Wal-Mart and Facebook Team Up to Help Future Roommates

In a sign of the times or the technology, the world's largest retailer and the Internet's fastest growing social networking site recently announced a partnership where roommates will be able to log onto FaceBook to design their dorm room together. Developed alongside the FaceBook platform, Wal-Mart premiered its Roommate Style Match group which quizzes group members to figure out their design style. After the quiz is complete they will get a list of products that Wal-Mart recommends to them that suit the style of both roommates.

Historically, colleges inform students of their roommate assignments via letter or email before the semester begins. This allows students to contact each other before arriving on campus. When both arrive, they arrive having bought the same things or having a room that looks like two different people with two distinct tastes live together. In a move to combine the tastes and styles of both parties, Wal-Mart is looking to marry the two together, to bring unity together.

With shoppers already slowing their shopping habits because of rising gas prices, Wal-Mart's move to launch the Site to Store program will be a nice incentive for college students and their parents. The Site to Store program allows shoppers to order whatever they want on the Wal-Mart ecommerce site and send it to the store for pickup for free. This instead of the typical shipping fees attached to shopping online. With the catalog online infinitely larger than what is available for purchase in a standard Wal-Mart SuperCenter, the choices available for college students increases dramatically. And with their penchant for buying electronics and dorm furnishings, the potential for the partnership between FaceBook and Wal-Mart is tantamount to Wal-Mart overcoming a bad season in retail. Consumer groups estimate that a typical student spends around $1,300 to furnish their dorm room.

Back to School is the second largest shopping season for retail stores. Second only to the Christmas holiday season, retailers look to recoup money lost during the traditionally slow summer season where peoples buying habits change to fund family vacations and other activities. Wal-Mart's recent advertising push, touting its low prices, earth friendliness, and other benefits is sure to be helped by the partnership with FaceBook.

Launched less than five years ago, FaceBook is the fastest growing social networking website online today. With its focus on college students connecting, FaceBook is the ideal partner for Wal-Mart who is looking for any method available of increasing its sales by getting more shoppers into its stores or on its website. With 34 million active users, and just about half of them heading off to college in the coming weeks, FaceBook provides Wal-Mart an ideal place to develop the Roommate Style Match group. Started by a Harvard University student who wanted to connect students at the Cambridge, MA institution, FaceBook has blossomed to include college students from around the world who want to connect with other students and people.

With the Roommate Style Match group that will run until October, Wal-Mart is hoping to target the typical FaceBook user. That demographic will include taking more than folders and papers with them when they move on campus. They will have laptops, desktops, printers, mp3 players, digital cameras and cellphones with them. Their buying power is the new pursuit because they shop continually and incessantly. They are trendy and digital-mavens. If Wal-Mart is able to capture this audience they will be able to slow the bleeding that so much of the retail sector has been feeling. Just this summer, Wal-Mart dropped the prices on 16,000 items in an effort to continually bring low prices to its customers.

Wal-Mart's attempt at reaching the college-aged shopper is not a new thing. When Wal-Mart executives saw the growth of MySpace they pushed to launch a social networking community of its own, called The Hub. When that fell flat on its face, shutting down only ten weeks after its launch because of poor user experience and strict limitations, Wal-Mart was left without a direct link to one of the most sought after consumer group's retailers' clamor for. Look for Wal-Mart to have learned from its Hub experience and leverage what it learns from the FaceBook group to increase its sales through the Roommate Style Match group.