Walmart Ups Augmented Reality as Part of Digital Push

Shopper holds mobile showing Walmart virtual waiting line

(Image credit: Courtesy Walmart)

Walmart.com and its subscription service Walmart+ are keeping the focus online as holiday shopping season gets underway.

One key new feature gives shoppers the ability to stand in line virtually for a chance to buy a hot new product during Black Friday and other holiday-oriented sales events. While you’re in that virtual queue, you can still go off and shop for other products while still holding your spot for whatever in-demand toy, game, gaming device, tablet, or TV you simply must get your hands on.

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Speaking of TV, Walmart is also upping its augmented reality and virtual reality offerings, this time in the View in Your Home service. More than 200 TVs are now available to view on Walmart’s iOS app. Through augmented reality, users can place the TV virtually in their home to see how it looks – or if it fits in the designated space – before buying. The video in this news release shows you how it works. The offering builds on technology Walmart is rolling out to let customers use virtual reality to see how clothes look on them using the Walmart app, a feature we told you about.

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Walmart is also beefing up its Stylitics outfitting section that adds clothing and accessories for men, kids and babies. Stylitics suggests accessories to go with a piece of clothing a shopper chooses. Stylitics is now available for 8,000 items that can make 16,000 outfit variations.

Additionally, a “buy it now” button, similar to one sites like Amazon have had for, well, decades, will allow customers to immediately buy a product from the product page instead of just adding it to their shopping cart.

This is all part of Walmart’s efforts to compete on a more level digital retail playing field with Amazon. Walmart’s been furiously upgrading Walmart.com and Walmart+, the latter especially with the addition of Paramount + streaming, a free benefit for Walmart+ subscribers, much as Amazon Prime is a (mostly) free streaming option for Amazon Prime members.

Bob was Senior Editor at Kiplinger.com for seven years and is now a contributor to the website. He has more than 40 years of experience in online, print and visual journalism. Bob has worked as an award-winning writer and editor in the Washington, D.C., market as well as at news organizations in New York, Michigan and California. Bob joined Kiplinger in 2016, bringing a wealth of expertise covering retail, entertainment, and money-saving trends and topics. He was one of the first journalists at a daily news organization to aggressively cover retail as a specialty and has been lauded in the retail industry for his expertise. Bob has also been an adjunct and associate professor of print, online and visual journalism at Syracuse University and Ithaca College. He has a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a bachelor’s degree in communications and theater from Hope College.