Wal-Mart expands online selection to maximise sales in the holiday season

Wal-Mart has announced that it has expanded its online assortment of products in the aim of better competing with the likes of Amazon in the ecommerce sphere during the holiday season.

The company will now offer free two-day shipping on over 2mn products when orders amount to over $35, whilst also tripling the total number of items available on its ecommerce platform.

In addition, in the spirit of things, the company has announced that it will be hosting 20,000 “holiday parties” within its stores throughout November and December.

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“Serving customers is our everyday passion at Wal-Mart, and during the holiday season we work even harder to deliver what our customers want most…to save time and money,” said Steve Bratspies, Chief Merchandising Officer at Wal-Mart US. “We’re leveraging our more than 4,700 stores and Walmart.com to deliver more assortment, exclusives, convenience and savings than ever before.”

Wal-Mart has made some inroads into the ecommerce market of late, ranking 4th in terms of total online sales in the US, according to data from eMarketer that was cited by Recode. Further, the market research firm predicts Wal-Mart to see a 0.8% rise from 2.8% to 3.6% this year.

However, whilst Wal-Mart is making a more significant effort to strengthen its ecommerce presence, it still remains some distance off Amazon, with the online giant having claimed 38.1% of total US ecommerce last year, with the expectation for this to only increase through 2017.