Walmart Customers Can Now Shop via Text
- Walmart’s e-commerce customers can now shop for items via text message.
- The service is available on iOS and Android devices, and customers can easily re-order previously purchased items.
- The company started testing the service last year.
Walmart in December launched “Text to Shop,” its new service that allows customers using iOS or Android devices to text the retailer to order products.
According to a Dec. 14 release, Text to Shop connects Walmart’s e-commerce customers’ accounts to their devices, allowing them to easily order products from the messaging app on their mobile devices.
To use the service, Walmart customers can text to add any of Walmart’s product inventory to their cart for delivery or select a window for in-store pickup. Walmart says the service knows what items a customer has previously purchased, which will make it easy for shoppers to re-order products using Text to Shop.
If a customer typically purchases one type of cereal, for example, they can send a message to the service that just says the word “cereal” to add their usual purchase to their cart. If they don’t want that item, they can swap it for another one without ever leaving their messages app.
Shoppers can view their carts and check out in their messaging app, or they can follow a link to the Walmart app to complete their transaction, according to Walmart. To opt-in to the new service, Walmart’s customers can sign up at the Text to Shop website.
“We know that for busy families and young professionals, finding opportunities to slow down and live in the moment is a priority,” said Dominique Essig, vice president of conversational commerce at Store No. 8 (Walmart’s “incubation arm”), in the release. “That’s what inspired Text to Shop.”
The big-box retailer last year started testing the service, it said in a release. Several years earlier, Walmart tested a similar service called “Jet Black,” which was only available in New York City and charged customers a $50 monthly subscription fee to place orders via text message, TechCrunch reported. The retailer shut down the service in 2020, which reportedly never reached 1,000 paying customers. When it shuttered Jet Black, Walmart hinted in a release that it could eventually explore a similar service.