Walmart invests in social commerce with new creator platform

Walmart is launching Walmart Creator, a program aimed at enabling and incentivizing creators to develop shoppable content around the retailer’s merchandise, as a new way to build social commerce.

The program, which Walmart is announcing today as a beta test, includes data support and a dashboard to help creators see how they’re performing and improve that performance, affiliate commissions for Walmart products sold via creator content ,and supply chain support for fulfilling orders. Walmart Creator will also serve as a conduit for “supplier integration” to link supplier brands and creators where there’s mutual interest, said William White, chief marketing officer of Walmart U.S.

Unlike other independent creator networks, the objective here isn’t to create a profit center for Walmart by brokering creator talent to brands, but to provide support that will encourage more creators to develop shoppable content that moves more merchandise.

The initial beta test is open by invitation only to creators, White said, with plans to fully launch in early 2023. Ultimately the program will be available broadly to creators with no minimum follower threshold and operate across whatever social platforms the creators use.

Also read: How influencer storefronts are driving sales for brands

Walmart already has vast experience doing its own shoppable livestreams, often in conjunction with big brands such as L’Oréal Paris or its own exclusive brands with the likes of Ree Drummond (a.k.a. The Pioneer Woman)—with more than 1,000 streams to date. Some of that experience will inform Walmart Creator, White said. But the platform isn’t limited to supporting livestreams, he said.

Basically, the idea is to foster social commerce for Walmart without the retailer having to do so much of the work, by making it easier and more profitable for creators to do the work themselves.

“It’s a one-stop shop portal that makes it easy for creators to monetize shoppable products,” White said. “We believe anyone can be a creator, and this new offering ultimately helps democratize the tools and resources needed to be a creator.”

It includes access to thousands of products that lets creators share links to “any social platform or group of platforms of their choice,” White said. “And they’ll receive product recommendations from us based on their interests and affinities.”

Walmart’s extensive livestream commerce experience across social platforms should help in part because it’s helped build out a supply chain to support social commerce.

Speaking at Procter & Gamble Co.’s Signal digital event in July, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said, “Today, we have a supply chain and [application program interfaces] that can plug in to fulfill orders through the various social media companies, like TikTok. We could be back-end fulfillment for any digital front end now. And with the growth of influencers and growth of social commerce, that’s really important for us.”

Walmart’s insights into what moves merchandise best in particular categories may ultimately be the most useful part of a tool like Walmart Creator, “especially with the wealth of data Walmart can bring,” said Gabe Gordon, co-founder of the Reach Agency, a digital video agency that’s handled creator work for such marketers as Clorox Co. and Nestlé.