Walmart is launching a new home decor site - and it's like nothing we've seen before from the company
- Walmart has redesigned its online homeware shopping experience.
- The new layout allows customers to shop by style and browse curated collections created by in-house stylists.
- The store is doubling down on its efforts to capture the $58 billion homeware market in the US, which is expected to grow by 11% annually between now and 2022, according to Statista.
Walmart wants to furnish your home.
The retailer has spruced up the experience of shopping for homeware and furniture on its online store by creating a new layout that allows shoppers to search by style and browse curated collections put together by in-house stylists.
The store is doubling down on its efforts to capture the home goods market, which generates around $58 billion in sales in the US and is expected to grow by 11% annually between now and 2022, according to Statista.
Online stores such as Wayfair - which is now the largest online-only furniture retailer - have increasingly taken market share here. Amazon has also made investments in homeware. In November 2017, it launched two of its own furniture brands, called Rivet and Stone & Beam, which sell sofas, accent furniture, chairs, rugs, lamps, and decor.
The new layout launched Wednesday, a day after Walmart reported fourth-quarter earnings that showed that online sales had lagged during that period. They were down 50% from the previous quarter. As a result, the company's share price tumbled by more than 10%, its biggest drop since 1988.
Walmart's new layout is designed to make the shopping experience more appealing. In a similar way to rival home goods stores such as Wayfair and Ikea, products are styled together in different rooms so that customers can visualize what they will actually look like in the home setting. It's a way to tempt them into buying more.
There are nine "shop-by-style" options: modern, mid-century, traditional, glam, industrial, bohemian, farmhouse, transitional, and Scandinavian.