Cutting time or just dividing it?
At the expense of playing Devil’s Advocate here, I’m trying to think of where the true savings are by shopping online at Walmart: If I go grocery shopping with my wife, it takes about 90 minutes including driving to and from the grocery store. If I order the goods online it takes, I don’t know; about 40 minutes or so and I still have to drive to Walmart and back to pick up my groceries. The service is currently free but I think we all know that is a promotional thing and sooner or later that service will have a price tag attached to it as well.
The Walmart blog is oozing with so much positivity and warmth I practically get cavities just reading it and watching the embedded video of happy faces. That’s to be expected because the blog is a PR tool of Walmart. Still WM’s grocery pickup service is expanding and expansion is good. Lots of Walmart’s out there. Lots of money to be made and that’s what makes Walmart great.
Smart shopping
In the bigger scheme of things, this service and others are really embracing the “smart” shopping experience. This is what we’re aiming for at the end of the day, right? Order on your app, and I would imagine have the order delivered to your home. Now you‘ve saved some time. Sooner or later a grocery-bot will make the delivery in a driverless vehicle. I’m really jazzed about this because smart shopping is serving up yet another opportunity to avoid face-to-face contact with another human.
George Orwell here we come!
That said; the Walmart grocery pickup program must be a success because Walmart says it is so. Other news outlets I put more credence in like Fortune are reporting on it as well, but is putting the service in perspective with similar programs like rivals Amazon, Google, and smaller companies like Instacart and Postmates. These ventures don’t have brick and mortar stores, but do offer grocery delivery to shoppers’ homes.
Competition is good
It’s an interesting dynamic. Instead, Walmart has opted to use its fleet of stores to allow free same-day pick up of food orders placed on its website before 10 a.m. If you’ve seen the press kit, you know that WM has a set-up which is almost like pulling into a gas station: pull in, get groceries, gratuitous tip, and pull out.
However it’s done, it is working for someone. Walmart’s grocery delivery service is available in 30 markets and within some of those markets the service is expanding every more.
In fact, Michael Bender, chief operating officer of Walmart’s e-commerce operations, told Reuters that the data the company has collected so far shows the retailer is winning a bigger share of customer grocery spending and winning over new customers.
Wal-mart’s dream of global domination is contingent on the fact that there must be a venue with 5 miles of everyone’s home.
An American Dream come true!
#GeorgeOrwellHereWeCome
