How a WhatsApp Prompt Could Redefine the Way Walmart Sells Online

Inside Walmart’s unexpected success in Chile — and why this messaging-based shopping model may be its next global advantage.

Walmart’s most surprising e-commerce breakthrough isn’t coming from an app, a new website feature, or even a supply-chain upgrade. It’s coming from a simple WhatsApp prompt that builds a customer’s shopping cart automatically — and it’s delivering results few retailers have ever achieved.

A Shopping Cart Sent Straight to Your Phone

In Chile, Walmart uses purchase history to pre-assemble a customer’s typical reorder basket — the brands they buy, in the quantities they usually select, at roughly the cadence they tend to repurchase.

Then comes the powerful step:
Walmart sends a WhatsApp message inviting the shopper to review the cart.

No browsing. No searching. No app navigation.

Just a frictionless conversation inside the messaging app customers use every day.

The response has been extraordinary:

• 20% of Walmart Chile’s entire e-commerce business now comes from this WhatsApp-driven experience.

• Shoppers say it saves time and eliminates routine shopping effort.

• Walmart gains reliable, predictable digital orders that reduce last-minute fulfillment spikes.

The company now plans to expand this model to other markets — a sign of how impactful this experiment has become.

Why This Works: Walmart Anticipates the Order Before the Customer Does

The magic isn’t the message itself. It’s the intelligence behind it:

• Walmart knows what each customer buys regularly.

• It knows roughly how often they buy it.

• It knows which SKUs are available in the closest store or fulfillment node.

• And it can assemble a personalized cart with high accuracy.

This is predictive replenishment at scale, delivered in a channel customers trust and use daily.

Unlike Amazon’s catalog-driven approach or the typical retailer mobile app, Walmart is shifting from reactive digital shopping to proactive digital shopping.

A Digital Backbone Strong Enough to Support It

Walmart can offer WhatsApp-based ordering because the rest of its digital and fulfillment engine is now strong enough to execute predictably.

Some highlights:

• U.S. ecommerce sales have grown more than 20% for seven consecutive quarters

• International ecommerce now represents one-third of Walmart’s global business

• In China, digital sales make up half of all revenue

• U.S. ecommerce transactions climbed 28% last quarter

This is consistent, multi-year growth — not trial, not hype, but repeatable performance.

Automation Is Quietly Transforming Walmart’s Fulfillment Economics

Walmart has spent the last several years rebuilding its supply chain with automation at the core:

• ~50% of the material flowing through U.S. fulfillment centers is now automated

• Many stores are replenished by automated distribution centers

• These improvements have driven ~30% reductions in operating expenses across multiple quarters

This matters because frictionless digital ordering only works if the back-end can fulfill quickly and profitably. Walmart is now in a position where automation absorbs the labor and throughput demands of fast-growing online volume — including repeat orders initiated by WhatsApp.

A New Direction for Global Retail

Walmart’s WhatsApp success is bigger than a messaging tactic. It signals a shift in how retailers may serve customers:

• Shopping happens where the customer already is

• Replenishment becomes automatic, not manual

• Conversation replaces search

• Prediction replaces browsing

For the first time, a major global retailer is showing that conversational commerce can deliver real, sustained business impact — not as a novelty, but as a core revenue channel.

And Walmart’s intent is clear: this is not a Chile-only experiment. It’s a blueprint.

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