Walmart’s Latest eCommerce Acquisition

The technology power behind Walmart’s global eCommerce initiatives, known as @WalmartLabs, is bringing a Silicon Valley startup on board to enhance the retailers’ customer relationship management tools.

In a joint statement on the @WalmartLabs site yesterday (Sept. 22), Jeremy King, head of WalmartLabs, and Jamie Iannone, president and CEO of SamsClub.com, announced the acquisition of PunchTab, a software company that enables brands like Walmart to understand and engage with customers online, via mobile and in store.

WalmartLabs will absorb six PunchTab technologists, as well as the company’s technology, which will be used to improve how it communicates with customers across email, Web, mobile and retail locations.

“PunchTab’s first task is to leverage its software platform to enhance the ways we tailor offers to Sam’s Club members across our clubs, our mobile app and on SamsClub.com. Like most of the technology we build at @WalmartLabs, we plan to apply what we build for Sam’s Club to Walmart’s other businesses, including Walmart.com,” King and Iannone said in the statement.

The procurement of PunchTab marks the fifteenth acquisition WalmartLabs has made within the last four years, which King and Iannone noted was part of the company’s effort to attain the best talent from both Silicon Valley and globally.

“We started PunchTab a few years ago with the belief that customer engagement could be enhanced by what we learn from data and how we use technology to deepen consumer relationships across every channel of engagement — online and off,” PunchTab Founder Mehdi Ait Oufkir said in company blog post.

“We are incredibly excited to solve this same challenging problem for the largest retailer in the world. The team is looking forward to applying its learnings and technology at a broad scale never before seen in the market. We are honored to embark on the next part of our journey.”

WalmartLabs confirmed Oufkir, along with five software engineers from PunchTab, will become a part of the customer acquisition and retention team at WalmartLabs.

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