Massmart's tech capability improves e-commerce customer experience

Source: © 123rf 123rf Massmart's e-commerce strategy has involved shifting the Makro website onto a new micro-services-based platform

The advanced Makro website platform was deployed using enhanced analytics and testing capabilities during the month of May.

This follows Massmart’s 100% acquisition by Walmart, giving the company improved access to technical capabilities focused on enhancing the customer shopping experience across its Makro, Builders, and Game websites.

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Real-time feedback

Commenting on the improvements, Anna Siabanis, Makro e-commerce (Tech) product executive at Massmart says “One of the key successes of moving onto this new platform has been our ability to test website enhancements with targeted subsets of our customer base in a live environment."

She adds that this gave them real-time feedback on the way customers respond to their changes, allowing them to adjust accordingly.

“We gradually increased the number of customers accessing the new platform throughout the month.”In that time the rate at which customers transacted on the site improved by more than 30% and orders grew by an estimated 40%.

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User experience improvements

This growth is largely attributed to user experience improvements such as:

• Smarter search engine logic that serves customers with more relevant results and options when searching for products on the site.


• Revamped listing and product display pages to assist customers in making the best decisions about product variants, pack sizes, and promotions. This includes the addition of unit pricing for bulk purchases.


• A new recommendation engine that ensures customers are aware of all their options and complementary products when making purchasing decisions.


• A more accurate view of stock availability on the website.
• Faster page load time making it quicker for customers to navigate the website.

Tech capabilities the backbone of Massmart

“Our tech capabilities form the backbone of Massmart’s e-commerce strategy, which aims to ensure that Massmart is one of the country’s leading destinations for online retail,” explains Siabanis.

This includes 40 local (Tech) product management professionals who coordinate almost 300 full-time Massmart technologists specialising in UX design and research, software engineering/development, architecture, product operations and product analytics, based in Walmart’s Tech Development Centre in Bangalore, India.