In a surprising move last week, Walmart bought Kosmix, a social media company focused on ecommerce. The price? Undisclosed. But, I have a feeling it took a significant chunk out of the department store’s wallet.

In addition to not revealing the price tag, Walmart has remained quiet about the deal. I tried to reach out to the company’s execs over the past week for my upcoming feature about mobile ecommerce for the July issue of CRM without success. Instead, all I know is what everyone else knows:

“We are expanding our capabilities in today’s rapidly growing social commerce environment,” Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman at Walmart, said in the statement last week. “Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers’ day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping.”

Kosmix is a fairly new company. Founded in 2005 by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, Kosmix serves as a social media filter that aggregates information by topic from Web sites, Twitter, and other sources in real-time. So while we may not know exactly how much the acquisition amounted to or what Walmart exactly has up its sleeve, we can still let our imaginations wander. Yesterday, analysts from the Trefis Team hypothesized that the aim is “clearly to leverage the trend of social media commerce to stimulate online sales. Wal-Mart’s efforts are more serious than just buying a small and relatively new company.”

They also believe that the acquisition is “not just about leveraging the technology of Kosmix, but also about acquiring its talent.” With Best Buy, Target, Costco, and Amazon as its major competitors, Walmart is looking to aggressively promote its online sales to come out as the top seller in this big-name group.

As a Missourian, I admit that I miss my Walmart here in the city. It’s a bit comforting to think it may just be one easy click away.