Skip to main content

Roku teams up with Walmart to let you shop from your TV

Roku today announced a partnership with a little company called Walmart on a pilot program to let you shop directly from your TV. You’ll need a Roku device, of course — and this works across the entire lineup of the best Roku players, speakers and televisions — and you’ll need to be in the U.S. From there, you’ll just have to click through the on-screen ad, and Roku’s payments platform takes care of the rest.

It’s not the first time Roku and Walmart have worked so closely together — there have been several iterations of Roku players that have been sold exclusively at the retail giant under the “LE” designation.

“We’re making shopping on TV as easy as it is on social,” Peter Hamilton, Roku’s head of TV commerce, said in a press release. “For years, streamers have purchased new Roku devices and signed up for millions of subscriptions with their Roku remote. Streaming commerce brings that same ease and convenience to marketers and shoppers.”

Roku is the No. 1 streaming platform in the United States, with devices starting at $25 for the low-end Roku Express. The Roku operating system also powers a majority of smart TVs sold, and it has a line of speakers that also supplement the experience. But where Roku really makes its money is in advertising — the “platform” side brought in more than seven times the revenue of the hardware side in the first quarter of 2022. (Hardware actually has lost money the past four quarters.)

Walmart commerce on Roku.
Roku

More on Roku

What we don’t quite yet know is exactly where the shoppable ads will appear. It makes sense that they’d show up in the usual display spaces — the large ads you’ll see on the Roku home screens (provided you’re not running an ad-blocker on your network). But it also wouldn’t surprise us to see them show up in other places, such as content on The Roku Channel, or in Roku’s own shows or movies. (It’s dabbled with first-party content.) The question is how unobtrusive such ads may be, or how relevant they might actually be to your shopping habits.

“We’re working to connect with customers where they are already spending time, shortening the distance from discovery and inspiration to purchase,” William White, chief marketing officer for Walmart, said in the press release. “No one has cracked the code around video shoppability. By working with Roku, we’re the first-to-market retailer to bring customers a new shoppable experience and seamless checkout on the largest screen in their homes — their TV.”

Phil Nickinson
Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…
The Roku-YouTube-YouTube TV impasse isn’t over yet
YouTube TV on Roku.

It's been several months since Roku and YouTube TV reached a cease-fire in their dispute over ... well, over a few things. But it now looks like the war is heating back up.

To recap, Roku in April 2021 first announced that negotiations that would extend YouTube TV's availability on the Roku platform had broken down. In doing so, it said that "Roku cannot accept Google’s unfair terms as we believe they could harm our users." Exactly what those disputed terms are has been a little ambiguous. Roku has said it has to do with search results. Google calls any allegations baseless.

Read more
You can now buy Walmart’s crazy-cheap 4K Android TV streamer
Walmart onn. Android TV streaming device

In May, eagle-eyed observers noticed that Walmart had added a $30, onn.-branded 4K Android TV-based streaming media device to its website, but at the time, there was no way to add it to your cart. Today, Walmart appears to be ready to sell these ultra-affordable streamers.

A few days after the 4K streaming device was spotted, another onn. streamer was discovered on Walmart: An Android TV streaming stick for $25. Spotted by 9to5google.com, the device is called the "onn. FHD Streaming Stick." However, as of June 10, the streaming stick is still listed as out of stock.

Read more
Roku calls Google an ‘unchecked monopolist’ as ongoing YouTube TV spat rages on
Roku Streambar Pro.

In late April, Roku made the decision to pull the YouTube TV app from its channel store, effectively denying it to any Roku user who wants to add it to their streaming device. It also prevented any Roku users from creating a new subscription to the Google-owned live TV streaming service.

It was the opening salvo in a very public contractual dispute between Roku and Google. On May 7, in an apparent attempt to limit further damage that might be caused if Roku elects to remove the YouTube TV app entirely, Google began updating its regular YouTube app on Roku with the ability to access YouTube TV content if you're a YouTube TV subscriber.

Read more