Walmart partners with Fanatics to launch Fan Shop on Walmart.com - Business Insider

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Walmart has announced a partnership with Fanatics, a seller of licensed sports merchandise that has licensing agreements with all major North American sports leagues. It also specializes in on-demand manufacturing and handles the e-commerce business of several major sports leagues, teams, and sports media brands.

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The "long-term" agreement makes Fanatics the exclusive provider of officially licensed sports merchandise on Walmart and has led to the launch of Fan Shop by Fanatics on Walmart.com, allowing Walmart to sell hundreds of thousands of licensed products including apparel, collectibles and more.

This is another example of Walmart acquiring or partnering with brands and retailers to bring more products to its e-commerce sites. Walmart has acquired a number of e-commerce brands, some of which have popped up on Jet.com and Walmart.com, bolstering those marketplaces' product selections and potentially attracting new consumers.

The Fan Shop has the opportunity to bring in consumers who wouldn't normally shop on Walmart.com, but want sports products. And if Walmart's marketplace can create a better shopping experience than that of Fanatics and the sites it runs for leagues and other parties, the retailer could become a premier sports merchandise player.

Launching separate sections on Walmart.com for partnerships, like it has for Fanatics and Lord & Taylor, can give the marketplace new relevance to consumers.

Making Walmart.com a sort of online shopping mall may be a particularly effective way to bring in new customers.Between the Fan Shop, Lord & Taylor's Premium brands section, and the outdoor apparel section curated by acquisition Moosejaw, there is now more to Walmart.com than standard Walmart products. These sections offer products that may bring consumers to Walmart.com for the first time, and because they are housed in their own separate digital stores, consumers who are skeptical of shopping with Walmart may still do so. The more branded sections Walmart can add, the better chance it may have of Walmart.com appealing to all types of shoppers, and not just traditional or price-conscious Walmart shoppers.
These partnerships are targeting areas Amazon has yet to control, potentially helping Walmart stand out. Amazon isn't currently able to sell licensed sports merchandise, and while Walmart's partnership with Fanatics doesn't appear to be exclusive, it certainly gives it an advantage for the time being. Additionally, Amazon isn't regarded as a destination for fashionable products, which is likely why Walmart launched its partnership with Lord & Taylor. By targeting product categories that Amazon doesn't currently dominate, Walmart can potentially find more and more e-commerce market share and better compete with Amazon despite its leading position in the industry.

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