Within hours of Amazon’s announcement of its new suite of marketing tools aimed at attracting more sellers to its site, Walmart has answered with its own upgraded outreach to help sellers connect with shoppers.
Among the changes the Arkansas-based retailer unveiled include a “Search Brand Amplifier” that displays advertised products at the top of search results, a swifter onboarding process at the Walmart Ad Center, additional application programming interfaces (APIs) to serve international sellers and new resources for optimizing sponsored search campaigns.
“As America’s No. 1 omni-retailer, Walmart has become the No. 1 online grocer and second-largest eCommerce platform in the U.S.,” Walmart Connect Head of Marketplace Mike Greenberg wrote in a Wednesday (Sept. 14) blog post. “For brands both large and small selling on Walmart.com and the Walmart app, that means unprecedented opportunities to reach Walmart customers.”
Competitor Amazon also announced Wednesday that it is piloting new resources for direct-to-consumer (D2C) eCommerce merchants using its Buy with Prime program. These include targeted marketing emails, pages that direct shoppers to off-site sellers and Alexa artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
Read more: Amazon Rolls out Red Carpet for Sellers With Buy With Prime, Alexa Upgrades
Walmart’s Search Brand Amplifier, which was previously available only to managed suppliers and some managed sellers, is now available to Marketplace brand owners, and Greenberg wrote that this will be especially valuable to newcomers that don’t yet have high organic search ratings.
The new onboarding process at the Walmart Ad Center has reduced the enrollment process from three days to seconds, the post stated. The new APIs for international sellers will come from partners Walmart will be added during this quarter to serve countries in which there are sellers, including China.
Walmart’s new resources to help Marketplace sellers optimize their sponsored search campaigns include a blog post, guides to insights and best practices, and a case study.
“We’re excited to continue expanding our offerings and resources so sellers can more easily connect with our customers and get the most out of our solutions,” Greenberg wrote in the post.
As Amazon’s and Walmart’s online platforms expand, it is the seller-focused marketplaces that will help craft a competitive advantage.
See more: Third-Party Marketplaces to Determine Winner in Amazon vs Walmart Platform Battle
In the bid to boost critical mass among sellers worldwide, helping enterprises to scale (and the platforms to scale right alongside) is a major selling point.
For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More