What are shoppers searching for on Walmart.com?
Written by Matt Pace (contact - e-mail) -- November 26th, 2007 | Recommend ThisThe answer to that question in a moment, but first some context:
Say the word “search” and most people think immediately of Google and its dominant market share. Despite this, one form of online searching remains largely out of Google’s ever-extending reach. While garnering much less attention (read: none) on-site search (what people search for once they arrive on a website) offers a revealing look into what matters most to site visitors.
Case in point: Walmart.com. The world’s largest retailer attracted 22M U.S. visitors to its website in October, over half of whom conducted at least one search on the site. The table below lists the top 40 terms Walmart.com visitors searched for in October.
Observations:
- The top searched for term on Walmart.com in both September and October was “tires”! As in the lowly vulcanized rubber tubes we ride on each day. Over 1% of all searches on Walmart.com were for “tires” in October. While this came as a surprise to me, it certainly isn’t a secret to everyone, judging by the nearly 250,000 visitors that Walmart.com’s tire center attracts each month.
- Seasonality has a significant affect on searches on Walmart.com. For example, Halloween related terms made up 3 of the top 13 searches in October.
- Video gamers love Walmart. The “wii” was 2nd only to “tires” on the list of top search terms in October, while “xbox 360” was 12th on the list. The struggling PS3 ranked #54 in October, up from #97 in September, after a mid-month $100 price cut.
- Consumer electronics related search terms accounted for half of the top 40 search terms in October.
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Get the 
November 26th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I resent that you say on-site search is getting no attention. Here’s just one example of my MediaPost columns that advocate broadening the definition of search engines: http://www.marketersstudio.com/2007/09/searchs-myspace.html .
November 26th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
David-
Please excuse my poor attempt at sarcasm. I was simply trying to convey that relative to the attention paid to google and the like, on-site search gets much less notice. Your article being a noted exception.
Matt
December 4th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
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April 5th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Walmart does not care about their customers!!!!If they did I would have been treated better when I go shopping there.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
i know i prob. not reaching the correct dept. but maybe you can pass it on ? i have been buying your product for years , i heard from a stocking person that you mabe dropping a product, i sure hope not ,we enjoy sams choice trail mixits called sams choiceorchard trail. gold and yellow pkg. i know this is prob. silly of me, but i beleive you really care. ty so much roger huff from topeka ks.