Always Low Prices? Now There's a Walmart iPad App for That
Bargain hunting just got a little easier for Walmart (WMT) customers who are also Apple (AAPL) customers.
The world's largest retailer has launched a new app for the iPad and updated its app for the iPhone to keep in step with its shoppers' growing use of the popular Apple products -- and mobile devices in general, Ravi Jariwala, a Walmart spokesman, tells DailyFinance.
About one third of Walmart shoppers already use smartphones, "and we expect that number to increase pretty steadily," he says. "And tablets, particularly the iPad, are becoming a significant source of Web traffic for us."
Walmart already offers a shopping app for Google's Android platform.
The retailer's first-ever iPad app enables shoppers to browse any of Walmart's 3,800 U.S. stores to check on local product availability, and pull up comprehensive information specific to that store, as well as shop from Walmart.com.
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This isn't Walmart's first foray onto the iPad. VUDU, the retailer's video-on-demand movie service, has been available through the iPad's browser since this summer, Jariwala notes.
The retailer launched its first iPhone app last spring, and "it's been downloaded millions of times," Jariwala says.
New features of Walmart's updated iPhone app, which will go live later this week, allow consumers to create shopping lists by speaking, typing or scanning product bar codes. The app also enables shoppers to view manufacturer coupons for products carried in local Walmart stores.
"With 140 million customers shopping our stores every week, based on that scale, we are pretty reflective of the general U.S. shopper," Jariwala says. "And as the general population continues to adopt new technologies like smart phones, tablets, iPhones and iPads, that adoption rate is going to be similar to what we see from Walmart's customer base."
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