Walmart Invests Heavily In eCommerce Back-To-School Experience

Back-to-school season is about to put Walmart’s revamped online ordering system to the test. The big-box giant has invested a lot of resources into the digital experience this year, hoping to compete with Amazon, and revealed new back-to-school shopping tools Thursday.

“This back-to-school season, we’re keeping the math problems simple – adding savings, subtracting time,” said Scott Bayles, vice president of stationery of Walmart U.S. “It’s always been our job to save our customers money, and we aren’t changing – you can still find more than 300 items under $1 at Walmart this back-to-school season – but we’re … also saving our customers time with easy ways to shop and multiple ways to get these items to students, so everyone can ace their school shopping.”

The company’s eCommerce pickup platform will now supply a greater selection of back-to-school and back-to-college items that customers can access via the Online Grocery Pickup and Pickup Today services.

To make it even easier, Walmart has dedicated a back-to-school destination eCommerce site that lets shoppers access the exact supplies list issued by their child’s school. The site, powered by TeacherLists, hosts actual supply lists from half a million classrooms, with more than a million to be represented by the end of August – that’s most of the schools and classrooms in the country.

And like when they shop for groceries online, back-to-school shoppers will have their order filled by a store associate and can go collect it at one of the company’s 800 Online Grocery Pickup sites across the country. There are now hundreds of school-room staples available through the service, and the top sellers are even eligible for same-day pickup.

This is especially helpful for college students and their parents because it enables them to do their shopping ahead of time and then pick up dorm-room items at a store close to campus.