Lowe's Scales Marketplace as Video Connects Digital Discovery to Stores
Lowe’s is increasingly bullish on its Marketplace e-commerce platform as a major growth engine, while expanding investments in video and visualization have the potential to bring those digital gains into the store.
Launched in late 2024 in partnership with Mirakl, Lowe's Marketplace is broadening the retailer's assortment to help it serve both entry-level and premium shoppers, Joe Cano, senior vice president of digital, told P2PI during NRF in New York.
“This extended aisle has been huge for us,” Cano said, pointing to demand that ranges from entry-level small appliances to $2,000 Kohler faucet extensions, the latter of which have become some of Marketplace’s best-selling items.
It is already outperforming growth expectations, and Lowe’s is steadily using search data and artificial intelligence to identify assortment gaps and onboard new vendors based on customer demand, he said.
The CPG and retail industries are seeing an increase in AI partnerships such as the Lowe's and Mirakl initiative. See what results these types of collaborations are yielding at CGT's upcoming Analytics Unite, being held April 7-9 in Chicago.
Marketplace is also tying more tightly into Lowe's Creator Network, the influencer platform Lowe's launched last June. The network serves as a key connection between the retailer and Gen Z shoppers to influence earlier brand discovery and now acts as a real-time feedback loop to surface product gaps and trends, according to Cano.
When creators request items that aren’t available, the Marketplace team can onboard new products within two weeks and immediately activate creators to promote them, he said. This flywheel is helping the company identify what customers actually want and attract Gen Z shoppers.
The creator space is an exciting space for Lowe's, Cano noted. "We're just kind of dipping our toe in right now, but it's been wildly successful, and that's an area of business that's going to be a huge growth vehicle for us in this next year."
Mylow Expansion
Also firmly situated on Lowe's growth roadmap is Mylow, the AI assistant, and Mylow Companion mobile app that launched last year. Lowe’s is seeing roughly 2x higher conversion rate among shoppers who engage with Mylow, Cano said.
New visualization capabilities allow customers to upload a photo of their bathroom, explore renovation options — such as tile, mirrors and lighting — and purchase products directly through the app.
While other platforms may help with visualization and inspiration, they often fall short when it comes to precise, functional requirements (e.g., ADA compliance or spatial clearances). Mylow's new upgrades are designed to address this gap by automatically handling complex sizing and configuration requirements, making it easier to design compliant and practical spaces.
The shopper questions serve as key fuel for Lowe’s content strategy. Frequently asked how-to queries are informing new explainer videos on YouTube, with each video directly linked to the products needed to complete the project.
"If anyone asks a how-to that we don't have, we add it to our creative roadmap and create content for it," said Cano. The company has a large video studio in Mooresville, North Carolina, and can turn around a new video that answers a customer's question within about two weeks.
Video Acceleration
Scaling video content production is a key priority for Lowe's this year, as home improvement shoppers are incredibly visual, noted Cano. The company has integrated vertical video within its homepage and will do so with select product detail and product listing pages moving forward.
"Customers don't want to see just a static image anymore," Cano stressed. "They want movement. They want to see a refrigerator with doors that are actually opening."
Lowe’s has partnered with several companies to introduce video on select product detail pages, prioritizing complex projects where shoppers benefit most from richer context. Rather than applying video broadly, the retailer is aligning it with categories that also connect to its broader suite of visualization tools.
The company's use of Google’s Nano Banana AI image-generation tool carries implications for better in-store experiences. For example, shoppers can use the tool to create images of a modern kitchen with specific products, and Lowe’s can surface which items are currently in stock.
"We're seeing some really exciting results," said Cano. "We're seeing customers engaging and saving their projects, [which] will be great insights for us. We can send those to their local stores and have [associates] reach out to them and say, 'How can we actually help you get the kitchen of your dreams?'"
As part of this, Lowe's has partnered with Firework to beta test video creation through static images via AI.
"That is really what we see customers actually gravitating toward, because no one's reading those long product descriptions,” Cano said.
That's not to say Lowe's is skimping on the PDP details: These details are enabling agentic commerce tools to extract the right information and help agents understand what customers are searching for, he noted.
Looking Ahead
Trust and discoverability are central to Lowe’s broader AI strategy. The retailer is working with enterprise partners including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI to ensure Lowe’s content and products surface within AI-enabled search experiences. Cano said that up to 10% of questions asked of AI engines are home improvement-related, making visibility critical.
As it tests the content on its PDPs, Lowe's Media Network, the retailer's RMN, will seek to involve vendor partners for content co-creation. Lowe’s is evaluating how RMN teams can better leverage shopper activity to deliver more personalized recommendations.
For example, the company launched a weather widget last year that provides project and product recommendations based on a shopper's local weather, and it's testing algorithm-tuned results based on engagement.
This article first appeared on the site of CGT's sister publication P2PI.
