It's finally here, the Walmart Creator Program
Shopify, TikTok and others are getting ready for social commerce trend of 2023 and 2024.
What shall we even say about the future of social commerce in the West? Instagram has been a dud, TikTok is not even sure if social commerce works in Europe or America, but it will bet big anyways, it’s chaos.
Now Walmart thinks it can compete as well. Even legacy shopping doesn’t want to be left behind.
Walmart WMT 0.00%↑ is out with a new platform for influencers, called Walmart Creator.
On Tuesday, the big box retailer announced a beta version of the site that allows influencers and social media creators to monetize shoppable Walmart product recommendations to their followers. The company plans to fully launch the platform in 2023.
The battle of TikTok and Amazon was recently pitched about a week ago in some of the dumbest PR campaigns I’ve ever seen. Stuff like can “TikTok take on Amazon at its own Game”. It was beyond belief. Shopify as I have covered had already created its own Creator program called Collabs back in August.
But Walmart? No NFTs baby?
Walmart believes anyone can be a creator, and the product democratizes the tools and resources needed to do so. Walmart should pair up with Roblox and make some babies if you ask me. You know, the Metaverse kind.
"We know our customers are inspired by the content and stories they see from their favorite influencers in their social feeds every day ... This next step in our strategy will help fuel inspiration for our customers by connecting their favorite creators directly with our brand and the brands they love at Walmart.”
Over a dozen LinkedIn job listings posted over the past two weeks suggest TikTok is gearing up to build sprawling U.S. fulfillment centers as part of a larger pivot towards live e-commerce. TikTok’s mainland China app Douyin does social commerce really well, but the West is about 10 years behind in mobile social commerce, namely the live-streaming segment where influencers called KOLs (key opinion leaders) can help sell stuff on E-commerce.
It’s doubtful if such trends can or will ever take off in Europe or the U.S. If anyone can do it, I guess it will be TikTok, who have a marketing budget that is enormous and a youthful user-base who adopt a lot of nefarious trends and memes.
The Side Gig for Poor Creators
Creators who sign up will have access to tens of thousands of products and are given the opportunity to earn revenue all while earning commissions on sales they refer with no cap. Users of the platform can share product links to any social platform or group of their choice, receive product recommendations based on interests and affinities and collect valuable performance data to help grow their community and following.
Let’s advertise on discount guys, because inflation hurts.
We’re so lucky though, since Creators can apply for beta access ahead of the holiday season, and the retailer plans to fully launch Walmart Creator in 2023. The platform also allows creators to apply to be a part of upcoming brand campaigns.
Creators who sign up for the platform will be able to share product links on any social platform or "group of their choice." They will be able to use analytics to track how their recommendations perform and earn revenue via commission.
It’s not clear how influencers and Creators will become sales people on live-streaming and to their “fans”. Substack’s many “communities” get ready!
Walmart is so transparent though right:
We don't share commission percentages for our creator partners but are excited to enable them to further grow their business and community through this platform,” Walmart told Yahoo Finance.
If Social Commerce Does Take Off
If the schemes of TikTok and Amazon work though, at least Creators can have a higher hope of achieving a living wage with so many digital creators living in poverty including gamers, writers, Instagram brands, YouTube channel managers and so forth.
Walmart's biggest competitor, Amazon, launched its creator-driven sales platform — Amazon Influencers — five years ago. Though I’ve basically never heard of it moving the needle for anyone, including Amazon sales. With Amazon’s disastrous entry into video games and its LOTR series, Amazon is good at what it does but probably not entertainment. Not so customer centric guys, Amazon Alexa and Twitch are mere shadows of what they could have been.
Walmart has barely figured out E-commerce, let alone the Influencer game of social commerce. There are barely any live-streaming apps to speak of in the West, does TikTok live even count? Maybe YouTube live does, I’m not sure.
I’m grateful to Walmart, they let me pick more than the three generic categories.
I’m eager to report on the best drones and video games in the upcoming holiday shopping season!
I’m in the holiday spirit with this message from your sponsor:
Walmart is an early pioneer in the social commerce space and is always testing and learning in new channels, including shoppable livestreams, with the goal of better serving customers by meeting them when and how they want to shop. Walmart Creator represents another expansion into this space, further enabling shoppers to shorten the distance between inspiration and purchase.
I feel so blessed to live in a world where Retail giants will share commissions with me. Where monopolies crowd my space and don’t even let me have access to my own Email list of “followers”.
Nothing like Walmart, LinkedIn and others to get me in the spirit of digital slavery. I just need to practice my happy face.
Seriously though:
Walmart thinks these are the most relevant channels:
I’ve never sold anything on Twitter or Google Analytics, how about you?
Walmart assures me I can run all of my Creator content material from one place, their website. I meekly decided I agree with their formula for harvesting my personal data, so I obliged.
I have so far up until now notified Meta, Shopify, TikTok, Google, LinkedIn, Apple and now Walmart of my great interest in their Creator Programs and affiliate deals, but I have yet to receive an official reply.
I apologize for the sarcastic tone of this piece.