Roku, Walmart form commerce partnership
June 17, 2022
Walmart, the US retail chain, and Roku have announced a partnership to make TV streaming the next e-commerce shopping destination. Walmart will be the exclusive retailer to enable streamers to purchase featured products fulfilled by Walmart directly on Roku.
The new experience offers product discovery with a seamless checkout experience, enabling purchase directly at the time of inspiration.
“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, Walmart. “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.”
Roku said its purpose-built advertising tech stack will bring all the benefits of streaming TV advertising – targeting, optimisation, and measurement – to the commerce partnership. This first pilot programme fuses entertainment with the transactional world of commerce, unlocking an in-platform buying experience for customers that will continue to evolve.
Viewers simply press ‘OK’ with the remote on a shoppable ad and proceed to checkout with their payment details 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 with shipping, return, and support information.
“We’re making shopping on TV as easy as it is on social,” said Peter Hamilton, Head of TV Commerce, Roku. “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.”
OneView, Roku’s ad-buying platform for TV streaming, will have the exclusive capability to activate and measure these shoppable ads. Additionally, marketers will be able to use Roku Brand Studio to design custom creative and branded content built for TV streaming and shopping.