Walmart Refocusing on Customers

In light of recent declining sales, the “Save Money, Live Better” supermarket and department store is taking steps to refocus on what it sees as most important — its customers.

In early July, French advertising agency Publicis released a statement saying that it would be launching new campaigns for the massive retailer that would deal with US advertising and in-store marketing. Walmart is developing a new relationship with Publicis in hopes of building stronger relationships with customers and thus gaining back customer loyalty. And since Walmart’s traditional shopper experience has revolved around its brick-and-mortar presence, more investments will be going towards improving the in-store experience — hence the strategic formation of a relationship between itself and Publicis.

Additionally, given its recent lack of e-commerce sales, Walmart has added more coupons and discounts that are only accessible through the Savings Catcher feature of its app, thus pushing customers to use the app more regularly as well as shop more at Walmart.

Undoubtedly, Walmart will still be expending a large chunk of money for advertising, just as it always has; however, this year Walmart will try to scale back on its total marketing costs in order to invest them elsewhere. Specifically, Walmart hopes to shift its focus more toward local advertising and employee satisfaction; it recently raised its minimum wage to $10/hour and promised an average full-time hourly wage of $13.38/hour.

All of these efforts have one central focus: to gain new customers and retain current ones. And it is highly likely that Walmart will succeed, what with its already-established brand and reputation as the retailer with highest discounts. Thus, it can be expected that Walmart will be looking into new ways to accommodate more in-store shoppers at any given time. With more customers, of course, will also come an increased demand for employees; hopefully, Walmart can take the proper steps to ensure that it is prepared for to accommodate the increased customer traffic. One way this can be done through traffic counters that will assist in the maximization of conversion rates, thus giving the retail giant a much needed balance between the expenditure and profit that usually comes with expansion.