Walmart goes after Amazon with website revamp

Walmart is making changes to its website in an attempt to turn up the heat on Amazon.com.

The world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer will unveil the major renovation of its online presence at the start of May.

The company is betting that a cleaner, more modern walmart.com will help it win market share.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company has been investing in its e-commerce business, trying to have its website and U.S. stores link closer together, making it easier for shoppers to pick up and return online orders in stores.

The changes will include a wider range of colors, fonts and more informal photographs.

The retailer hasn’t revealed how much the resign is costing.

The last time Walmart updated its website was in 2014, but the changes were not as dramatic, Walmart spokeswoman Danit Marquardt said.

The website would soon have different layouts depending on product categories, allowing customers to shop for groceries differently from how they buy clothes and accessories, or home improvement products.

Walmart said in February that online sales increased 23 percent in the most recent quarter, less than half the rate of growth in each of the previous three quarters.

The company posted about $11.5 billion in U.S. e-commerce revenue for the full year. Total U.S. sales were $318.5 billion.

Shares of Walmart are down 12 percent year–to-date.

Reuters contributed to this article.