Walmart Uses Facebook For Back to School Shopping Promotion

We have been seeing quite a bit lately surrounding Walmart’s new marketing efforts both Online and off (Consumer reviews and Site to Store program).

Walmart has started their own Facebook Group, called Roommate Style Match, for college students. The Facebook Group is meant to target college students for the upcoming back-to-school season. Walmart hopes that by promoting their products through Facebook’s social media site that it will help to bring in more business from younger consumers for this years school season and back-to-school shopping in the future.

According to a study conducted last year by the National Retail Federation, the average first-year college student spent $1,112.62, mainly on electronics and home furnishings.

The Roomate Style Match Group launched on Wednesday and is due to stay active through the end of October. Users who have joined the new group simply take a brief quiz to determine their decorating style, get a list of Walmart recommended products and then they can buy those items at Walmart to mesh their own unique style with their roommate’s style. Group members can also download a shopping list of dorm room products sold at Walmart stores or Walmart.com and link to Walmart’s earth-friendly items.

We realize that this is an audience that we need to be talking to, and that this is a channel we need to be on. Facebook has 34 million active users, which it defines as users who have logged on in the past month, and he said approximately 40 percent of its users are in college.

Back-to-school shopping begins in the summer months so retailers like Walmart are bulking up for this years school shopping season in BIG new ways. It has been reported that many eTailers fear that higher gas and grocery prices may affect this years school shopping season and cause students or parents to shop less locally and buy fewer items than in years past.

The new Facebook Group launches just a month after Walmart announced their new Site to Store program aimed at users who want to purchase Online and pick up their items in a Walmart store a no additional cost to the consumer. Walmart representatives expect to see a lot more students buy their back-to-school products in Walmart stores, on Walmart.com and through their Site to Store program due to the Roommate Style Match campaign and other marketing campaigns aimed at back-to-school students.

Makes me wonder when other major retailers will join in on the Facebook fun? Target, Dell, Macys, they could all learn a thing or two from Walmart.

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By eCopt on August 11, 2007, last modified August 11th, 2007
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