, that same technology is in the hands of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. → Read More
Netflix just got some more competition. Walmart launched its video streaming service today and don’t just write it off as a “me too” service. This is a serious offering.
Walmart bought Vudu 18 months ago and has slowly evolved the business. Vudu, like Netflix, is available on a number of set-top boxes, gaming systems, and media streamers. Users have access to 20,000 titles, including titles the same day they hit DVD, when used on one of these devices. The just-launched service puts Vudu streaming directly on Walmart.com for instant viewing. The Walmart.com service doesn’t seem to have access to the entire library, but there’s still a good chunk available and that might be good enough to make Netflix slow its roll. → Read More
Roku is slowly entering the wide world of retail. The middle tier XD model hit Best Buy retail stores a few months back and now the same model is available in Walmart stores. Roku just made it official with a press release although the streamer has been available from Walmart.com for over a month now. Pricing is slightly lower with the XD model going for $78 rather than the $79 on Roku.com. A buck is a buck, right?
Now that Roku and Walmart are playing ball, it’s probably only a matter of time until Walmart’s own VUDU service launches on the media streamer. VUDU made a name for itself a few years back to being committed to the highest quality HD streams possible — first run movies helped too. This wasn’t mentioned in the press release, but the service would certainly be a welcomed addition to Roku’s offering. *fingers crossed* → Read More
Wal-Mart this morning announced that it intends to acquire a minority stake in the holding company of Yihaodian, a massive B2C ecommerce company based in China. The transaction is expected to close within 60 days, the retail giant says.
Launched in July 2008, Yihaodian offers more than 75,000 products ranging from clothing to grocery to consumer electronics. Less than 3 years after launch, the company boasts a whopping 2,000 employees and logistics operations in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. → Read More
iBuyPower has long been a player in the custom gaming scene. Now they’re available from Walmart, the US’ largest retail. Both AMD and Intel systems can be configured with Nvidia and AMD GPUs along with various RAM and hard drive options. It’s really your standard computer configurator system. Prices start out at $578 and do not seem much different than if ordered from iBuyPower themselves. Sadly, any jokes about the iBuyPower systems being located in Walmart between between the dog food and the Swiffers are disingenuous. These rigs are only available on the retailer’s website. [image credit: People of Walmart] → Read More
Walmart this morning said it is buying Mountain View-based Kosmix, a heavily funded social media technology provider that has built a platform that enables users to filter and organize content in social networks, in order to connect people with information that matters to them, in realtime.
What is the retailing juggernaut doing picking up a social media startup, which has raised $55 million in funding from a slew of investors over the past few years? → Read More
It’s Nintendo 3DS weekend, and Walmart (of all companies~!) has a pretty decent deal going on. Select stores will accept old DS models for credit, credit that you can then apply toward the purchase of a 3DS. → Read More
(It’s funny because Peyton’s not going this year — or next) Hopefully it’s widely known by now that the weeks preceding the Super Bowl is the best time out of the whole year to buy an HDTV. Retailers combine the game’s hype with clearing out leftover Christmas inventory. It’s a home run for you! Wait…Touchdown! Walmart is getting in on the action with a big sale. The so-called Game Time event includes at least deep discounts on seven HDTVs and even bigger savings if purchased with a Blu-ray player. This isn’t the only sale in town though. Best Buy, Amazon, Frys, and all the rest will have events too so click through, scope out the deals, but ultimately shop around. Brick & Mortar stores will probably even negotiate with you. That’s fun. → Read More
Today must be opposite day, as Walmart will give you money when you purchase a Windows-Phone-7-powered Samsung Focus.
By using some crazy overlapping mail-in-rebate magic, you can score yourself $25 when you purchase the phone using the promo code 25rafpcver1 at the checkout.
Follow the jump for the details on how to pull off this hoodoo. → Read More
Wally World will soon stock [nearly] everyone’s favorite tablet computer. Starting this Friday, the entire iPad line will be on Walmart’s shelves for the Apple suggested retail price. This comes after Target started selling the tablet on October 3rd therefore making Walmart the forth brick & mortar retailer to sell the blockbuster device. While Walmart certain reaches different demographics than the other retailers of Apple, Best Buy, and Target, it might not be the best place to pick one up — or at least try it out. → Read More
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