Walmart has launched a nursery destination as part of its recently redesigned e-Commerce site experience, expanding its assortment across all baby categories. The move comes a few months after Toys ‘R’ Us — and its baby unit Babies ‘R’ Us — shuttered it stores and e-Commerce site, leaving the baby products market to its competitors.
The new destination features six curated collections of Walmart’s most popular styles of nursery décor — Wanderlust, Boho Chic, and Mid-Century Modern plus options for baby boy, baby girl and gender-neutral nurseries. It also follows efforts to create a new in-store experience in the baby department in more than 2,000 stores across the country.
Over the past year, Walmart has added 30,000 items to its baby assortment online, with new products for closet storage, car seats, nursing, diaper changing and other baby care necessities, according to a blog post from Lauren Uppington, VP and General Manager of Baby Products at Walmart eCommerce U.S. Searches for baby-related items on Walmart.com have jumped roughly 40% during the same time frame, Walmart spokeswoman Danit Marquardt told CNBC.
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Babies ‘R’ Us apparently was propping up Toys ‘R’ Us: baby gear accounted for 35.9% of total domestic revenue at the retailer. However, CEO Dave Brandon noted that the unit’s results had “shown degradation in margin continuously even though we were told by customers that our prices were too high,” making baby products a hard category for the company to compete in. With no more Babies ‘R’ Us stores in the picture, Walmart is seeing a prime opportunity to gain more market share within the baby merchandise vertical.
