What is Walmart Luminate?

Walmart Luminate Overview

With the upcoming depreciation of Retail Link’s DSS, many brands are currently getting up to speed with Walmart’s Luminate platform.

Many suppliers have already made seamless transitions to Luminate, Walmart’s newest retail analytics and information hub. However, others are wondering how the new tool fits into their existing systems and workflow, or how it's different from Retail Link.

In this article, we will cover key information about the Luminate platform, including the best ways to use it to maximize business potential with Walmart – now and into the future.

What is Walmart Luminate?

Walmart Luminate is a next-generation reporting tool that offers an expansive suite of reports to provide Walmart vendors with full visibility into their commerce and performance data – layered with rich consumer insights.

The suite includes three modules: Shopper Behavior, Customer Perception, and Channel Performance.

Channel performance contains information similar to Retail Link’s Decision Support System (DSS), providing suppliers with key sales, inventory, and on-time-in-full (OTIF) reports. However, Luminate’s reports also include online pickup and delivery metrics, which are not available on Retail Link. This is a big difference between the two, considering that e-commerce is one of the fastest growing areas of Walmart’s business – up 27% in 2023 thanks to customers embracing pickup and delivery services, Walmart has said.

This rich, online channel data serves to complete the omnichannel sales picture for suppliers in Walmart’s retail network: from shipment, to distribution center (DC), through to shelf, and end-point-of-purchase – whether scanned across a register, or fulfilled digitally. 

What adds even more value to these advanced sales analytics are Luminate’s Shopper Behavior insights and Customer Perception tools, which provide a wealth of extra information for smarter, more responsive decision making.

Furthermore, Walmart buyers – or merchants – will begin using Luminate as their own internal platform, so integrating the tool will be key to maintaining communicative supplier relationships moving forward. The goal here is to unite suppliers, along with their buyers and account managers, on one platform that encourages joint business planning and fosters transparency, trust, and teamwork. 

Luminate’s reports also include online pickup and delivery metrics – which are not available on Retail Link. This is a big difference between the two, considering that e-commerce is one of the fastest growing areas of Walmart’s business – up 27% in 2023 thanks to customers embracing pickup and delivery services, Walmart has said.

History: Retail Link, then Luminate 

Before diving into Luminate’s newest features, let’s provide background on Walmart’s legacy vendor portal, Retail Link. Launched in 1997, Walmart's Retail Link gave vendors unprecedented access to sales and inventory data, setting a new standard in retail analytics. Over the years, the platform evolved to include advanced features like forecasting tools and detailed analytics, making it a cornerstone in Walmart's supply chain across 10,000 stores in 20 countries.

However, as the digital transformation of retail has accelerated, so has the need for an updated system. Retail Link’s limitations such as slow report generation and a lack of API support have made it less than ideal to build upon with newer technologies, including e-commerce reporting capabilities.

Recognizing these limitations, Walmart has rolled out Luminate as a newer, more responsive, and better-equipped platform for the modern-day omnichannel experience.

Luminate addresses many of Retail Link's shortcomings, boasting faster computing and more efficient data storage. It’s even been found that Retail Link has a data variance of up to 7%, compared to Luminate which provides accurate and streamlined reporting as Walmart’s source of truth.

Moving ahead, to ease the transition, vendors switching to Luminate are receiving a 2-year back-fill of data from Retail Link. 

Walmart Luminate new features

With the advent of Luminate's new features, Walmart merchants and suppliers now have an even more powerful toolkit at their disposal. Here's how the suite is setting a new benchmark in retail analytics:

Omnichannel analytics – Luminate takes sales reporting to the next level with its comprehensive omnichannel capabilities. In addition to all purchase order (PO) information, you can now track a product's path from the distribution center all the way to its point of sale, whether that's in-store or through online pickup and delivery services.

This gives you invaluable insights into the evolving customer purchase journey and how your products are performing across various channels.

Analyzing customer trends – Walmart's digital customer base has grown by 20% in the last quarter alone. The click-and-collect orders from these customers – encompassing online orders, pickups, and deliveries – provide a rich source of deep consumer insights.

These may include, but are not limited to, order histories, commonly purchased item combinations, search keywords, and demographic data. 

Known as the Shopper Behavior module in Luminate, this invaluable, aggregated information empowers suppliers to make data-driven decisions in areas like merchandising, marketing, and product development – in-store and online. 

First-party customer research – The Customer Perception module in Luminate provides insights into customer attitudes and opinions about Walmart, its products, and its competitors. This module uses a variety of data sources, including customer surveys, social media data, and product reviews, to help businesses understand what customers think about their brand, and products at the SKU-level.

Special category advisor feeds – With  full visibility into all vendors with Luminate as their internal information hub, there are special category reports available on Luminate that provide comprehensive category trends and insights. These special reports can be seamlessly shared between merchant and category advisor to shape overall planning strategies that drive growth for all. 

Additionally, Luminate offers modular reports, providing highly detailed information of on-shelf placements across stores. This feature allows for precise, location-specific planning.

API keys – Unlike Retail Link, Luminate's Charter Plan includes an API key that can be sued to feed Walmart Luminate data from the online portal through to an external platform or service provider. 

While Crisp does feature proprietary technology to facilitate our connection to Retail Link, Luminate’s API key feature provides an even more seamless integration, enabling Crisp to normalize and harmonize the massive amounts of data and feed the clean reports through to BI and cloud tools of your choice. 

Emerging data feeds – Walmart is adding brand new data feeds to Luminate as they become available. These are then ingested and made available through Crisp. 

