As the holiday season draws ever closer, we are seeing several different retailers take decidedly different tactics in how they are going to go about drawing customers to their stores and sites. For Amazon, the company has taken the traditional view that people will spend more money with you if you are giving them the lowest prices. Because of that, the company has announced that it will be offering “Black Friday (News - Alert)” type deals well before the day after Thanksgiving.

Other companies are trying to lure people in by offering up their very own iPad apps. This allows people to get to their site much quicker, while giving the company a fresh look and feel. One such store that recently released an iPad app for the first time the other day is Wal-Mart. Considering just how long there have been apps out there for competitors such as Target (News - Alert), it is interesting that it took this long for the retail giant to join the group.

On its face, the Wal-Mart iPad app doesn't do anything particularly special. There aren't any functions that set this apart from other retailer apps, but for this particular kind of app there doesn't really need to be. When people get a retailer app like this, they are tending to just be looking for an easier way to shop without going through their browser. 

The Wal-Mart app certainly makes the shopping experience quick and easy. Using the app, you can browse through any product offered and choose whether or not you want an order to be shipped to you or your local store.

One filter you can apply is that you can search just a particular Wal-Mart in your neighborhood. Once you get to this filter you can search to see if a particular item is only located in that store, rather than in a warehouse that must ship the item to you.

In addition to the iPad app, Wal-Mart has also tweaked their iPhone application. This update to the app seems to better take advantage of Apple's (News - Alert) iOS5 by allowing voice entry for shopping lists. The app will also allow you to scan barcodes and QR codes.