Skip to main content

Walmart’s redesigned website looks better than Amazon

Walmart’s redesigned website looks better than Amazon

/

Walmart’s new homepage deviates from Amazon’s by primarily highlighting the products relevant to upcoming events, holidays, or the current season.

Share this story

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

An image showing Walmart’s website redesign on three mobile devices
Image: Walmart

Walmart’s website and app have a new look, and I have to admit that it looks a lot cleaner than Amazon’s. The retail giant swapped out a more cluttered interface for one with bubbly blocks displaying various departments and deals across the store.

When you scroll down on the homepage, you’ll see even more shopping categories, along with specific items tailored to upcoming holidays, events, or the current season. Meanwhile, searching for a product yields several rows of products matching your search that you can scroll through horizontally.

Walmart’s old site vs. Walmart’s redesigned layout
Image: Walmart

Walmart executive vice president Tom Ward describes the change as “a more engaging way to browse” through Walmart’s inventory, noting that it surfaces “items that matter most to [customers] at any given moment.” To compare, Amazon’s homepage presents a slideshow-style banner at the top of the screen, while the rest is essentially a checkerboard of products and categories Amazon thinks you’ll like based on previous purchases.

Even before the redesign, I found shopping on Walmart’s website a more pleasant experience. For one, it has fewer of the word salad brands that frequently take up my top search results on Amazon — one of my biggest gripes with the site. It also sometimes has faster shipping options since products may actually be in stock at my local Walmart (or better yet, I can just find and pick something up in-store).

Walmart has long strived to compete with Amazon, and its new homepage is just its latest attempt to get an edge on the e-commerce giant. After expanding its inventory by opening its online Marketplace over a decade ago, the company has continued to ramp up its efforts. It rolled out its own $12.95 per month Walmart Plus subscription in 2020, which offers Amazon Prime-like benefits including free shipping, access to Paramount Plus, and direct-to-fridge grocery deliveries (for an extra $7 per month). On top of that, Walmart may even challenge Amazon in the entertainment industry by creating a streaming service of its own.