Walmart Takes On Big Data

 

Much of the big data tools have been developed at the Walmart Labs, which was created after Walmart took over Kosmix in 2011. The products that were developed at Walmart Labs are ‘Social Genome’, ‘ShoppyCat’ and Get on the Shelf.

The Social Genome product allows Walmart to reach customers, or friends of customers, who have mentioned something online to inform them about that exact product and include a discount.
 Public data is combined from the web along with social data and proprietary data such as customer purchasing data and contact information. The result is , constantly changing, up-to-date knowledge base with hundreds of millions of entities and relationships. this provides  Walmart with a  better understanding of  the  what their customers are saying online. An example mentioned by Walmart Labs shows a woman tweeting regularly about movies. When she tweets “I love Salt”, Walmart is able to understand that she is talking about the movie Salt and not the condiment.

The Shoppycat product  developed by Walmart is able to recommend suitable products to Facebook users based on the hobbies and interests of their friends. 

Get on the Shelf  a crowd-sourcing solution that gave anyone the chance to promote his or her product in front of a large online audience. The best products would be sold at Walmart with the potential to suddenly reach millions of customers.