Walmart is making bets on customers’ desire for more convenience, stating on Wednesday that its InHome delivery service will grow from six million to 30 million households by the end of the year, including in places like Los Angeles and Chicago.
Even when the consumer is not present, Walmart employees wearing cameras can enter a client’s home to deliver groceries and other goods or collect up returns.
“Now you’ve got this ultimate convenience where you get home, the refrigerator is restocked and other items like video games, clothing, toiletries and other non-perishables are on the countertop,” Tom Ward, Walmart’s senior vice president of last mile delivery say. “We will also pick up your return if you start that process on the app we will grab the item the next day and will process that return for you.”
A demonstration of the InHome service was presented to CNBC in Glendale, Arizona. The delivery driver started the process by putting on a wearable camera. On the Walmart App, you can see every delivery in real time or as a recording. The staffer, who was wearing protective coverings over their shoes, entered the house using a Walmart smart lock at the front door and carried the ordered items inside in plastic containers. Before departing, the delivery guy placed the desired items in the refrigerator and on the counter and cleaned down all surfaces with a sanitising wipe.
“I’ve used it for the last month and a half and have been very satisfied,” Erin Amini, a Glendale customer says. “We no longer have to go to the store. We feel safe with Covid. They wear masks, they sanitise and they are also always recording so we know what is happening while they are in our home .”
Walmart is expanding InHome as the lines between a $93 billion grocery delivery market and a $25 billion quick-commerce market, which includes companies like DoorDash, become increasingly blurred, according to Insider Intelligence. Walmart’s InHome service is part of a rising trend of “delivery as a service,” and it costs $19.95 a month with no additional fees.
A $12.99 per month Prime subscription includes Amazon Fresh grocery delivery.
Instacart Express is a subscription service that costs $9.99 a month and includes free delivery on orders over $35 as well as lower service fees.
For $9.99 per month, DoorDash offers a DashPass subscription with a minimum of $12 in restaurant orders. Deliveries from 7-Eleven and CVS are also available through DoorDash.
Walmart has announced that it will hire 3,000 people to help with the InHome expansion, providing them with both real-world and virtual reality training. They will be paid almost 9% more than Walmart’s average hourly wage of $16.40 per hour. As part of Walmart’s objective of having a zero-emission logistics fleet by 2040, the company’s 3,700 stores will be used as fulfilment centres, and InHome delivery drivers will drive electric vehicles.
“They’ll also deliver Walmart packages, they’ll deliver Walmart GoLocal client packages, and they’ll do InHome delivery. It’s making the best of all these assets that we’re putting together in a way that’s really sustainable,” Ward explained.
InHome was first introduced by Walmart in 2019 as a pilot programme in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Vero Beach, Florida, and has since expanded to Northwest Arkansas, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. The business refused to tell how many people have signed up for the programme.
“What we’ve learned in the years we’ve been testing our InHome proposition is that customers love the convenience of having the items that they’ve ordered put in their fridge, their freezer, or left on their countertop, or in the garage when they come home. And they can just set and forget and really do the things they want to spend their time doing,” Ward noted.
Walmart has exploited the frequency-driving category to fuel online sales growth by developing handy ways for people to shop and pushing customers to buy additional things, such as fashion, gadgets, and more, when restocking the fridge with a gallon of milk or obtaining ingredients for dinner.
The national leader in click and collect, a service that allows customers to place online orders and pick up products in the store or parking lot, is the big-box retailer. According to a recent projection by Insider Intelligence, Walmart received one out of every four dollars spent on click and collect in 2021.
“We think there is no one right answer in the last mile equation,” Ward said. “We want to experiment and then when we see those things that really resonate with our customers we want to scale out to as many people as we possibly can as fast as we can.”