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Walmart is making grocery shopping even easier.
They are currently testing a giant kiosk station in Warr Acres, Oklahoma, where customers can pick up their groceries without ever having to go inside the store.
Gigantic vending machine
The new pick-up station is basically the largest vending machine you’ll ever see. At 20 by 80 feet, the container has both refrigerated and freezer sections to keep groceries fresh. At first glance, it bears close resemblance to a storage unit, except that it has multiple pick-up doors along each side.
The process is simple.
Customers use the Walmart website to shop for their groceries and pay directly online. After choosing a pick-up time, they simply go to the kiosk, type in their unique code and their groceries appear in a blue bin in front of them.
It’s magic!
There is no other human interaction required. Walmart employees pick and pack the orders ahead of time. The groceries are also expected to appear in less than a minute, no matter what size the order is.
Response to competition
The new system was made to compete with the ever-growing Amazon. Though Walmart has offered online shopping and pick up for some time now, Amazon just gained recognition for their very similar idea, Amazon Go.
Walmart believes that this self-serving kiosk will streamline their online and offline services.
Customers loyal to the company will not be driven away by the ease of other online shopping sites if they offer it too.
Wanna try
In order to accommodate every type of shopper, Walmart is making the service free to use. The only requirement is that orders be at least $30.
The kiosks are also open 24 hours a day, although you still need to choose a pick up time beforehand.
Walmart aims to save customers time while not slowing down their services. By having the pick-up kiosk available, Walmart can fulfill more orders both in and out of the store. They estimate that the kiosk alone can take care of hundreds of orders in a day.
Multiple projects
Walmart has also been testing a smaller version of this system for non-grocery orders.
Customers still complete their orders online but do not include food items.
