Why Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT)’s Online Presence Will Continue To Rise

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The Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) website has been revamped. The biggest change is the new search engine, which Wal-Mart claims has increased search engine-related sales by 20%.

Another change to the site is the Trending Now tab. Clicking on it reveals a scrolling page of highlighted products, much like Pinterest. It is made up of various product bubbles of items recently reviewed or top searches or items posted on Pinterst or even items just sold. It is a fun way to discover new items and products that other people really liked.

These e-commerce developments are brought about by Wal-Mart’s innovation center known as @WalmartLabs. Jeremy King is the CTO of Walmart.com and runs @WalmartLabs. He is an experienced engineer who “built key parts of eBay’s infrastructure.”

Outside of the online space Wal-Mart is also performing well. Its revenue grew almost 6% in 2012, compared to 3.43% the year before and about 1% the year before that. It has a profit margin of 3.62%, which puts to shame Amazon’s paltry -.06% profit margin.
Conclusion

Wal-Mart’s online revenue is rising rapidly. It will pose a greater and greater threat to Amazon as its online services catch on and become more and more robust. I believe now is a great time to invest in Wal-Mart, the company that has been called the largest start-up in the world.

The article Wal-Mart Is the Next Big Tech Company originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Sean Sullivan.

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