These developments are expected to continue, as Walmart Data Ventures (the team behind the development of Luminate) is actively accepting feedback for new data feeds to include in the Channel Performance API. 

Unlike Retail Link, paid Luminate plans include an API key that serves to feed Walmart Luminate data from the online portal through to an external platform or service provider. 

Key uses of Luminate for CPGs

The new features of Luminate, combined with the classic applications of data previously enabled through Retail Link enable a host of use cases for Walmart including:

Comprehensive sales reporting – With Luminate, suppliers gain an unprecedented level of transparency into their products within Walmart’s retail network, from shipment to distribution center (DC), through to the unique sales channel – across in-store, online, pickup, and delivery. 

Proactive inventory management – Walmart Luminate offers complete visibility into distribution centers and order flows to individual stores. This allows for advanced planning capabilities, helping suppliers proactively manage inventory and mitigate out-of-stock scenarios. When issues do arise, reports like the ‘OOS Root Cause feed’ provide in-depth analysis to help suppliers understand the reasons behind stockouts. Additionally, the platform addresses critical issues like nil-picks, where items appear available in Walmart’s system but cannot be fulfilled, through the 'Store Fulfillment and Replenishment feed.' These new reporting capabilities ensure products are always available where and when customers need them.

In-depth chargeback audits – The platform offers comprehensive Purchase Order (PO) tracking, enabling suppliers to audit chargebacks thoroughly, and ensure billing accuracy.

Modular data for in-store planning – Luminate's new modular data feature reveals the exact shelf location of items at each store. This empowers category advisors to design more impactful in-store layouts.

E-commerce troubleshooting – If an item records zero online sales for a specific region, it could be an indicator of online publishing issues on Walmart's end. Luminate enables suppliers to proactively identify such issues and reach out to Walmart to correct them.

Vendor management – Other uses that are migrating from Retail Link to Luminate include basic vendor management functions including electronic data exchange (EDI), new vendor documentation and item set-up, and on-time-in-full (OTIF) reporting, which measures a supplier's ability to deliver orders accurately, on time, and in the expected quantities.

Walmart Luminate offers complete visibility into distribution centers and order flows to individual stores. This allows for advanced forecasting capabilities, helping suppliers proactively manage inventory and mitigate out-of-stock scenarios. This ensures products are always available where and when customers need them.

Walmart Luminate: Basic vs Charter

Luminate is currently offered in a paid Charter package and a free Basic package. Here are a few key differences:

• Data: Charter offers an unprecedented wealth of data across sectors including omnichannel sales, replenishment, OTIF, category reporting for advisors and non-advisors, basket analyses, and more. Basic data is limited to a subset of channel performance insights necessary for running a business.
• Automation: Charter is API-based, allowing for automated data extraction, while Basic only allows manual data exports.
• History and restatements: Basic offers one year of weekly historical data, while Charter offers three years of historical data and dynamic restatements

You can see Walmart’s comparison of the Basic and Charter packages here. 

Keep in mind that in order to feed your data through to BI and cloud tools of your choice via API, the paid Luminate subscription is required. This ensures seamless integration that helps clean and automate your vast Walmart data, and integrate it into any of your existing analytics tools or systems. 

Making the transition from Retail Link to Luminate

Switching from Retail Link to Luminate doesn't have to be a daunting task if you have a well laid out plan and adhere to data best practices. Here's how to make the transition smoother and more effective:

Create a roadmap – Before diving into the technical aspects, outline a comprehensive roadmap. Establish timelines for the transition from Retail Link; determine which features of Luminate you'll use most frequently, and decide what existing data you want to migrate. Allocate resources for training your team on the new platform to minimize disruptions in your day-to-day operations.

Data storage and aggregation solutions – When it comes to data storage, consider employing modern solutions like data lakehouses or cloud-based tools. They offer scalability, flexibility, and robust security features, making them ideal for storing the varied types of data you'll be dealing with in Luminate. Data aggregation tools like Crisp help you automate data into these systems, where you can combine your Luminate data with other data sets for deeper analytics.

Strategic data management – Be strategic about the data you pull into your analytics tools. Not all data points may be useful for your business objectives, and being selective can help manage storage costs. Crisp can help customers configure the data they want to integrate into each system.

Become data-driven – By enabling a seamless feed of Luminate data into the tools you rely on most, you can fully enjoy the capabilities of Walmart’s Luminate platform for daily decision-making. Luminate provides more granular data compared to Retail Link, allowing you to optimize your vendor operations and gain deeper insights into your sales, supply chain, and consumer behavior.

When it comes to data storage, consider employing modern solutions like data lakehouses or cloud-based tools. They offer scalability, flexibility, and robust security features, making them ideal for storing the varied types of data you'll be dealing with in Luminate. What’s more, within these systems you can combine your Luminate data with other data sources for deeper analytics. 

Conclusion

In today's fast-paced retail landscape, having comprehensive, real-time data at your fingertips is essential. Walmart Luminate stands out as a next-generation platform, offering a leap beyond its predecessor, Retail Link, with superior data analytics and omnichannel insights. It provides both suppliers and Walmart buyers with a goldmine of actionable data crucial for optimizing sales, inventory, and customer relations.

For CPGs, embracing Luminate is not optional but essential. It's swiftly becoming Walmart's internal standard for data analytics and decision-making. If you're looking to stay competitive and engage meaningfully with Walmart, transitioning to Luminate is a matter of 'when,' not 'if.'

For more information on how Crisp facilitates a seamless data connection between Luminate and the BI tool or cloud platform of your choice, read more here, or book a demo here.