Walmart Sponsored Ads
Walmart is the latest company to increase its focus on Sponsored search ads. Over the past year the number and cost of Sponsored ads on Amazon and Google have increased, and we should expect everyone else with a platform to follow suit in increasing emphasis on these ‘pay-to-play’ ads.
Why? It’s a source of revenue, and the Grocery store business model of slotting fees, stay fees and display fees has long shown that manufacturers and distributors will pay to get placement for their products. Online you can still get good placement without these, but usually by paying a different cost, such as price reductions or heavy SEO/SEM efforts.
This additional cost will put more pressure on reseller margins, and I believe ultimately shift more advantage to manufacturers, encouraging the shift to Direct To Consumer sales.