What kinds of e-commerce are used?

Wal*Mart uses the B2C e-commerce which is based on the business selling their products to the consumers who are the primarily individuals.

What types of internet business models are used?

Wal*Mart has been the leader and innovator in supply chain management, e-commerce and e- business. In their model, Wal*Mart’s low prices create a large demand that drives the suppliers. Since Wal*Mart’s inventory control system is so advanced they are able to send purchasing information to the suppliers to know which products are selling more, the suppliers in turn are able to know how much they will need on hand for just Wal*Mart alone and since each store is able to order their own merchandise the orders are sent out electronically for the amount needed the suppliers can have a very fast turnover time to send out the needed shipment to each store, and basically replenish their stock accurately by forecasting what they will need in each store, cutting the cost down as well as the time for both Wal*Mart and their suppliers.

What type of marketing mix does it adopt?

Wal-Mart’s marketing mix is very apparent in the way their design their websites, advertisements, as well as in store ads.

Registering with search engines:

Wal-Mart uses a variety of different key words and specific descriptions when they register with a search engines such as google, yahoo, and bing, which are considered the most popular. By registering with these search engines, they are giving themselves more exposure to clients by advertising their prices right up against their competitors, since other companies do the same thing, when a person is looking for a certain item and would type in a description of it along with the word “price” for example a list of companies who carry the item will appear in the search along with their online price. Wal-Mart, uses this in conjunction with their low prices to beat out their competitors.

Online Advertisements:

Wal-Mart does advertising online in addition to what they put on their website. Many Black-Friday based websites have a list of low priced products being sold in stores. Wal-Mart is usually advertising on all of these sites because of the deals that they have on that day as well as many banner advertisements and pop-ups on other sites especially during the holiday season to promote their products.

Affiliate Program:

Wal-Mart’s main website has a link to an affiliate program that they offer in which any person with a website who provides a link to Wal-Mart’s page can earn commission based upon the number of click through’s to their site as well as an additional commission on qualifying sales that Wal-Mart is promoting at that time. Wal-Mart designs all of the ads for the program all a person has to do is register with the company and post the given ads to their own website.

Wal-Mart Payment Systems

Wal-Mart uses a financial cybermediary as one of their payment methods. A financial cybermediary is an account which transfers money from one person to another or to a company over the internet, the best example of this would be a PayPal account.