In the latest edition of Omni Talk’s Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Avalara, Mirakl, Ownit AI, and Ocampo Capital Chris Walton, Anne Mezzenga discuss: If They're Buying Or Selling: Walmart’s New Shop With Friends Feature

For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/18lMxsBIt7o

  Walmart will now let you shop with friends from your home. I know you're waiting with bated breath for this one. Um, according to fast company, Walmart shoppers can now get advice from friends on new clothes they're considering without ever setting foot in the store or even trying anything on. Or becoming a Walmart, uh, logged in member.

I will also note, um, a new website feature called shop with friends currently in beta lets users choose from a set of models to find one that looks like them, then assembles a virtual fitting room of outfits. They're potentially interested in. Then they can see how the outfits look on their chosen model and generate a link to their fitting room to share by text, email, or social media.

Letting friends weigh in on which outfits they should get. Once they've assembled their virtual fitting rooms, they can share the link through any messaging or social tool they choose. If they're on a desktop or laptop, the Walmart website will generate a QR code they can scan, making it easier to share through whatever apps they have on their phones.

Friends who get access to the link can provide their name and virtually like as many of the outfits in the virtual fitting room as they wish. For their shopping buddy to see users deliberately don't need to install any Walmart apps to create fitting rooms, and they don't need to create Walmart accounts in order to vote.

Finally, in order to keep the experience feeling positive, users can only upvote outfits. There's no way to give negative votes. Or more detailed comments, though users could of course text their friends separately about particular outfits. Future versions may have more feedback options, but the company wants to make sure it can avoid negative trolling, especially since users may share their fitting rooms with large audiences on social media, Chris.

Are you buying or selling Walmart's new shop with friends feature? Yeah, I, I, I think I'm buying this one, Ann. I, I, I, I, I kind of like it. You don't like it, huh? I I want to hear your, your logic though. Like I could be wrong. Well, I, I'm buying the testing of it. Okay. A hundred percent I'm buying the test of it.

Because I think it's this, you know, we talk about there's good experiments and there's bad experiments. Right. I think this is a smart experiment. Um, because, well, for one thing, I was amazed at how much the article talked about the user experience design and the flow of the experience too. Oh yeah.

Unprecedented for an article about a technology innovation, honestly. So I think that's 'cause that this is, that's the best part of this is the UX is really nicely created. But I mean, it seems like it's really well thought out. For sure, for sure. So it tells me that Walmart's giving this whole thing a lot of thought both now, but also in the longer term.

See that's the other thing too. It's a smart experiment. 'cause you're gonna learn here, not just for today, does it work today? But also what could work down the road in the future, especially as more sure. Virtual fit tech and AI tech comes into play in this conversation. So the big question for me is always the same, right?

And you've heard me say it a long time. You're probably sick of me saying it's like, it's great, but how do you get traffic to it? How do you get people to use it? And the other thing too, is the test could actually just be a little too early. And so the question will become how much does Walmart, how much runway does Walmart's leadership Give to evaluate it, but I don't know.

You're you're, you're much more in this market than I am. So like, yeah, it sounds like you're negative on this one, but why so? Um, cause I don't see the value of it. Like this to me feels like tech for tech sake, I get your point. And I, and I do give Walmart an A for effort in like the UX is great. You know, this is putting a new product in front of consumers and they will learn things from it indefinitely.

So that's fine. But. I just, I feel like if I like something, I think about my experience right now. So just me as a consumer, if I see a product that I like, I'm just texting it to a friend and sent, and we're having a conversation back and forth about it again, to your point. I don't know that I'm going to Walmart to do this.

And the second point, Walmart, Like Walmart keeps honing in on this, like, find a model that looks like me. Like, no, who cares at that point? Like that's such a waste. I think of that tool. I mean, I know they made this a big investment in Z kit. So I know that they're trying to figure out other alternate use cases.

So I understand it. I just, I don't think that's have any value. Um, and so I, you know, the point that I did. Pull out of this is that the Walmart executive talking about this said that her daughter, she really noticed that her daughter is shopping in this way. And so Mm-Hmm, . I think that that's something that, you know, I'm just old, so maybe this is how the, the kids or the next generation of shopper is really preferring to shop where they're on the platform and on Walmart and sending things.

I just, I don't think that that makes sense. And then the last thing I'll say. I don't like that. You can't thumbs down something like that seems ridiculous too. I get you're sharing it with a lot of people, but like, isn't that the whole point for me to like, give you honest feedback, like my girlfriend, Danielle just sent me a pair of boots and it was like, am I too old to wear these thumbs up thumbs up?

Like we, I mean, you, you want all the feedback and I don't think that. You know, starting this journey on Walmart, having to send it through a Walmart platform. Like it also isn't getting me to sign up for a Walmart, like login or anything. So Walmart's not getting any information from me. It just, it seems like the wrong way to approach this, but.

Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Um, so my last, my final question for you though, is. Is if, if this was being done, like you just shot a video of Abercrombie and how much you love all the new clothes there. If Abercrombie was doing this, would that change your opinion of it? No. Cause I, I think all the same things apply.

Like I'm, I send, I send a link to the pair of jeans on the model to my friends, like the, you know, or the pants that I love from there. Like, I'm not putting it on a model that looks slightly more like me is not going to have any impact. I don't think so. I'm just not a fan. Yeah, no, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking more just like the sending it to your friends so they can upvote it or, you know, not download it, but upvote it. No, I've searched the product and I've sent it to them. Like, I don't need, I don't need to Abercrombie involved in this necessarily outside of the product link. Like you don't need them to facilitate the conversation.

I'm not going to Abercrombie. So you can just put your wardrobe choices on social and have the entire world upvote, whatever they think you should buy. No, no, I have Google for that. I have my phone. I have messages like they're all of the things already exist. And I'm much more, it's much simpler for me to get to that.

end goal than to have to go through Walmart or Abercrombie or any of these other retailers to do that.