Walmart and Roku have announced a new partnership “to make TV streaming the next ecommerce shopping destination.” The new deal will push the boundaries of the burgeoning realm of “TV commerce” by allowing customers to shop and buy products from ads on the Roku streaming service, with Walmart serving as the exclusive retailer for the transactions.
Viewers will be able to press “OK” on their remote when they see a product they like in a shoppable ad and proceed to checkout on their TV. Payment details will be pre-populated from Roku Pay, Roku’s payments platform. From there, tapping “OK” on the Walmart checkout page places the order. A Walmart purchase confirmation is then emailed to the customer with shipping, return and support information.
“We’re working to connect with customers where they are already spending time, shortening the distance from discovery and inspiration to purchase,” said William White, Chief Marketing Officer at Walmart in a statement. “No one has cracked the code around video shoppability. By working with Roku, we’re the first-to-market retailer to bring customers a new shoppable experience and seamless checkout on the largest screen in their homes — their TV.”
The partnership will take advantage of one of streaming TV’s biggest benefits — its advanced targeting and measurement capabilities. Brands will be able activate and measure their shoppable ads through Roku’s OneView ad-buying platform, and marketers will be able to use the Roku Brand Studio to design custom creative and branded content built for TV streaming and shopping.
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At the outset the partnership will be limited to featured products in shoppable ads, but the partners promise that the in-platform buying experiences will “continue to evolve,” with future iterations of the program offering additional opportunities for “commerce experiences that meet customers where they are.”
“We’re making shopping on TV as easy as it is on social,” said Peter Hamilton, Head of TV Commerce at Roku in a statement. “For years, streamers have purchased new Roku devices and signed up for millions of subscriptions with their Roku remote. Streaming commerce brings that same ease and convenience to marketers and shoppers.”
Walmart has been pushing hard into the shoppable media space across a range of platforms, including:
- A partnership with TalkShopLive to create shoppable content that can be embedded on a range of platforms, including Walmart.com, as well as various media outlets and social sites;
- Hosting the first-ever shoppable livestream on Twitter, a year after it did the same on TikTok;
- Teaming up with First Media’s So Yummy brand for a shoppable content campaign built into the reality show Unbox’d; and
- Joining forces with Meredith to create shoppable recipes and cooking content across the publisher’s portfolio of publications.
