The news: Walmart is looking to get in on the social commerce boom. The retailer wants to link up with social platforms to facilitate easier in-app purchases, per The Information—a move that would put it on more equal footing with Amazon, which already has shoppable partnerships with most social media companies.
We called it: EMARKETER principal analyst Jasmine Enberg predicted this would happen back in January 2024, just a few months after Meta partnered with Amazon to enable Facebook and Instagram users to shop with the retailer without leaving the app.
While it’s taken Walmart considerably longer to get to this point, the company is “working with all the companies so that we can integrate native shopping,” CTO Suresh Kumar told The Information. That could include enabling users to link their Walmart accounts and payment information with their social media profiles, reducing the number of steps to make a purchase.