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TV shopping
Walmart aims to make shopping through TV remotes a reality.
US retail giant Walmart has teamed up with streaming service Roku to try to enable streamers to purchase products in TV ads straight from the comfort of their couches.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? Remember Teletext? For the Millennials and Gen-Zers in the audience, back in the distant ‘90s people were able to access all kinds of information on their TV screens, from news to package holiday deals. With the advent of the world
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wide web, Teletext slowly came to an end, but retailers have always tried to solve this particular conundrum: how to let viewers buy the product they are watching an ad for in real time. Now Walmart is trying to make that a reality; the partnership with Roku hopes to “change the way customers interact and shop TV and video content”.
HOW WILL IT WORK? The pilot programme will let viewers simply press ‘OK’ with the remote on a shoppable ad and proceed to checkout with their payment details easily pre-populated from the Roku Pay payments platform. From there, tapping ‘OK’ on the Walmart checkout page places the order.
“We’re the first to market retailer to bring customers a new shoppable experience.”
