Roku and Walmart announced a new partnership that aims to crack the code on making purchases via TV streaming and shopping with remotes. On Thursday, the two companies introduce their plan to allow viewers to purchase items with their remotes while streaming on Roku devices. The deal is expected to unite Roku’s streaming platform’s 61.3 million subscribers with a retailer that had total revenue of $141.6 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
The companies wrote in a statement that this is a first-of-its-kind partnership between retailers and streaming platforms. This doesn’t count Amazon, of course, which is both a retailer and streaming platform. But it could open the door for other streaming services to do the same.
Essentially, the program adds an overlay to an existing ad so that streamers can choose to click “OK” on their Roku remote and make a transaction right on the screen with their TV show paused. A shopper won’t be taken to Walmart.com or need to capture QR codes on their phones to complete orders.
Typing a credit card number using a TV remote can be frustrating so Roku and Walmart have made it so customers won’t have to enter their credit card numbers since Roku’s payment platform has the customers’ payment details pre-populated.
The …
